The heatwave continues and some of the horses will no doubt be pleased to come back in from their summer holidays and into work. The yard is the quietest it’s been with just a handful ready to run but some have been out for 6/7 weeks so will be heading back in this week.
Mike & Mella Wright were in this morning to watch Borderline, Duke of Luckley and Ben Buie on the gallops before heading off to meet a group of our owners at Martin Jones’ Redmarley base where he has three of our youngsters continuing their education. I had planned to go but we have a Fun Ride here tomorrow which Belinda is organising and Freddie & I have been mowing and strimming since 2nd lot here. It looks in great shape and he’s got a job as a tractor driver if his riding career doesn’t work out!
Uttoxeter evening meeting tonight and I’ll have a good walk around to make sure it’s ok for our two runners. Our family favourite horse, Peter Boggis’s Mr Mafia, makes his seasonal debut under Adam Wedge and is back over hurdles where he is 10lbs better off. He’s done plenty at home and is as fit as we can get him but he does usually come on for his first run. Peter & Jane Boggis’s eldest daughter Kitty is lying in 2nd place overnight at Lumuhlen Three Day event with just the show jumping phase to go. We wish them lots of luck for tomorrow too.
In the following race we run She Has Notions (James Best) for an enthusiastic group of owners in Martin Keighley Racing Partnership 11. He had a year off with a tendon injury and ran a solid enough race on his return at Southwell in April and I always like to give them a decent time to recover from their 1st runs back and he’s had 50 days since then. He seems well at home and we hope he builds on that.
We had an enjoyable evening at Worcester on Thursday and, although we didn’t trouble the judge, both our runners ran with credit. Blazing Court enjoyed his second run over hurdles and will hopefully now get a handicap mark and should find life easier. He’s eventually a horse to jump fences with and is still a big baby so has his future ahead of him. Lantic Bay was making his debut for Diggers’ Syndicate made up of a really fun group of people headed by breeder Marcella Bayliss who Belinda has known since they were in Pony Club together. Quite a few of the group go back to the Grand National winning Earth Summit days – a horse who Marcella looked after and rode out daily and was named ‘Digger’ at home. Marcella also bred Lantic Bay’s winning point to point dam, Twiga Woods, so getting him to the track meant a lot. It was certainly a case of ‘1st day at big school’ for him and he’ll come on plenty for that run. A really fun night with great friends.
My parents have been staying with us for a few days which gave them the opportunity to watch Harry play football last night at home in Broadway. He scored a goal to help his team win 8-4 and it was an enjoyable evening in an idyllic setting. Huge thanks to owner Pete Wilson who is a brilliant photographer and came to capture some shots of Harry last night.
