Benny and George Go Back To School

Yesterday John, Charlotte and myself had an early start to go over to Simon Earle's to see all the horses.  EPDS sponsor a young jockey called George Gorman, George is a great lad who has ridden in point to points and had two races under rules riding for his mother.  Although we have sponsored George for about a year now, we had not managed to actually get him sat on any one of our horses, mainly due to logistics as the two yards are about 2.5 hours away, and George has only recently passed his driving test (being just 17).

Anyway, yesterday it all came together and George had arranged with Simon that he would be in the yard for 8.30am to school Benozzo Gozzoli (Benny) and then ride work on Loxley Mezile (Poppy), this meant we had to be there at that time too, so a very early start for us as well, so early in fact that the horse I had to do before we left was laying down asleep in her stable when I arrived at the yard and was turned out looking very bleary eyed indeed.  She at least had had breakfast however, unlike the rest of us.

Got to the yard and said hi to all the horses, Shilpa was looking great after her race earlier in the week, Homer was a little bit miserable having blown an abscess out of his coronet band, Benny looked in fine fettle and Poppy had lost a little bit of weight following her race at Lingfield but was bright eyed and bushy tailed as normal.  George quickly tacked Benny up and then they hacked up to the large outdoor school at Downlands that Simon uses for schooling.

I'm not quite sure what George was expecting but it probably wasn't anything like a Simon Schooling Session.  George has come in to racing via pony racing and the pony club, so he is perfectly used to someone in the middle of the school shouting instructions at him, his flatwork was really good and he rides accurately to his markers, transitions at C were at C, change of diagonals were straight, he even (god forbid) rode his corners.  I think he needs to get out of this correct way of riding if he wants to progress, go round corners on the wrong bend, preferably with one hand on the reins and to really reach the heady heights, possibly with a fag hanging out of his mouth!  Seriously it was nice to see a young rider ride quietly and accurately, he is the first person in the school for a long time that I haven't wanted to drag off the horse and explain the importance of bend to.  It was the first time we had seen Benny being schooled and he hasn't done a great deal, Simon said that the first time he asked him to canter in the school he was so stiff he couldn't bend around a corner so my expectations were not high.  George warmed him up on the flat and then Simon explained what he wanted him to do and ride:

Once Benny was warmed up Simon introduced the jumps, Simon always starts a session in the same way, a small grid of poles on the ground building up to cross poles and then uprights, then an upright leading to a small spread culminating in a single jump with pallets to make it hurdle like.  George was asked to canter at A, come back to trot at C, trot over the first part of the jump then in to canter between the elements and canter away back round the school to C and repeat.  Simon likes the horse to learn from it's own mistakes so George was not to see a stride and if Ben landed on the wrong leg he wasn't to change leads, just let Ben sort it out for himself.  This is the complete opposite to any form of showjump gridwork that George would have done before but he picked it up well, he just needed to get Benny motoring on a bit more.  Simon hopped on to show him the tempo he wanted to go at, which I have to say was a surprise to me in an outdoor school the first time I saw him ride it on Shilpa, particularly on a horse that may be going round a left handed corner on a right leg lead, and in Ben's case, one that a few weeks ago couldn't bend around a corner anyway!

George did very well and they were both popping the fences nicely at the end, my camera batteries were starting to die at this point so I didn't get many shots but this one is probably the best of what I got:

I also managed to get some video which shows the canter trot jump canter exercise, this was taken before Simon asked George to up the energy a bit:

They then finished with a single jump being ridden at a good working canter with George not setting Benny up for the fence at all, but letting him jump out of his stride.  

Benny is owned by John so not a club or partnership horse at the minute, mainly because John would like to ride a charity race on him at some point and it is fair to say that John riding work is probably not the best way of keeping Benny up together.  He is due to race soon however with entries for the 18th, 20th and 21st December, we are hoping Andrew Thornton will ride him as he has ridden him before.  We are not sure what to expect with him really as Simon has put a lot of work in to him and physically he is now quite a different horse, he has an official rating of 80 so I suspect the bookies won't think much of his chances but it would be nice to see him go out and get round and enjoy himself.

We then all returned back to the yard for a welcome cup of coffee while George tacked up Poppy to take her up one of the grass gallops.  Simon boxed to this gallop as it is the other side of a busy dual carriageway, not sure it would have been my first choice as a gallop being part of the army training grounds, there is a footpath that runs up the side of it but Simon explained we could not go along the ridge that they were going to be cantering across, I presume for fear of being shot.  They did one steady and one quicker canter, Simon has backed off the fast work a bit with Poppy to give her plenty of time to recover from the Lingfield race, she is not fit enough for the race at Newbury and the ground is likely to be heavy so it looks like we will be aiming for something on an all weather again in the New Year.  We didn't get a chance to speak to George about his thoughts on Poppy as by this time we were freezing, all needed the loo and the Little Chef down the road was calling.

As ever a warm welcome from everyone at the yard and a very enjoyable morning.

EPDS/Racing Welfare Best Turned Out Series Finale

The finale of the best turned out series was at Wincanton on 6th December.  The competition started back in January at Huntingdon where the first winner was Charlie Longsdon.  Each month a BTO qualifying round has been held at small jumps tracks around the country with points being award for first, second and third places with cash prizes for all three and branded gilets for the winning groom.

Going in to the finale two yards were joint first, Welsh trainer Tim Vauhan and Cambridgeshire based Sarah Humphrey, both yards on 20 points.  Six other yards were snapping at their heels with 15 points and six trainers on 10 points meaning it was all to play for at the last.  However, you have to be in it to win it and only two trainers high in the points list had entries in the Weatherbys Silver Buck Chase which meant that only Venetia Williams or Oliver Sherwood's yard could see off the opposition, should either of their entries come in the first three.

Jackie Potts who is head groom to Olympic rider William Fox Pitt kindly agreed to judge, and being a professional groom herself the lads and lasses had a high standard to live up to.  Venetia Williams proudly proclaims she has the dirtiest horses in training however the yard pulled out all the stops and were placed in the top three meaning they were the winners of the £1000 prize to be spent on the staff in the yard.  Venetia has asked the staff to decide what they would like to spend the money on, I'm expecting there to be a few sore heads at the Christmas or New Year Annual party!

EPDS are proud to announce that we will continue to sponsor the competition in 2013, Racing Welfare are also hoping to run a similar competition for flat yards in 2013 and are currently looking for a sponsor.

Well done to all the lads and lasses that took part, we hope they have all enjoyed their BTO prize money and here's looking forward to next years competition.

Loxley Mezile (Poppy) Débuts At Lingfield

Well for me it feels like it has been a long time coming, because we bought Poppy as a 2 year old, but on 27 November she made her début at Lingfield in a 3 year old National Hunt Flat (bumper) on the all weather, ridden by Gerard Tumelty.

Because we bought her at such a tender age we have taken our time with her, introducing her to work slowly and Simon has been working not only on her musculature but also her brain and her attitude to work.  Poppy can be a little headstrong at times but if channelled in the correct way this translates in to a joie de vie for her work, because of her slightly bouncy nature I was a little bit apprehensive about how she would take to her first 'grown up party' but the girl did us proud.

Holly led her up in the pre-parade ring and she was alert but cool calm and collected, being a 3 year old race  there were a lot of inexperienced youngsters entered, I think only two had ever raced before.  Things got a little exciting in the ring culminating in a horse getting loose and legging it towards Poppy, although she swung her bottom around as a warning to keep clear she did nothing else (most horses would have put one or both back hooves up in a horse equivalent of either a V or one fingered salute).

Gerard was instructed to give her a good experience of racing and got her positioned nicely, unfortunately when he asked her to go she got blocked in and he had to take a bit of a pull and then switch her to the outside, loosing valuable ground in the process.  She ended up finishing 8th out of 14th, 8 lengths behind the winner and alongside Chris Pea Green who had won his previous race first time out.

We were very pleased with her performance, although at one stage she lost a bit of concentration and came off the bridle, Gerard quickly got her focus back and when he asked her to go she did.  She finished strongly, her stride was very good and all in all it was a very promising start to her race career.

Plan is for a couple more bumpers before Simon starts schooling her over jumps, being young we want to ensure she has time to mature before we think about hurdling, even though there are 3 year old juvenile hurdles that she could be entered for.  We like our horses to be fit and healthy and have a long career so we will give her all the time she needs, if she takes to jumping like she attacks everything else in life however, I think we have a very talented girl on our hands.

Some pictures taken on the day by Racing Club member Ellie:

Poppy and Holly in the pre-parade ring

Poppy, Holly and Wally Irvine, Simon's excellent horsebox driver who is also happy to muck in with saddling and leading up

More parading, think Poppy just wanted to get out there at this point

Gerard on board with Simon issuing some last minute instruction

Shares are available in this promising youngster, please email us for more information.

It's All In A Name

Names are very important to us for the horses, we like strong positive racing names but stable names that reflect the character and personality of the horse, that the guys handling the horse can relate to.  Nothing worse than hearing 'move over you' or 'his stable name is Sh*t Face'.  In the same way as it is with us, it is hard to say a name with anything other than the emotion you are feeling, "Morning Maisey" with a smile in your voice and the horse will know you are pleased to see them, they will be even more happy if you are carrying their breakfast at the same time.  The last few weeks for us have all been about names which has been quite funny, but also a little frustrating.

When John and I bought Onedin Line (Oh-Knee-Din Line) we never for one minute thought this was a difficult name.  I don't know about John but in my house growing up, the quieter you were in the living room, the longer you got to stay up, consequently I spent the 70's watching a variety of drama series that I probably wasn't that interested in, many of which had links to boats, The Onedin Line, When The Boats Come In and if dad was out and it was just me and mum, The Love Boat and Triangle.  I have to thank my parents for this early education because it means I know how to pronounce Onedin Line, and given enough alcohol, may even be able to hum the theme tune.

We have been keeping a list of our favourite mis-pronounciations of Onedin Line, so far we have:

In third place - Simon Earle, Wan-Din Line (stable name of Wanda).

In second place - Jamie Snowdon One-Din Line (when I told Jamie that he was obviously too young to remember the 70's TV show he said he wasn't born until 1979 which is quite frankly ridiculous),

First place however goes to Wally Irvine our excellent racehorse transporter, a recent invoice for transporting Onedin came through in the name of On-Lynne Bin-Line (stable name of Bin Laden?).

Onedin Line is now at Venetia Williams yard, Simon had threatened to tell the yard his stable name was Wanda rather than Odin but I'm not sure he did.  We haven't yet found out what they are calling him (hopefully not Sh*t Face) but we will, it is going to be even more exciting to hear what the course announcers call him when he starts his racing career in earnest with us.

Not content with struggles with Onedin Line's name, we have also in the last couple of weeks announced the winning name from our 'name Poppy our unraced/unamed racehorse competition'.  We had lots of entries some of which were very clever and people had tried to take inspiration from her breeding (Strategic Prince and Haiti Dancer).  The Judging Panel liked the name Mezile (Meh-zee-lah) who is the current Minister for Women's Affairs in Haiti, we duly checked that it was available and sent all the forms off to register the name.  We were a bit concerned however for it to be rejected on the grounds that it was too similar to a horse in racing called Mezel, we therefore took the only course of action available to us, and put a prefix on it making Poppy now Loxley Mezile.  This is not such a big deal as having 'our' prefix means that we can use it as part of Maisey's foals name, eg Loxley Explorer (or something like that) out of Lisellan Amazon.  Hopefully all the paperwork will go through and we will actually have a horse with a name for her first race in a couple of weeks.  Whatever she is called on the course, she will always be Poppy to us (or Pops, Popsy, Poppies - definitely not Sh*t Face).

And finally this blog entry is bought to you by our new Blog identity EPDS Equine, I eventually got around to setting myself up with a more business like blog name rather than using my personal account.  It's still me doing the blogs, I am just called EPDS Equine, that is E-P-D-S Equine, or just Sh*t Face(d)!!

F F F Freezing But Fun Yard Visit

Yesterday EPDS Racing and friends visited the yard at Simon Earle Racing to see all our horses in training, it was a good day to pick, not least because the sun was shining (although it was very cold) but also because work with the horses is going well and a couple were due to work on the all weather gallop at Horses First that day.

We arrived in good time, despite the holiday traffic on the A303 - for anyone that regularly drives that route I can recommend turning right at Stonehenge and driving through Shrewton, if for no other reason than you get to see men in uniform, plus the odd tank.

A quick restorative hot drink and some cookies warmed us up and we said hello to all the horses whilst the team were tacking up, three horses were working that session, two of ours, Shilpa and Poppy, and Headly's Bridge owned by Mrs P Bridel who was also there to see her horse work.  All three horses are fully barefoot, Poppy and Headly hacked up to the yard on the roads which takes 10-15 minutes, and Shilpa was popped in the lorry and driven up by Simon and Luke.

It was a beautiful day to be at Horses First, the whole area seems to be designed with the training of racehorses in mind, fantastic hills to work up and a natural bowl that has been turned in to a circular mile of all weather surface perfect to warm up on.  When you get there you can park right at the start of the gallop.

You then ride part way up the gallop and can drop in to the bowl on the left hand side.  Cars can get right up alongside the gallop up to the top, although I have to say we wouldn't have wanted the ground much wetter to have got three cars up to the very top (John - buy a 4x4!!).

Shilpa warmed up around the bowl and waited for the other two horses to join her.  The plan was for them each to do one steady up the hill and then a second gallop slightly faster.  Simon hopped on to Headly for his second gallop, Shilpa was ridden by Luke and Poppy by Sam.

The picture above is their first gallop, Shilpa in front and Poppy behind, you can really see the gradient of the hill in this picture and from where I was standing it continues to climb.

Then they hack back down the gallop again to the bottom ready to come up for the second time.  Here I think Sam is admiring Luke's new riding gear, he has recently been sponsored by Ray Thomas Limited and was immaculately turned out.  Once back to the bottom it was time to come up again, this time a bit faster.

Here we have Poppy nearest the camera and Shilpa on the far side.  Shilpa will always be my special girl but I have to say I am getting quite excited about Poppy, she is maturing all the time, really loves working and I think is going to be pretty quick.  Once they were all at the top then they hacked back down again on a long rein to give them a chance to get their breath back and cool off.

Poppy and Headly hacked back to the yard and Shilpa popped back on to the lorry to be driven home.  Once back at the yard she was showered off and then had a wicking sweat rug put on her and was put back in the stable to dry off.  She decided to help this process by getting down on her nice clean straw bed and having a good roll.

Poppy was untacked and also showered off, she doesn't like the 'dragged through a hedge backwards' look quite as much as Shilpa though.

The other horses were all in good spirits, Benni had forgiven John for his recent visit to the vets and enjoyed getting some fuss from him and Elli.

And surrogate son Homer Run also got in on the act as well.

Onedin Line was out in the paddock looking very happy and nice and muddy, we have been having conversations about how to pronounce his name, it should be pronounced Oh-knee-din Line, after the 70's TV show, his stable name is Odin (after the Norse god).  Simon then had to confess that he has been pronouncing it Wan-din Line, so his stable name has become Wanda (after the goldfish), he's a big butch chestnut, probably going to fill out to about 17hh's, with a girls name, he's probably the laughing stock of the paddock.

Maisey has been moved to her new ancestral home of Heytesbury Park, this is fantastic land, all old turf rolling parkland and very Capability Brown, she's not going to want to come back home once the foal is born.

We then retired to the Angel Inn in Heytesbury for an excellent lunch and a warm up in front of their wood burning stove.  

Plans will be made for the theme of our next yard visit and we look forward to seeing everyone on a racecourse in November/December when hopefully we will have three horses running, think the New Year will be very busy, lets hope we have better weather than last year!

Many thanks to Simon, Katie and all the staff at Simon Earle Racing for their excellent hospitality and time, we are always made to feel very welcome at the yard and it is lovely to see how happy and chilled out all our horses are.

Tracey

Uttoxeter Yesterday

Had a great evening yesterday at Uttoxeter with seven of the partnership members and friends and family, we had never been to the course before and I would describe it as charming (the original buildings are all built in the style of cricket pavilions) but testing (big galloping track with a rise and fall and dog leg then a long finish).

We had travelled up after work so missed the first three races but meet Simon in the owners and trainers bar (free teas, coffees and biscuits) for a quick catch up where he reported that the journey there had taken about 4 hours but Shilpa had travelled well and was chilling out in her box waiting for her race which was the last one on the card at 8.50pm.  We then went off to watch some races and found and owners and trainers box with an excellent view of the course (free teas, coffee and biscuits, wine and soft drinks), out makes you feel good when you have an almost access all areas pass and the first  words you hear when entering the prime box are 'would you like a drink madam'. Suffice to say two glasses of wine on top of a large gin and tonic meant I felt a lot happier being in the paddock for Shilpa's race rather than hiding behind the bike sheds like I usually do.

Shilpa looked very relaxed in the paddock, the light was quite bad so it was a bit hard to take lots of photos without using a flash but I got some and we will post them up to the website.

I wasn't brave enough to watch the race (small steps) but did listen to the race commentary and the others reported that for the first 1.5 miles she was travelling really well, she was sat in about fifth place and with the leading group, she was also jumping really well, then the stiffness of the track and her slight lack of fitness showed and she started to tire the fences out from home. Gerard gave her a very considerate ride and she cleared the last three well, just couldn't find any more to quicken so he bought her home safe and sound ready for another day. We knew that she needed a run and she is entered in three weeks time so she will be all the better for it.

Simon rang us on the way home to say she had recovered well after the race and she was tucked up in the horse box on the way back to Wiltshire, they probably got home about 2am. She will be out in the paddock today stretching her legs and then back on with the work ready for three weeks time.

A good evening was had by all, I think we all backed a few winners and the pork rolls were excellent, feeling very tired this morning though!

Yard Visit And Racing Tomorrow

Me and my friend Trudee had a quick whizz over to Simon's yesterday to see Shilpa school and look at a horse that is being retired from racing and that the owner would like a good home for.  We had a great morning and I'm pleased to report that Shilpa looked great and was probably going as well as I have ever seen her.  We also saw Poppy and Benny who are really loved up, well Benny is gazing at her in a slightly pathetic way, Poppy obviously is playing it cool and keeping her options open should something better appear over the horizon.


Shilpa is running tomorrow at Uttoexeter in the last race at 8.50pm.  There is a group of us going and it should be a fun evening.  As I said Shilpa is looking great, probably in need of the run and Simon has radically changed the way he has been working her recently so it's going to be interesting to see how this has changed her way of going.  There are 20 declared for it which is a big field but means the bookies will be paying out to fourth place.


Tracey


A video from yesterday, Simon is on Shilpa.