EPDS Racing Welfare BTO Results - 3

Today was the third leg of the EPDS Racing Welfare best turned out series at Carlisle, it was also mothers day so the clever chaps at Racing Welfare were asking people to nominate their mum to help judge the competition.  This apparently proved very popular and although I don't yet know the name of the mum in question she did a very good job by all accounts.


The results were as follows:


1st Chrissi Cameron - Barry Murtagh's yard
2nd - Venetia Williams yard
3rd - Dianne Sayer's yard


We are trying to get the name of the grooms that came second and third and as soon as we have that we will update the blog.  A photo of the winning groom Chrissi:

As you can see from the photo the weather was beautiful at Carlisle today if a little cold.


The league table is now:

15pts - C E Longsdon

15pts - R Dickin

15pts - B Murtagh

15pts - V Williams

10pts - W Greatrex

10pts - K Bishop

 5pts - M Appleby

 5pts - D Sayer


Venetia Williams' yard moves up to joint first place with 15 points after their second place today, they are so far the only yard to place in more than one of the legs so they are the one to watch next time at Ludlow on 5th April.  The remaining dates in the series are:


Ludlow- April 5th, Fakenham- May 27th, Stratford- June 2nd, Worcester- July 31st, Bangor on Dee- August 31st, Market Rasen- September 29th, Fontwell- October 6th, Wetherby- November 17th,Wincanton – December 6th (Finale) 

Another EPDS Road Trip

Friday saw EPDS HQ on the road for another of our little trips, as usual we set ourselves a gruelling schedule particularly as stop one was a visit to see the girls at Simon Earle's and step two involved the M25.


First stop was the yard to see Shilpa, Amazon and Poppy.  Shilpa was just coming back from a hack with Luke, she is hacking out quite well on her own now and Luke reported that she was fine with her feet, she was a little sweaty so they had obviously had a bit of a canter which was good.  Chris Keable had been over to the yard earlier in the week and agreed with what the rest of us thought, the breakover needs to come back a bit, which it will in time, but otherwise they were pretty good.  Amazon was looking great, she has the most amazing feet it is such a shame that she never got to run barefoot on the racecourse.  We have pretty much got our plans sorted out for her, more news to follow shortly.  Poppy was on the horse walker when we arrived warming up before doing a bit of work on the lunge and then loose in the school.  She was slightly distracted by a small grey pony that was turned out in the paddock next door, I think she thought it was going to eat her which is a bit weird because she is stabled next door to it at the moment.  It was great to see her move and she is starting to get a really good relationship with Simon which is fantastic.  They finished the session with a bit of loose follow my leader and then she stood patiently for about five minutes with Simon's arm thrown over her back while he chatted to us.  Simon thinks it is really important that horses can just stand a chill for a bit, she has got quite a busy mind so this is a good lesson for her to learn.

After a quick cup of coffee at the yard and a late breakfast in our local Little Chef we were heading back the way we came to get on the M25 to head over to Horsham.  First stop was Moorcroft Thoroughbred rehabilitation centre, we are looking for a horse charity to support along the lines of our relationship with Racing Welfare.  Moocroft was suggested to us by a trainer in Lambourn so we wanted to pop in and have a look and introduce ourselves.  They have great facilities, they really believe in educating horse owners about the training required when taking on an ex-racehorse and their courses are very popular with both TB and other breed owners.  John and I were both impressed with the professionalism of the centre and the horses looked great.


From there we went over to the Racehorse Sanctuary, this is a small charity that has recently moved in to a yard that Graham and Sue have spent many years sorting out to make it suitable.  There is still some planned work to be done but the most important bits, eg the bits for the horses are in place.  We met Moorcroft Boy, it's hard to believe he is 27, he doesn't look it at all and still enjoys having a bit of a hooley in the paddock.  We met all the horses in the sanctuary and enjoyed greatly the stories about their past careers and what their personalities are like now.


Next stop was over to see George Gorman, George is the apprentice jockey that EPDS sponsors, at only 16 he recently had his first race under rules coming second to Barbers Shop who is trained by Nicky Henderson and owned by the Queen.  George showed us around the yard and we met all the horses including one who George thinks a lot of but unfortunately he isn't a happy traveller.  George now spends 30 minutes hacking him to the gallops and there is some plan for him to do a point to point at their local course which is only two miles away from their yard, I can't imagine many horses get hacked to a race meeting nowadays.  George is hoping he gets to keep the ride, I'm sure he will but maybe only to the course .........!  While we were there George showed us the reply of his race which was the first time I had seen it, I reckon George must be wearing the digi recorder out he must have played it so many times.


After leaving George we headed in to Horsham town centre to meet my friend Sally and go to my favourite chinese in the UK, the China Brasserie.  Unfortunately for John China Brasserie believe in making their spicy food quite spicy and John doesn't like too spicy so we got to stuff our faces while he looked on.  Sally is a riding instructor in her spare time so she has agreed to give John a lesson on her horse soon, should be interesting as Candy is a part bred Andalucian highly trained to weight aids.


We got home about midnight absolutely exhausted but full of plans for the future so it was a great day.

Road To Newmarket - John Starts To Learn To Ride

The more time John spends around racing life, the more he harbours a secret desire to learn to ride.  Not sure whether this stems from his childhood with female relatives doing riding and ballet and the boys doing cricket and football, or whether he has worked out that in riding stables the ratio of females to males is about 20:1 and horsey men are (sometimes physically) fought over.  Anyway he wants to learn to ride, he really would like to do a race and ultimately I think he would like to do a jump race (!).


Those of us that have been riding since the age of about three chuckle at this, there is no doubt it is easier to learn to ride when you are young, particularly as there is that weird phenomenon that ground increases in hardness for each decade you get to.  Also, as a child you are completely unaware of 'what might happen' and you haven't yet got to the stage where as an adult you are completely in control of your own life, but you are never fully 100% in control of a horse.  Learning that you need to work with a horse and become part of it, a bit like two dancers moving in a foxtrot, or maybe an Argentine tango when it comes to jumping, comes hard and it is a skill that some people never learn, that is the difference between a rider, and a good rider.  Technique can be taught but feel is harder to achieve.


I know of four men that have learnt age 30+ two of them in their 40/50's so it can be done, what it takes is a good teacher, a good horse and in the early stages a pair of well padded jockey shorts.  Nowadays you can start to learn on a mechanical horse, people may laugh a bit at this but for the sake of a horse I think it is a great idea.  My friend Sally works in Hyde Park and regularly sees the new police and army recruits learning to ride in the park, this seems like far too much an expanse of grass for my liking.  Sally says she can tell when it is going a bit wrong as the riding master gets them all to circle a tree while they get back under control.  If they get to the next tree and start circling again it's really not going well.  It's not unusual for the new recruits to be riding an hour and not get past three trees.  


John had his first lesson yesterday at Cullinghood in Pangbourne, Cullinghood has a Racewood simulator, these are the people that make the simulators the jockeys use for technique and fitness.  Theirs is a dressage model which I also think is good, get the foundations correct before pulling your stirrups up, if your foundations are good you should be able to ride any style.  Cullinghood's simulator is a deluxe model, it is a cross between a simulator and a Wii game, the horse has sensors so it can check whether you are sat central in the saddle and how you are using your legs.  It also has a neck that flexes so you can steer and it shows how much contact is on the reins, and any uneven contact.  When you have a lesson you can have automatic mode, where the horse is set to move in a particular pace (walk, trot or canter) or you can have manual mode where you apply the aids and you get what you ask for.  John had some trot to halt and a couple of times possibly extended trot with an inadvertent application of a leg, it also has a mane that is great to hold on to (we've all been there John, there is no shame!).

John had a 30 minute lesson and by the end of it was quite red faced and sweaty, he rode in all three paces but not surprisingly it was the rising trot that proved tricky.  Personally I would have dropped his stirrups down a couple of holes, it will also be easier when he is wearing riding boots, chaps and jodhpurs as this will help the position of the iron on his foot and also stabilise the lower leg a bit.  I reckon he needs at least four sessions on the simulator before being introduced to a real horse.  It was a very positive start however and plan is now for him to knock up some hours on the sim before getting on a real horse and going out for a little pootle with an instructor.  The yard is near Yattendon forest so there should be no shortage of trees should the need arise.

EPDS Racing Welfare BTO Results - 2

Today was the second leg of the EPDS Racing Welfare best turned out series at Warwick.  Warwick very kindly gave us another race as the previous meeting had been abandoned, luckily the weather was glorious for racing today so there was no chance that it would not go ahead.


I think word had got out about the series because the standard of turn out in the 3.10pm was very high, the judges had a lot of deliberation before they were able to pick 1st, 2nd and 3rd.


The results were:


1st Freddie Green - Thomas Crapper/R Dickin
2nd Heather Bishop - Queens Grove/K Bishop
3rd Judith Jones - Al Sirat/M Appleby


Well done to all three grooms and yards.  A photo of the winning trio along with John Powell from EPDS Racing and Stephanie King from Racing Welfare presenting the prizes:

The yard league table currently stands at:

15pts - C E Longsdon

15pts - R Dickin

10pts - W Greatrex

10pts - K Bishop

 5pts - Miss V Williams

 5pts - M Appleby

BTO Series - Second Leg Tomorrow

Good luck to everyone in the second leg of the best turned out series, the 3.10 at Warwick tomorrow (the European Breeders Fund "National Hunt" Novices' Hurdle (Qualifier).


There are 14 horses entered so it is sure to be a difficult choice for the judges.  Warwick very kindly gave us another race when the previous meeting on 11th February was abandoned due to the bad weather.  Charlie Longsdon and Warren Greatrex both have runners in the race, their yards came 1st and 2nd last month so this could be a chance for one of them to pull ahead.


We will report the results here tomorrow. Further information can be found on www.epds-racing.co.uk and www.racingwelfare.co.uk.

Poppy - Our New Filly

We went along to Ascot sales yesterday to see some of the horses we had marked in the catalogue as of interest.  This was for a horse not so much to replace Maisey as she is irreplaceable to us but I suppose it is ok to say to replace her as a horse in training as we are pretty much certain she will be going off to be a broodmare shortly.

When we bought Maisey we liked the fact that she had not done any jumping before, taking that a stage further we started thinking about a horse that had never even raced before that was a completely blank canvas.  I had to say this idea came from our visits to the studs where we were introduced to some wonderful youngstock.

We were not particularly worried about a filly or gelding (psst, I wanted a filly) but did want something that was mature for it's age that hadn't been over worked as a youngster and so given time to develop without too many stresses and strains on it's joints.  There were several in the catalogue that we liked the sound of but the horse that caught our eye was a filly by Strategic Prince, unnamed but with the stable name of Poppy.

Poppy posing after the sale, if only she was looking at the camera

Poppy wasn't left with any hay or water but we managed to 'borrow' some from Ascot

Her eyes really aren't that shade of green

I'm not sure what John said to her but it may have been a bit rude for a young girl

What I liked about Poppy was her confirmation, she is also eye catching and will be more so when her summer coat has come through and she has matured a bit more.  I also liked her manners in the stable and she is the sort of horse that likes a bit of fuss which I think is important in a partnership horse.  When she was walked and trotted up for us she showed she had a bit of a sparky side to her once she got her feet on the grass which I was pleased to see.

The catalogue describes her as:

A lovely, kind filly with no soundness issues. Out of a winning dam by a top young sire who in turn is by Dansili (GB). This filly is good to shoe, box and groom. Also a good ride for a girl. Has been allowed time to mature and has seen Lingfield Park racecourse for an exercise gallop. A sure fire winner in the future with ability to match. Present trainer would be delighted to train this horse for the new owner and sadly for sale to help recover a debt.

Poppy has come from T McCarthy's yard and he said exactly the same as the catalogue, we also spoke to the groom that was with her and she was very positive as well.  I think they were slightly bemused by my excitement in seeing that she wasn't wearing shoes, they also don't turn the horses in training out so was a little confused about my questions regarding her temperament with other horses in a paddock.

John liked her breeding, Strategic Prince (8 y o standing at Coolmore Stud) is a stallion known for adding speed and himself the son of the famous stallion Dansili; this certainly is something that promises a real turn of foot but could be considered a weakness for a National Hunt horse. However, we looked closely at her dam side, and her dam sire (Josr Algahoud) is the sire of several well regarded National Hunt horses, including Charlie Mann's respected novice chaser How's Business and the hurdler Daldini, with plenty of soft ground form in the breeding.

Luckily for us Peter from PFN Transport was at the sales and he agreed to take her back to Simon's for her, we had actually bought her by the time he arrived at Ascot as the traffic was bad.  Peter handles the horses really well and gives them a good journey.  We decided we would put the lorry on the bank where there is a gate that can swing behind, we had been told she was green at loading but would go in in time.  At Ascot you can only handle a horse out of a box with either a bridle or chiffney on, Peter leant us a chiffney while he went to wait his turn to get the lorry in to position.  Once we were good to go I led her out, she posed for a couple of photographs and then we walked through the car park and up the bank.  Everything was good up until the point I was on top of the bank (with a four foot unshielded drop on to concrete either side) and the guys decided a block of wood was needed to stop the ramp from wobbling on one side. Standing on the top of a bank, with a young horse, is not the best place to be, particularly when people helpfully started dragging wheely bins around and generally clattering about.  At this point I decided we needed to get off the bank before a nasty accident occurred.  The chiffney had a long rope on it but I hate them with a passion so we spent an interesting few minutes with me trying to move her feet but not pull on the chiffney and her going 'oh my god blue wheely bins, oh my god bits of paper flapping about, oh my god everyone is leaving me and I am on my own .........'  Good learning point for me, always make sure I have  rope halter in the car with a long rope so I can use that instead of the chiffney.

As they said she would be she was a little sticky to load but we bought the gates behind her and she went in without getting wound up about things.  Peter had given her a large box instead of a partition with a big hay net so she travelled loose to Simon's and he didn't hear a peep out of her for the entire journey.  Of course she walked back down the ramp as cool as a cucumber and in to her stable so that was good.

Simon rang an hour or so later to say she was settling in ok and that he liked her, she will be in the overflow yard for a week or so before she moves in to the main yard, she will have bloods taken and will generally be checked over.  We usually get the teeth done and a visit from the physio at this point to give them a bit of an MOT, she will also go on the horse walker and Simon will start to assess her, we are already talking about the possibility of Junior Bumpers for her.

We now have the fun part of marketing her for the new partnership, I am hoping as she is barefoot already she will be of interest to some of the barefoot community.  We also get to think up a name for her, we like the prefix Loxley and her dam is Haiti Dancer so I suggested choosing the name of a dance beginning with 'L', sadly neither John or Ian liked 'Loxleys Lambada' I have no idea why ;)

More info can be found on our website www.epds-racing.co.uk or via email of info@epds-racing.co.uk.

EPDS Road Trip

It seems like John and me have done nothing but drive around the countryside recently looking at yards and horses.  I never thought I could reach saturation point but I think yesterday may just have finished me off, especially as we were driving for about 8.5 hours.  It was a very positive day however and another where we met some great people and horses.


First stop was Dunraven Stud to see Dr Massini.  Dunraven is a great yard which is getting more facilities all the time, hidden behind a little unmade road and mill house (or at least that is the way the sat nav took us) it opens up into fantastic farmland with converted farm buildings of welsh stone and slate.  The Head stud groom is a lady called Jess who is a diminutive person and it was great to see the sympathetic way she handled both the stallions (we also saw Bach who stands at the stud).  Dr Massini was a little up because it is the start of the season for him, spring is in the air and the three horses coming back from exercise could just have been three mares coming in his direction ........ :)  Jess takes everything in her stride and for me it proved that women are just as capable of handling stallions as men and actually good horsemanship is about timing, skill and empathy and not brute strength yanking down on the end of a chiffney.  Dr Massini was looking stunning and for me is heading the leader board of stallions for Amazon at the moment.  While we were there David and Jess kindly showed us around the rest of the yard, we saw the foaling boxes which had the deepest straw beds I have ever seen in my life, cctv cameras, heat lamps and monitors for the mares.  The mares that come in overnight at the moment live in large barn sections which gives them loads of room to move around and doesn't make them feel they are shut up in a stable.  We also saw some yearlings, those that were in were also in small social groups in the barns, all the horses including the youngsters were very friendly and chilled out.


While we were there we mentioned that we were going on to see a potential new racehorse for us so David and Jess took us through to the training part of the yard which we didn't even know existed before we visited to see some of the four year olds they are working on at the minute.  The yard has great facilities to cope with the bad weather and keep the horses in work, indoor horsewalker and a small indoor school as well as similar facilities outdoor and a gallop around the fields.  We got introduced to loads of horses by a variety of stallions including two by Generous who were lovely.  Having spent a lot of time at the sales recently it was great to see well mannered horses who you could run your hands over and not be in fear of them lifting a foot up at you.  One horse, a young chestnut mare called Betty we were particularly taken with which caused a lot of conversation in the car on the way back out of Wales to the next yard.


Next stop was Wriggle Valley Thoroughbreds, this is a small family business run by Doug Proctor, we met Doug a few months ago at Wincanton and he kindly got in touch  when he heard about the retirement of Amazon.  He has also used Dr Massini in the past with his own mares and can offer broodmare boarding and foaling down facilities.  Lovely family yard on an organic farm with lots of mares looking like they could foal any minute which is going to keep them all busy.  Doug took us around the farm to see the summer paddocks and a couple of youngsters that they have, as ever I was in the back of a 4x4 sliding around in the mud and after John had put his foot down a bit in the journey over to the yard because we were running late I was feeling pretty car sick.  Luckily for me we walked back to the yard leaving the car where it was, I have now extended my 'don't get in to a car driven by a NH trainer' to include 'or breeder'!!


As ever while we were there we saw a horse that Doug is thinking of selling, a really cracking son of Tamure who is well built and looks ready to start doing some work on a racecourse soon.  He had a great temperament and should go on to be a chaser when he gets older.  This gives us a bit of a dilemma because at the moment  our business model is to buy mares to race, breed a foal when they retire if we can as future horse for ourselves and then re-school as a riding horse.  Obviously a gelding doesn't quite fit in to this model .....


We have a few more to see on Tuesday which I am sure will complicate things even further.


On the way back home we popped in to see Shilpa and Amazon.  Simon reports that Shilpa is coping fine with her newly barefoot hooves and she certainly seemed very well, I am sure her hooves have grown already and the shoes have only been off a little while.  Amazon just looks more and more relaxed and happy every time we see her, she really loves fuss and attention now whereas before she could be a little reserved.  Luckily for us she is a bold and relaxed horse because somehow when we shut her stable door behind us the kick bolt dropped down locking us in. I had to push her back out of the way while John hurdled over the stable door to be able to let me out.  Luckily only Amazon and Shilpa saw our embarrassing situation, I am sure they were laughing their heads off when we left the yard however!