A March update

It’s been a busy week with a cracking Cheltenham Preview, – thanks to our ITV syndicate owner Oli Bell, Surrey Princess yesterday at Lingfield and an owners visit to Hughie’s. 

Unfortunately it was a bit of a disappointing result at Lingfield especially after Surrey Princess was so relaxed in the prelims. Trevor Whelan thought he had got into a perfect position from the wide draw but as the race unfolded it slowed to an almost standstill but with nowhere to go Trevor couldn’t get out and take up the running. In the end it turned into a sprint from the final bend and Princess lacks a turn of foot to challenge and was well beaten before getting slightly hampered in the home straight.

Trevor said draw a line through it – she needs a galloping track like Kempton to be able to wind up from further out but unfortunately this time our options were limited. He said the distance wasn’t an issue, he felt she’d be fine running between 10 and 12 furlongs. She didn’t have a hard race so could be back out again soon and looking at the fixture list the best options are Kempton on the Wednesday 30th March or Chelmsford on the 31st.    

We hope you enjoyed the zoom call as much as we did, it was really good to have Oli Bell hosting with Toby Lawes, Charlie Austin, Chris Hughes and Tom Segal on the call. We’ve summarised as best I can with the below mentions – some of the horses have multiple entries so you’ll have to keep an eye out and odds were correct at time of writing.  

We hope the 20 plus owners enjoyed the visit to Hughie’s yesterday morning. Surrey Belle is now in full training so the hard work now begins for her as she continues her education towards being a racehorse. She’s very well although it will take her a few weeks to settle into her new home. Surrey Gold looks fantastic, he’s wintered very well and looks very fit. He’s not race fit though and that will take 3-5 weeks to get him ready for his return. He’s going to be running in some big races this year but its hard to plan because he really does need soft ground.    

This week we could have two runners but maybe none! 

Surrey Mist is really well and is one of 16 who have been entered into a class 5 novice race over 9.5 furlongs at Wolves on Friday evening with Trevor Whelan booked to ride. We’ll keep an eye on the declarations because if the race doesn’t look strong then we could declare but we do favour a novice closer to home at Kempton on the 16th.  

The other runner could be Surrey Quest at Sandown on Saturday in the EBF Novice Final. Historically it doesn’t look the right race for him as its very rare to get such a high rated horse win but we’ll talk to Nicky this week. It’s still possible that he could also run at The Festival ! Look out for the entries on Monday for Sandown, and then Thursday for the Ballymore entries.   

We have the next stage of the German Derby entries on Monday as well when no doubt the field will get whittled down further. We are still committed so Surrey Knight will be kept in but we still won’t know if he’s good enough until he runs.    

Surrey Noir has been working well so Charlie has entered him into The Weatherbys Stakes race at Doncaster on September 8th. Horses are weighted on their median auction fee which is fairly low for Dream Ahead so Surrey Noir would receive a 7 pound allowance at the weights and we think he showing enough on the gallops to justify an entry.   

Surrey Charm is doing everything George asks of her, she’s got a great attitude and is now working on the main gallop. She’ll probably have a racecourse gallop at in the latter part of April to continue her education but until then it’s pretty much carry on working with the other babies. 

Finally we will be keeping an eye out for an entry for Gran Luna after the Festival and will hopefully see her back on the racetrack at the end of the month.  

Some of the horse owners may remember Surrey Warrior who we sold to trained in Germany. We heard this week that he’s been retired now and apparently he has fallen on his hooves as he has gone to a very nice re-homing facility and will be properly trained to be a pet which is great to hear as we really do want the best for our horses even if we are no longer own them. 

Good luck to Mist and Quest connections when they both run. 

2022
March
Friday 11th – Surrey Mist – Wolves
Saturday 12th – Surrey Quest – Sandown – EBF Novice Hurdle Final
Wednesday 16th – Surrey Quest – Cheltenham – Ballymore
                                 Surrey Mist - Kempton
Saturday 26th – Surrey Knight – Doncaster (Maiden Stakes)
Wednesday 30th – Surrey Princess – Kempton
Thursday 31st – Surrey Princess - Chelmsford
April
Tuesday 5th – Surrey Mist – St Cloud
Sunday 25th – Hughie Morrison Open Day
July
Sunday 3rd – Surrey Knight (153rd German Derby, Hamburg) ) 90 left in – next stage Mar 7th
https://www.deutscher-galopp.de/gr/renntage/rennen.php?id=1330172&d=20220703&s=N
September
Thursday 8th – Surrey Noir – Doncaster – Weatherbys Stakes