Seeing out 2024

Our racing in 2024 has come to an end after Surrey Quest failed in his attempt to become the first horse to win back-to-back Mandarins in successive years. It was one of those days which shows the ability of racing to kick you in the teeth and why the wins should be celebrated with gusto. At a packed Newbury, live on ITV, Quest looked much fitter and stronger than his seasonal reappearance at Cheltenham last month and confidence was high for a very good showing, in fairness we thought we would go very close, and that confidence grew as the race progressed until we were brought crashing back down to earth! Quest, who was traveling like a dream and jumping as well as he ever has, missed a plain fence, buckled on landing, and gave Kevin no chance of staying on board. Thankfully there was no damage done but it was hard seeing a very emotional jockey return to the weighing room, it means a lot to have a good horse to all of those involved.  
Horse and jockey were fine this morning so Quest could have a quick turnaround with the Warwick Classic not ruled out, but our gut feel is that he’ll run in either the Edinburgh National in early February or the Eider Chase at the end of February before the Scottish National in April. Surrey Quest does however retain the Surrey Racing Horse of the Year award, and who would bet against the treble in 2025? 

Surrey Lord and Sea Presenting are both well and have shown promise in a few recent schooling sessions. We will see both on a racecourse in the next 2-3 weeks in bumpers though as they continue their racing education. As soon as we have more of an idea as to where we will let you know. It was great seeing Surrey Belle’s hurdling debut for new connections at Catterick yesterday. She enjoyed her usual tactics of leading from the front and set a decent tempo throughout the race, despite running very green she only got overtaken by one horse, a more experienced odds on shot, in the final furlong. 

Surrey Noir is still on schedule to run in Deauville on the 10th, his stablemate Surrey Etoile continues to impress Tim on the gallops. Surrey King is well and growing although don’t expect to see him on a racetrack until later summer. Surrey Shadow should be seen racing on the all-weather in February whilst Surrey Fire is expected to be back racing when the turf season is underway in April.  

Surrey Moon is taking a breather but Kirsten Rausing, who bred him, came to see him last week and was impressed by what she saw. She thought a lot of the dam, Alla Luna, who unfortunately got injured after just one race, but Kirsten thought she was at least Listed class. The sire Study of Man has been one of the talking stallions in 2024. When one hears that a stallion's fee has doubled that can sound rather punchy but it is easy to imagine that even if Study Of Man's fee had been trebled for 2025 there would still have been a clamour to use him. Indeed, there is a waiting list at £25,000 (Surrey Moon was sired at £12 500) after the season finished with a timely Group 1 victory for Juddmonte's Kalpana – a potential contender for next year's Arc. Study Of Man had just 55 foals in his first crop and 66 in his second, which makes his five stakes winners and 11 stakes performers overall an admirable tally and puts him above the obvious stars of stallions Too Darn Hot and Blue Point. His percentage of black-type winners to runners is 5.33%. Surrey Moon is only one of 58 two-year-olds to run for him next year, and 51 from the crop about to become yearlings (almost half of which were bred by Kirsten Rausing), but he covered 123 mares this year, and that number will surely rise again in 2025.    

Next week we’ll review the past year, the good, the bad and the ugly! 

In the meantime, we wish you all a very Happy New Year and may all your horse racing dreams come true in 2025. 

Possible races and events.
January
Friday 10th – Surrey Noir – Deauville
Thursday 16th - Sea Presenting - Ludlow
February
Sunday 2nd – Surrey Quest – Musselburgh  
Saturday 22nd – Surrey Quest - Newcastle
March
Saturday 29th – Surrey Shadow - Doncaster
April
Saturday 12th – Surrey Quest - Ayr