Surrey Mist is Back!
The highlight of past week was a much improved performance from Surrey Force at a sweltering and Kempton last Monday with the needle hitting 34 degrees. Having said that it was great to see the owners making such an effort especially considering the heat, which didn’t go unnoticed by Nick Luck and Racing TV.
Some of the advanced party who braved leaving the air-con!
Surrey Force was getting a lot of weight from those higher rated but it was a competitive handicap in tough conditions. The All weather track is hard work when it dries out, think about the difference of running/walking on wet sand versus dry sand. However Force was up for the challenge and battled gamely in the home straight to finish 3rd, just under 2 lengths from the winner and way clear of the rest of the field. He earnt his joint best RPR for that performance (and highest TopSpeed mark) and now we await the handicapper on Tuesday. The general feeling is that he will be even more competitive on softer ground possibly over further. Although he was blowing heavily afterwards he was fine the following morning. We do have a call with Kevin this week to discuss the next few months plans for both horses so will feedback.
Stablemate Surrey Mist is set to return on Friday after 15 months on the sidelines which will be a very welcome sight for his very patient owners and all of us at Surrey Racing as he’s been an absolute superstar for us, he’s our second best flat horse who still has time to make it to the top spot. Ads you can see from the pictures, he’s certainly looking older (aren’t we all!) but hopefully still retains the special talent he had before the injury. He has entries into two 12 furlong heritage handicaps at York and Hamilton with prize pools of over £100k. He’ll race where the ground is soft which looks like he’ll be competing for the Lanark Silver Bell at Hamilton (unless the weather changes in Yorkshire) which is believed by many to be the oldest sporting trophy in the world. David Allan, one of Tim Easterby’s stable jockeys, has been booked to ride at Hamilton. Good luck to Mist and the owners, we still don’t know how much the injury will affect him until he races so excitement and apprehension in equal measures.
How he was ...
How he is ....
Surrey Noir has had an easy week following his battling performance the previous week, only being downed by a nose which I still can’t believe and would like to see a copy of the photo finish! Tim will find one more low key conditional race for him and then he’ll get a French handicap mark which on current performance would be around 33kg (3-4 lbs higher than his UK mark). After that we will find one or two decent money handicaps to target before possibly a late Autumn claimer.
Surrey Shadow has one more week of box rest before he’s allowed back out again. We feel that he is over the worse and out of danger but it’s better to be cautious. The bigger risk now is colic from being couped up for so long but Tom is very attentive and will react to the first signs of any issues.
The NH horses are all very well. Surrey Quest is back on the gallops after his elongated break, Surrey Lord continues to Lord it, whilst Surrey Fortune is revelling in his new surroundings. Toby commented this week how much he loves the way Fortune goes about his work and is very excited about the season ahead, when he wins a bumper don’t be shocked ! Both Lord and Fortune are around 6 weeks from their bumper debuts.
We visited Hughie this week to see all three horses there. Unfortunately the ‘good to firm’ ground at Newbury and Pontefract put Surrey Fire’s plans on hold. It’s not really that Fire can’t run on firm, it’s just for this season we want to protect his legs, a bad jar could end his career and for such a good horse it’s just not worth the risk. We appreciate that is very frustrating for the owners especially as the race programme doesn’t offer him a lot over the coming weeks. If the ground doesn’t ease then Lingfield on 5th September looks the best option which isn’t ideal but he’ll take another step forward and then we’ll look at a bigger race in the Autumn.
We don’t have as many ground worries with Surrey Belle, but she is certainly more effective on softer as others tend to have a better kick at the finish when the ground is quicker. We would really like to get her back on the turf though so she’ll have a host of entries from tomorrow for races next Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. If we can get her to win next time on the turf we may consider throwing the dice at a big race towards the end of September.
Last, but no means least, some welcome news on Surrey Charm who has taken a few extra steps forward this week and could be ready to run in less than 2 weeks time with Ffos Las (29th) and Windsor (sept 2nd) two very viable options. Hamilton, Redcar and Ffos Las in the space of 6 days could rack up the Surrey Racing miles!
Best wishes to Surrey Belle and connections if she runs Saturday and welcome back Surrey Mist, it’s been a long journey!
Possible races and events
August
Friday 23rd – Surrey Mist – Hamilton 19.05 / York 13.50
Saturday 24th – Surrey Belle – Redcar 19.00 / Goodwood 16.25
Monday 26th – Surrey Belle – Southwell 17.35
Tuesday 27th Surrey Belle – Lingfield
Thursday 29th – Surrey Charm – Ffos Las
September
Monday 2nd – Surrey Charm – Windsor
Thursday 5th – Surrey Fire - Lingfield
Friday 6th – Toby Lawes Owner’s Open Day
Saturday 28th – Toby Lawes SR Gallops