A Glorious Update
A strange week – extremely hot and now floods! I hope everyone is well?
A very warm welcome to the new owners Jimmy, David and Debra, you’ll going to have a load of fun!
We had the one runner this week – and likely to be our only runner for the next 3 weeks. Surrey Mist made a pleasing debut at Sandown on Thursday, and he left his intended debut’s shenanigans from Epsom behind as he entered the stalls without a bother. Those of you who saw him at Sandown will agree, he is by no means the fully furnished racehorse, although he was one of the biggest he still looked pretty weak looking but he has plenty of physical development ahead of him, having said that we were all delighted with his mental attitude throughout the day. He was a bit one paced but finished 6th of 11 and will come on loads for that run. The RPR rating was 59 and their comment was green under pressure, carrying his head a touch high, but showed ability, maybe the ground was quicker then ideal for him. I think that is a prefect sum up. Mist was 100% in every way following the race so we’ll look to run him again in about 3 weeks time.
Surrey Knight is back cantering after his few weeks rest, he will do a couple of weeks of steady flat cantering at which point he should be okay to start going back up the harder more physically challenging Warren Hill. The break would have done him the world of good and I know the owners who are going along on the 14th to see him will like what they see.
Surrey Princess is progressing well and nearly back to cantering– I think we’ll see her running again late in August.
Surrey Gold is fine, although he still has a bit of a bruised foot from Ascot, and Hughie said that the way his feet are and the way he runs he’ll always be prevalent to bruised feet (which isn’t uncommon in racehorses). He does wear pads to protect his soles especially when the ground is firm. At times like this warm period, he’s actually hard to train so for the welfare of the horse we have to pick our targets and always look for soft ground. He still thinks the Melrose at York (on Ebor Day) is a legitimate target providing the ground is soft. The St Leger he rules out, in his last race at Ascot, coming 7th of 8 even when not fully fit in a class 2 handicap isn’t the form of a St Leger horse and with so many variables it’s not worth the expensive entry which is £7k.
Hughie still thinks we have a very good horse and there are plenty of quality handicaps in the Autumn that we should be looking at, especially those at Newmarket, Ascot and Doncaster. If he runs well in the Melrose and backs that up in a September handicap then there’s a possibility we will try our luck at Longchamp on October 2nd (Arc weekend) in the Group 2 Prix Chaudenay.
We caught up with Nicky Henderson this week - he’s delighted on how well both Gran Luna and Surrey Quest look. Both have enjoyed the break and come back taller and stronger looking which is just what you need. They will both spend the next 4 weeks road walking, building up the fitness levels very slowly, plenty of time to get them ready to go in October. We will sort out a yard visit when they are schooling and doing a bit more at the end of August.