Although we had a weekend with no runners, it was full of success for people and horses connected to the yard. Issy Mangan, our Travelling Head Girl, had a brilliant weekend at Gatcombe Horse Trials finishing 6th in the Corinthium Cup with her best dressage to date and a fantastic double clear. She also won Best Local Rider and Best Turned Out so a huge well done to her.
Sam Bishop, who is another invaluable member of the team and always smiling, was in action at Abbey Dressage (and riding on another of Leisure Ride’s superb surfaces) and she won her dressage class on Bryan & Anni Eccles’ lovely horse Monty. Whilst Always Bold, a six times winner for us, is now being superbly produced by Miranda Theobald and won his first affilitated dressage points at the weekend and is now well on track to compete at the Retrained Racehorse Championships later in the month at Aintree Racecourse. We love hearing about horses that we’ve had in training here and were also delighted to hear from Andrew Jones that Total Submission and Benbane Head are also thoroughly enjoying retirement and looking fabulous. Another of Andrew’s horses, Spring Moon, has been reproduced by Judith McKinnon and qualified this year for the Prelim and Novice British Dressage Championship.
Over the weekend our retired cross-country specialist Any Currency has been out and about and we were really pleased to see photos and videos of him on a day out cross country schooling at Alan & Lawney Hill’s base under his Team Chasing jockey Dickie Barrett. He looks to have summered well and we are hoping he takes to his new job and look forward to going to watch him in action.
We all love hearing about horses who we used to train and who are now enjoying another job so do get in touch if you have news of a horse that used to be here.
August is a busy birthday month and we’d like to wish Chris Dee a very happy big birthday today. Chris is not only the very first member of our Martin Keighley Racing Club but a massive support to our family and we hope she has a special day.