Tuesday 18 December 2012

And AP Is Worried In 2nd, Here Comes Benozzo Gozzoli!!

Well what a whirlwind week or so it has been, following on from Shilpa's success earlier in the month, Benozzo Gozzoli's (Benny) return to racing was today at Folkestone, the last day of racing ever at Folkestone, in the last ever hurdle race before it shuts.


Benny has previously been considered a good ground horse, although he has run many times, on the flat, all weather, over hurdles and chase fences, it has usually been on good ground and safe to say the going today at Folkestone was not good, it wasn't even soft being marked as heavy on the hurdle course.  John and Simon decided to go ahead and run him anyway mainly because Simon has done a lot of work with him and as far as we were concerned he is a bit of a blank canvas, not sure we would have gone ahead if we knew exactly how bad it would cut up but sometimes hindsight is a thing best to be completely ignored.


Andrew Thornton was booked for the ride, Andrew is familiar with Benny having ridden him at Seamus Mullins yard where he was in training until we bought him in June, Andrew is also an expert at picking the best ground which is a skill we thought would be very useful with the weather we have been having.  Andrew got him settled in a good position and I was really pleased to see how well he was jumping and steadily making his way up the field.  By the end of the first circuit all the horses were looking tired but by this point Andrew had got him positioned in third and he still looked to be going well.  Derek Thompson was commentating and it was great to hear him say 'and AP is worried in 2nd, here comes Benozzo Gozzoli', Benny and Andrew managed to get past AP on the favourite Stravita to come in to second place, by this time all three horses looking very tired.  The leader Boomtown made a mistake at the last and Benny jumped it well, but by this point the heavy ground had really made it's mark on Ben and he finished in second place 21 lengths behind the winner Boomtown, and 11 lengths in front of third place Stravita.

We are all delighted with his performance, although not a EPDS horse as he was bought as John's ride in a charity race and for John to ride out on, he is still very much part of the EPDS family and is a bit of a favourite with us all due to his lovely nature.  Plan now is for him to spend the next few days walking out to loosen off after the race and depending on how he goes in the next few weeks John and Simon will look for another suitable race for him in about six weeks time, lets hope the going is a bit better next time.

For me personally it has been great to see Benny back on the course doing well.  He caught my eye at Seamus's yard when we were there to see another horse, John was offered the chance to ride work on him with the string, he had only been riding for five months by that point.  I promised Benny that if he bought John back safe and sound in one piece that we would buy him at Ascot Sales and John duly did.  Since that time he has taught John quite a bit about riding and it is a shame they didn't both get the chance to do the charity flat race that he had been promised he had an entry for.  Hopefully there will be something for them both to do in the future, in the meantime it is good to know that Ben has another chance as a jumper and this experience will only make him a more formidable opponent should they get the chance to do something for charity next year.



2 comments:

  1. Great write up, lovely piece and congrats to the team, i love it when you do well, keep up the great work and pass on my sentiments to Simon when you see him next x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Clint, we really appreciate your support.

    ReplyDelete