Will the rain ever stop?! We head to Ludlow Racecourse today with Capital Force where their ground is soft. He returns to chasing after a spin over hurdles and Patrick Cowley rides. He won well at Ludlow on his chasing debut for us back in May and we are hopeful for another solid run.
Four runners at Catterick on Friday and Forecast fared the best with a 3rd place on his chasing debut under a patient ride. He jumped well and looked to really take to fences and thanks to his owners for donating the bottle of champagne they won for 3rd place back to the team – very kind and also very generous of Catterick to give placed connections some fizz. It doesn’t go un-noticed.
Enforcement found life out of Novice company over fences much tougher and his usual solid jumping let him down on occasions as everything happened a little too quickly for him. He’s fine and will return to novice company next time out.
Lucky Circle put in a very decent hurdling debut in competitive company finishing 8th of 16 and jumping well. She has certainly given us hope to carry on with her as we all originally made a plan to take her training month by month and race by race and to be realistic. Although we are realistic still about her prospects, she won’t need to improve that much on her debut to be in the shake up in her next race or two.
Mr Mafia owes us nothing and it was the end of a long season for him and Patrick pulled him up when he started to struggle before 3 out. Once again, what a horse he has been for Peter & Jane Boggis and the team here adding three more wins to his tally over the summer. He really is a huge favourite here and it’s a shame that the ground on the Cheltenham cross-country course is now much softer than it used to be as we think those races would suit him well. He’s going home today and will be thoroughly spoilt over the winter.
On Saturday, despite having no runners, myself and the rest of the family headed to Ascot for the second day of Discover Racehorse Ownership where we were fortunate enough to have a stand for the two days. Jon and Jack Hughes, Paul Davis and Pip Frankish held the fort there on Friday and had a great day by all accounts. On Saturday we weren’t sure what to expect however we were also allowed to parade a horse so we chose to parade Black Prince of whom there are a few shares left. He looked superb and thanks to Beth Whittle who brought him to Ascot and turned him out so well. He was full of beans so Belinda needed to get the other side of him and using two of our shortest team members for one of the largest horses made him look even more imposing but they coped well!
We had plenty of interest in him, our syndicates and our Racing Club too and Freddie & Harry enjoyed helping on the stall as well. A huge thank you must go to Tilly Jarrett who is a Member of our Racing Club and also in the Black Prince Syndicate and worked tirelessly on the Stand all day. I have no doubt she is a fantastic school teacher however, if she wishes to change career then a career in marketing would definitely suit her! The Team at Ascot looked after us famously with breakfast and lunch vouchers and nothing was too much trouble for them. A wonderful opportunity for the syndicates and racing clubs who made the effort to support Ascot and hopefully a productive day was had by all. We certainly had a brilliant day.
On a really sad note we are still in shock at the loss of mother & daughter Elaine & Grace Reason who lived locally and who tragically lost their lives on Thursday night when a tree fell on their car on Stanway Hill. Both recently supported Belinda & Freddie at their Bingo Fundraiser and Grace was a huge help to Freddie when he started in reception, all those years ago, as she was with all the younger children there. At a recent Careers Evening that we had a stand on at The Cotswold School Grace was telling Belinda how she wanted to go travelling on leaving school. Lives cut too far too short. They will be sorely missed and our thoughts are with their family and close friends.