Mother’s Day Update
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mums – I hope you’ve been treated well, and let’s take a moment to remember all those special Mums that are no longer with us today.
Unfortunately we didn’t have a runner at Sandown yesterday as Surrey Quest was found to have a cough/cold. Very frustrating as he’s in great shape and would have had a favourites chance but we move on. It’s a bit of a blow because Toby had an eye on the BET365 Cup in April (the old Whitbread) and wanted to see how Quest would handle the track which doesn’t suit every horse. Maybe that’s less of an option now without a prior run at Sandown.
Quest is now on a course of antibiotics and we’ll see how he tomorrow and it’s possible he’ll be ok and entered for Uttoxeter on Saturday, a 3 mile class 2 Novice handicap (live on ITV). He will certainly miss Cheltenham though, and failing next weekend there are a few options. Toby would also like to consider the Scottish Grand National at Ayr on April 20th and a mark of 135 would be pretty competitive so we could just wait until then or even just find a shorter distance race just for a fitness boost.
It was great to catch up with a large number of syndicate owners over the past few days in Newmarket and Surbiton. Yesterday in Newmarket we saw Surrey Noir and Surrey Shadow being put through their paces. Surrey Noir continues to impress on the gallops. He had his flu jab today and will have a quiet week and then will progress to quicker work the following week. He’s in a good place and will make his seasonal appearance early to mid April over 6 or 7 furlongs on turf, and looking at the fixture list only Windsor over 6f on Monday 15th really stands out to me but Charlie is the expert so let’s see.
The Clover’s put on a nice welcoming owner’s breakfast for us and Surrey Shadow was looking good and has changed a lot from 2 to 3 years old. Plenty of debate at what distance he’ll be racing, over or under a mile. He’s also working on Warren Hill and like Noir the faster work will pick up. As we have mentioned before we’d expect him to be racing towards the end of April. His syndicate is now full so we don’t actually have any shares available right now so maybe time to go shopping again!
We do have our first flat runner of the year on Wednesday when Surrey Force lines up in a one mile novice race at Kempton on Wednesday, with David Probert booked to ride. currently scheduled for 6.00 pm.
No new news re Surrey Fortune who is chilling in Cornwall, likewise Surrey Lord who is at a farm in Surrey. Lord will be moving back to Toby’s in early April and will have a scan to see how his leg is. Surrey Mist has another 2-3 weeks in Norfolk. Also no news from Hughie who has other things on his mind with Not So Sleepy, good luck to him this week. In other trainer news it was good to see Tim Donworth have a graded winner at Chantilly on Friday – our French horse will be in good hands!
Good luck to all those racing owners who will be enjoying Cheltenham this week.
Good luck to the Force syndicate owners on Wednesday and the Quest horse owners if he runs next Saturday.
Possible races and events
2024
March
Wednesday 13th – Surrey Force - Kempton
Saturday 16th – Surrey Quest – Uttoxeter
Friday 22nd – Surrey Quest – Newbury
Sunday 31st – Surrey Quest – Plumpton or Ffos Las
April
Monday 15th Surrey Noir - Windsor
Wednesday 17th Surrey Shadow Beverley
Tuesday 23rd Surrey Shadow - Yarmouth
Saturday 27th – Surrey Charm – Leicester
Tuesday 30th – Surrey Charm – Yarmouth
May
Thursday 9-11th – Arqana Breeze Up Sale
Tuesday 21st – Surrey Racing Golf Day – Silvermere Golf Club