It’s Racing Staff Week and although we appreciate our Team all the year round it is great that the racing media help us highlight how hard they all work and how they keep the whole show on the road.
The ROA kindly donate £150 to a number of yards for a BBQ with the aim of mixing the team with owners who may not usually get to know who is looking after their horses. This isn’t true of our yard where our owners generally visit lots and know most of the team well already so we are fortunate and, although we weren’t successful in our bid this year to be granted £150 we still decided to have a BBQ anyway as last year’s was so much fun. Racing Welfare kindly arranged for a week of sunshine and we held our BBQ on Wednesday evening where I cooked for all the team plus our Chairman Jon Hughes and his wife Jack. As we including our Owners so much generally anyway, we decided to keep our BBQ this year as a more select affair for just us plus Jon & Jack so the team could properly let their hair down! Some did this more than others ….. and a fun night was had by all!
Racing Welfare’s Team have somehow managed to get around to all the yards over the week with a selection of cakes as a small ‘thank you’ for all the teams do. Much appreciated and no doubt a logistical nightmare so well done to them all.
Today is a massive day for Jasmin who has recently been promoted to Head Girl. Foxy is still very much with us but we are keen for him to go racing more and step more into his Assistant Trainer role so Jasmin is on hand at the yard to help out too now.
However…today she’s at Newton Abbot and at 5.15pm she will fulfill a huge ambition to have her first race ride in public in The Betfair Racing Staff Week Cup on Primogeniture who she loves and rides out most days at home. We are huge supporters of these Charity race initiatives and indeed have supported races during this week for quite a few years giving lots of members of our team opportunities. They work so hard and it is fabulous to be able to reward them in this way and Jasmin has put in so much work to get fit and ready for today. Carl Llewellyn has been her jockey coach and has been a regular visitor helping her on our Mechanical Horse and giving her plenty of help and support. Good luck Jasmin, you’ve already done us proud and enjoy your special day. You can still sponsor her by clicking HERE – all for Racing Welfare, a fantastic charity. If you missed her write up in the Racing Post earlier this week you can read that HERE.
Happy Birthday today to owner Gwyn Hibbett! Today she was celebrating with us in the best possible way – at Worcester Racecourse watching Thady Quil become the first winner that her and husband Stefan had been involved in. He wasn’t the easiest to train as he had far more than his fair share of issues but that was his day and to see the pure joy on their faces and share their excitement was a day we will never forget.