October already and nearly the start of the ‘proper’ winter jumps season which traditionally kicks off at Chepstow next weekend.
Our last runner of September was Ten Past Midnight at Southwell and he didn’t look to enjoy one moment of it and Sean Bowen sensibly pulled him up before going out on the final circuit – although schooling well over fences at home he wasn’t fluent from the start. He is due a holiday now and when he returns will revert to hurdles and go from there. We decided to pull Debden Bank out and save him for another day, which should have been yesterday at Fontwell but the rain didn’t come in time and it was too quick for him there too. Clerk of the Course Philip Hide saved us a wasted journey to Fontwell though which was much appreciated – an unenviable job but honesty is always the best policy, thank you Philip.
Earlier in the week we took two nice young horses jumping at Jon Trice-Rolph’s Todenham base. Kalibrate (James Best) and Blazing Court (Harry Atkins) both jumped for fun.
This morning Matthew Baker was in 1st lot to watch the horses including Genovese, who we bought as a foal and syndicated out and who won on debut at Worcester recently. Options for his 2nd run include Cheltenham’s October Meeting. Matthew always takes great photos of the horses too.
David Maughan was in 2nd lot to watch his recent Worcester winner Spanish Present along with Back on the Lash and Blazing Court who he has shares in, three lovely horses who will hopefully give us lots of fun this season. We had Warren Marston, Harry Stock, Miranda Theobald, Tim Gibbs and Abbie Berkins as extras in to ride out this morning, always great to get more people in on a Saturday to get the team off earlier.
No runners this weekend so always time to get to watch the boys play football when I’m able to. I missed Harry scoring for Broadway U13s against Alcester this morning but watched the 2nd half to see them win 4-0. Freddie plays tomorrow for Northleach vs Fairford and I’ll hoping to get there to support him too.
One of Freddie’s team-mates is Patrick Upton, youngest son of Race Starter & ex-jockey Sophie and tomorrow she is running The London Marathon for The Injured Jockeys Fund in memory of their great friend Jason Warner. Soph will have put 110% into her training and we wish her lots of luck. If you’d like to support her and, in doing so, a brilliant cause, click HERE.
Stratford on Monday with Kazontherazz and Borderline. With the rain we are having it will be great to get more of the winter horses out on the track.