Sales Galore!

While the summer is traditionally our quiet time of the year, there is still plenty of work to be done behind the scenes.  Although the majority of the horses are out on their holidays, we have just started to bring in a few of the horses you will be watching over the winter and the yard will start to fill up again from this point on.  Nevertheless, the break has provided a good opportunity to conduct some house-keeping and maintenance work around the yard.

It also gives us a chance to focus on building the strength of our squad for the forthcoming season.  I have only just arrived back from the Tattersalls Derby Sales in Ireland where I was able to pick up four nice youngsters, among them a three year old filly by Beneficial out of a mare that we enjoyed success with, Christdalo who is currently for sale - further details can be found here.  We also bought back an exciting young winning point-to-pointer, Great Choice who I hope you will be hearing plenty more of in the future.

Meanwhile today (Tuesday) I will be travelling over to France for the start of the Arqana Deauville Sales which has traditionally been a very happy hunting ground for me.  Indeed, at these sales over the past few years I have been able to pick up the likes of Dynaste, Grands Crus, Gevrey Chambertin and Vieux Lion Rouge to name but a few and I hope to be able to secure a few more future stars this time around.  We do have a proven track record of finding the right horse for the right money, so if you would like to join the ranks as an owner at Pond House, do feel free to contact me for a no obligation chat about your requirements.

Looking back, we enjoyed another good weekend with an across the card double at Salisbury and Uttoxeter on Sunday.  Beyond (pictured above and right) gave us our third winner of the flat campaign when successful in the 1m6f handicap (and my first success at Salisbury) under leading apprentice rider Thomas Brown.  In a race run at a fast pace, stamina was always likely to be at a premium and fortunately Beyond has that in abundance and he was able to maintain the gallop to score by 1½ lengths from Sula Two.  I think that Thomas was actually more tired than the horse when he dismounted (these flat races aren’t all five furlong sprints!), however he is clearly a very promising jockey – a strike rate of 23% is comparable to the very best pilots around and I am sure there is plenty to come from him.  I hope there is more to come from Beyond too and he will be aimed at more staying contests on the flat, while he ought to be able to pick up a hurdle or two from a mark of 115.

Kusadasi completed the double with a pillar to post success in the 2m4½f handicap hurdle at Uttoxeter taking our seasonal total over jumps to eleven.  Given a fine, positive ride by Tom Scudamore the only anxious moment came when he made a mistake at the last hurdle.  We had thought about taking him out owing to the lively ground but I am glad we didn’t and this success now opens up further opportunities for him throughout the summer.

There really isn’t much in the way of jumps action this week with only four National Hunt fixtures taking place before Sunday, so we will be having several runners at Worcester tomorrow.  Most Eligible, a good winner of a bumper at the track on his racecourse debut bids to follow-up, while Garryleigh will also try to follow-up a last time out success.  Decoy and Bathwick Man will be our other runners.  The remainder of the week looks relatively quiet with Purple ‘N Gold a possible runner on the flat at Nottingham on Saturday night, while Waterunder could run at Market Rasen on Sunday.

For all the other news from the yard, including reports of any purchases from France you can keep up to date by visiting Chester’s Daily Chat or by following us on Twitter @DavidPipeRacing.