Happy Easter to you all – hope you have had a lovely weekend with friends and family. Yesterday was spent catching up with admin in the morning as well as a lovely family ride/walk – Freddie on Bubbles and Belinda, Harry and myself walking in the rare sunshine. The boys were keen to meet up with Fern and Daisy O’Brien so they engineered a supper at The Plough at Ford and Belinda, myself and Jelly came too – a sign of things to come maybe?! A fun time was had by all – the children are growing up fast!
Lots of fun April fools yesterday and a brilliant one from Henry Daly with Alastair Down apparently heading for the Macmillan Cancer Support York Charity Race that Belinda and Buckle Street won last year – very funny indeed. Another funny April fool featured in our Chairman Jon Hughes’ Blog which can be read HERE along with a superb write up on Freddie’s Cheltenham Pony Race – very proud parents…..
Simon and Kath Prowting here to energise and entertain us all this morning! A morning of rain so bacon sandwiches for all the team (sausage for Harley and croissants for vegetarian Alice!). Much deserved for our hard working team who turn out in all weathers day in day out. Horses all doing one canter today on an easy Monday.
An exciting new arrival though – ‘Boysie’ from Mark Allen – the progeny of Sky Calling who many of you will remember as a super tough mare here a few years ago. Now 15 years young she was our 100th winner over hurdles at Southwell and an emotional one too as her partner Ian Popham was returning from a pretty awful pelvis injury. In total she won four times over hurdles and once over fences as well as providing Mark Caswell with a Cheltenham Charity Flat Race winner 25 years after he retired from the saddle when he outrode the field and won in good style. A tough mare that we are thrilled Mark kept and bred from and we are so excited about her first son joining us.
Sadly Paxford Point to Point was predictably abandoned so Simon and Kath Prowting persuaded us to join them at The Hollow Bottom for lunch and, as usual, Hugh Kelly and his team looked after us so well.