Everything is melting slowly although we had a freeze last night and so the roads were lethal this morning. Thanks again to my whole team for managing to cope with the roads and arrive on time – they’ve been brilliant all year but in particular this week and we’ll make sure we look after them well at our Christmas Party on Sunday night – they deserve it.
Thanks to Su Adams who braved the roads from Warwick today to bring Secret Santa presents for the whole team here from her and her daughter Libby (who is 12 and mad keen to be a jockey) – so thoughtful and she often sends the whole team cakes and goodies to keep them going and it is much appreciated.
Belinda has had a very productive meeting this morning with Jack Milward from Finnick Creative who help us with our Marketing. The team at Finnick are a fantastic help to us and we have planned lots of exciting things with them for 2018 and beyond.
Andy Sparkes from Audio Visual is here all day to enable us to have TV and Sky in our Owners’ Room improving the Owner experience here further. It will be a fabulous addition I am sure as if owners can’t get to the races they can watch their horses run here in future.
Thanks to Mark Caswell, our Pest Controller, for coming out on an SOS from Belinda last night when intruders of the four legged variety were found by her at our Isolation yard – Mark was here within 45 minutes and it’s superb service like that that we are so grateful for. Mark also rides work here regularly and usually ties in riding out with a check to ensure we are pest free!
A fraught morning here with Cheltenham declarations for tomorrow and having to second guess whether some of the other meetings will be on over the weekend too. We’ve declared Viking Mistress – who will be the very first Martin Keighley Racing Club runner at Cheltenham tomorrow which is so exciting for them. She will also be partnered by the Champion Jockey – Richard Johnson – who won on her in the summer so they are thrilled with that. We have a few spaces available for 2018 – it’s only £500 for the year and we had 4 winners this year and over 50% of the 34 runners in the winners’ enclosure (1st – 4th). They’ve had so much fun and do get in touch if you are interested.
We have also declared four time winner Spice Girl in the first race on the card. She followed up her three bumper wins with a win on her debut over hurdles at Towcester recently. She’s done plenty more schooling since then and this is a massive step up in class but she deserves her chance and her owners are both from Cheltenham so were keen for her to go. A big day for her.