The flat turf season is now in full swing, and for once the weather is living up to racegoers expectations of summer dresses and champagne in the sun (admittedly, this is rather less the experience of those working behind the scenes in the stable yard, but it is a lovely thought!)
The blazing heat has led from the horses sloshing through bogs to suddenly running on something that resembles the A1, but the racecourses have generally done an excellent job at maintaining safe ground, which is so important for all of our peace of minds!
After an excellent start on the all-weather this year, our horses are taking a little bit of time to adjust to the turf, but we are slowly getting there. Unfortunately our grass gallops went from bog to road pretty much overnight, leaving us little time to get up them, and some of ours have just shown this in their running style.
However, we were delighted to get our final winner of the 2017-2018 season over jumps, bringing our total to five from a very small team of national hunt horses. We were particularly delighted that it was Ever So Much who rounded off the year for us, as he is a horse that is very close to our hearts.
He arrived here four years ago from Ireland, still a maiden after eleven starts. However, he quickly showed a liking for English soil, winning his first four races for Ben within a time frame of fifteen days, all under the magnificent A.P. McCoy – not a bad effort, and he was as fat as the end as when he started! (He is the thoroughbred equivalent of a Shetland pony with his belly…) Since that impressive run of things, he added three more to his tally, but last season it looked like 7 might be the limit as he wasn’t showing the same love for the game that he was, and talks of retirement abounded.
However, given some time to come to himself and relax, he started to feel a different horse at home again, and so we took him to Sedgefield with no pressure, and just hoping he enjoyed himself. He travelled an awful lot better into the race, and coming to the last looked set for an honourable fourth under Richie McLernon – but both horse and rider showed the heart of lions, and put in a valiant surge up the hill to grab the race on the line in what must have been one of the most exciting finishes of the year! We were over the moon for the horse, and his very patient owner J.P. McManus – it feels all the sweeter when the path to the winner’s enclosure throws a few obstacles in the way!
Moving back to the flat, we were very excited to take Castle Hill Cassie (right) to York for owners Ontoawinner. York is an absolutely first class racecourse, and having a horse good enough to run there during one of their big meetings is always incredibly exciting (and very difficult!) Another filly who owes us nothing, she is yet to finish out of the top 4 in any of her races, and has won three of them. Still improving, she got bogged down in the mud in her run before York, finishing a nice 3rd still, but we hoped the faster ground would bring about some improvement.
Plenty of champagne was consumed to calm our nerves – thankfully the filly took it better than we did – but she did look a picture, despite being very unfancied at 20—1. She travelled through the race like a dream, and coming into the final furlong was the last one off the bridle. Getting a bit excited now, we were all screaming our heads off – however, Cassie has her own mind, and whilst very genuine, once she thinks she has won she tends to ease off the gas a little. Unfortunately for us, a horse was coming hard and fast on the opposite side of the track, and she couldn’t see it to get into a battle, but she ran an absolutely fantastic race to be second in a very competitive race. She is improving all the time, and we cannot wait to see what the future holds.
Finally, we are extremely excited to get started with Feedmark’s new initiative, Formulate!, a supplement specifically designed to suit each horse, eliminating the need for unnecessary additions to their feed. This is very exciting in the world of fussy thoroughbreds, which do tend to start turning their noses up to over complicated dishes! I am excited to learn more about this fantastic idea in coming weeks, and cannot wait to see the improvements it makes to our string.