Sadly The Wexfordian yesterday failed to frank the form of his debut Irish point to point (Nov 2013) with Saturday’s Grand National winner One For Arthur, who won that day, and Grand National fourth Blaklion, who finished behind him in 3rd, when only managing to finish 2nd in his Selling Hurdle at Exeter yesterday! He’s had his problems and hasn’t been the easiest to train but has been pretty frustrating. He was claimed yesterday so we wish them luck with him.
The horses worked yesterday so today was a steady canter day and Jasean Spraggett was back in again for a couple of lots ahead of her Charity race at Cheltenham next Thursday. She’s enjoyed riding out here and we wish her luck next week. Belinda has over 9 weeks to go before her York race and is thoroughly enjoying being able to ride out more this week with no school run to do as the boys are on their Easter Holidays.
James Fairrie and Geoff & Caroline Godsall were here to meet Jon Hughes third lot as vet Ben Brain came to check out their horse Dr Dunraven with his overground scope. It’s always fascinating watching the results of this superb equipment as Ben and the owners are driven upsides the horse doing a proper gallop all the way up our Leisure Ride Carpet Gallop and Ben’s computer tracks and shows what is happening with the horse’s breathing. Plenty of discussion afterwards and, as always with an Owners for Owners horse, all partners are equal in the decision making.
Lorraine Coates and her granddaughter Corina came to the yard this morning too. Corina is the same age as Freddie and is pony mad so loved meeting the horses and the boys’ ponies too. She wants to be a jockey when she’s older and, now there are more opportunities for girls, the future is brighter for them than ever before.
We don’t have too many runners over the next few days which suits the team better with it being Easter weekend and hopefully they will get some quality time with their family. On Friday Belinda and the boys are going to Cheltenham Racecourse to support the Pony Club Raceday they have there – next year Freddie will be old enough to ride and he can’t wait!
Dalton Glance may be our only runner at Stratford on Saturday and it’s one of our favourite smaller tracks and I can recommend it for a fun day out for all ages. The boys love coming there as everything is pretty close together, the viewing is good with a big screen to watch too and they love watching the horses jump the water jump (filled in nowadays) in front of the stands. It’s one of our local tracks too which helps as they don’t get too bored on the way!