September’s Update

Some fantastic news to start with, Surrey Gold who has now finished his rehab in Cornwall and has joined a riding school in Devon. We do make every effort to make sure our retired horses find great homes where they will be loved and in the case of Surrey Gold, give back something to those less fortunate which is brilliant. We wish him well at the Budleigh and Salterton riding school in Devon. https://budleigh-salterton.ecpro.co.uk/changing-lives-through-horses 

Thank you for all the positive responses to our France email, we do have more than enough horse racing owners that are interested in buying race horse shares to push forward with that and will be visiting the sales in Deauville mid October as well as working our way through the French red tape rigmarole and setting up the horse ownership.       

A brief interlude of a week without a horse racing but we’re back racing again this week, on Wednesday, with Surrey Noir running in the last on Kempton’s evening card,  a class 5 handicap over 7 furlongs, currently scheduled for 21.00. Noir was raised 1 pound by the handicapper this week to an Official Rating of 68 so will go into this horse race as one of the topweights but with James Doyle riding, surely it will be third time lucky for the pair?! Surrey Noir takes his races really well and had the form from the last race franked on Friday where the 4th placed from Kempton (4 lengths back) Abbey’s Dream came back out and won off the same mark. Fingers crossed for a good draw and Noir can break his maiden. 

Surrey Charm is a little off colour following her run at Bath despite seemingly ok immediately afterwards. It does seem that she’s the first to pick up any sort of illness which is down to her tough two year old season. She’s having an easy week and that will continue next week. Hopefully she’ll be ok to run again in a few weeks time. Her half brother, Stromberg, runs tomorrow in the 3.27 at Roscommon.

Surrey Belle was dropped 2 pounds by the handicapper to an OR of 64. She was a little sore after her race at Ffos Las but she’s fine now and has been back on the gallops since Thursday and we’ll look at races later in the month for her. Surrey Fire is coming along nicely, a little further forward than Hughie thought and thinks we’ll see him on the track next month, over a mile on the turf, but as we know, these things change pretty quickly.   

Surrey Quest makes the long trip from Cornwall tomorrow to join Surrey Lord at Toby Lawes yard near Dorking. Surrey Lord is having his training mixed up as he makes progress towards his debut in October, which will be a bumper, but then he’ll probably go straight to hurdles.

A few weeks ago we mentioned Surrey Fortune banging his leg and being on the easy list. Anyhow, he had to have a hematoma drained. A hematoma is an accumulation of blood in tissue spaces which typically form after a trauma, such as a kick or bang. The force of the blow separates tissues, creating a space, and ruptures vessels that allow blood to spill into that space. The result is a large, firm lump that forms quickly—literally overnight in some cases. Fortunately, a horse’s body is pretty good at resorbing blood over time and Fortune is enjoying working again. Billy’s new heavy sand gallops gets laid this week and that will really help Fortune get fit and ready for his debut, although he’s probably still 6-8 weeks away from that.

With visits organised to see Fortune, Quest and Lord we will get a better idea of timeframes in the next few weeks.

As we mentioned last week, Surrey Force is back on the gallops, only cantering for now which will continue for another week. Unfortunately Surrey Shadow is suffering from sore front legs. This is not unusual for a young horse and rehabilitation consists of rest. However, it does present a challenge regarding Shadow running this year, as the tenderness has happened late in the season. Shadow’s work has increased over the past few weeks and Tom has been really pleased with him. However, over the past few days his regular rider noticed that he wasn’t moving as fluently as he had been and his stride felt shorter. Some trainers would give the horse 3-4 weeks rest before training them again, although this short period of rehabilitation runs the risk of the soreness returning or in a worse case scenario, the discomfort developing into a more serious injury. 

This is a horse that Tom likes and as a result, he wants to ensure that Shadow is given adequate time for his legs to strengthen. Tom has proposed that we don’t try and force a run this season but instead, put him through a phased rehabilitation programme to have him ready for the start of the flat season in April 2024 (he has identified a couple of potential races at the Lincoln Meeting at Doncaster). The programme would involve 6-8 weeks in the paddock and on the walker, followed by a further 6-8 weeks of trotting. This would take us to mid/end of December, when Shadow would start long slow canters up Long Hill in order to regain core fitness. At this point we would review the situation. An option would be to run him on the All-weather in February/March but Tom’s current preference is to give him a 2-3 week break at this stage and prepare him for a turf campaign. 

As a syndicate, we strongly believe in giving horses time to develop properly. We have learnt from experience that patience is usually rewarded in terms of longer-term success and therefore agree with Tom’s recommendation. In the short term this is obviously disappointing, because we all want to see our horses run as soon as possible, but unfortunately, we cannot control the physical maturity of a horse.

Surrey Mist is now turned out in a small pen for 10-14 days before being moved to a bigger paddock. His leg continues to be iced daily and wrapped up when in his box but he’s happy within himself. 

Good luck to Noir and owners on Wednesday – hopefully we’ll be lifting the trophy!  

Possible races and events

2023 
September
Wednesday 6th – Surrey Noir – Kempton 21.00

Saturday 9th – Billy’s Aprahamian Open Morning
Thursday 14th Toby Lawes Open House Drinks  (as part of https://nationalracehorseweek.uk/)
October
Saturday 7th – Toby Lawes Owners Morning