A very worthwhile trip to Fakenham yesterday with HRH The Princess Royal’s game homebred mare Chequered View winning for the second time this season in great style under a good ride from our Conditional Jockey Patrick Cowley. A good performance and a relieved Trainer as after she’d finished 2nd at Hereford the time before, with the help of Zara Tindall who was at Hereford that day, we persuaded The Princess to keep Chequered View in training for a while longer. She seemed in such good form I was convinced that she’d pay her way and am very grateful that The Princess allowed us to do so and thrilled it worked out!
She’s A1 this morning and she’ll now head to Cheltenham next month for a Mares’ Chase there. Zara’s recently been made a Director of Cheltenham Racecourse so a fitting place for her mother’s horse to run! The Queen had a winner 10 minutes later I’ve seen so a good day for the family.
Samtara runs today at Chepstow over hurdles for the first time for owner/breeders Roger and Yvonne Allsop under James Best who comes in regularly. He’s up against it today with some expensive horses in the line up but needs to start somewhere and will hopefully have a positive experience. He will benefit from a wind operation too and has done plenty of schooling at home.
A busy morning here at the yard with Jon Hughes & Paul Davis planning the Stand we are having this weekend at Ascot Racecourse as part of their Discover Ownership Weekend. It’s something we’ve not done before but we are looking forward to spreading the word, especially about our Racing Partnerships here and there is plenty to plan. Do look out for us if you are at Ascot this weekend.
We had a visit from FBC Manby Bowdler’s Neil Lloyd mid morning with goodies to give away on our stall and we had a quick catch up with him too.