Sales Talk!

      Champion Hurdle winning trainer Arthur Pitt

It was an interesting day at the Newmarket Sales yesterday and it seemed (unsurprisingly) that the whole racing world had descended on Newmarket for the auctions.  Sat in the corner of the bar was a little old man, and I didn't realise that he was one of the few trainers to train three Champion Hurdle winners...it was of course, Arthur Pitt who had Persian War during his racing career, and he had some amazing stories to tell.

We also bumped into Amanda Perrett, who told me that she still remembers the b*llocking (her words) she had from MCP for winning by 12 lengths aboard Pertemps Network at Newton Abbot in 1988!  Amanda rode plenty of winners for the stable during her time as a jockey as did her husband Mark (who rode a couple of Cheltenham Festival winners for us aboard Sayfar's Lad and Balasani (on whom he also won the Ascot Stakes at the Royal meeting)...Talking of jockeys who rode winners for the yard, we also bumped into Lars Kelp who was a conditional for the yard many years ago.  

The Ramsdens were also out in force (including Joey from South Africa), while Alan Bailey, Neville Callaghan and Tony Martin were also present - there have been some gambles landed between those trainers down the years!

We finished up buying Street Entertainer from the Perrett yard yesterday, and both David and Martin will be searching for potential jumps superstars again at the Sales today.

  
Above left: MCP with Amanda Perrett, and right: with Lars Kelp at the Newmarket Sales yesterday

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Finally, I have a picture of a nice, young recent recruit, E Street Boy getting in a bit of jumping practice in our loose school.  As you can see from the photograph, he appeared to be thoroughly enjoying himself and jumped really well.