Focus On Farrant!

With a quiet week on the runners front I took the opportunity to spend a couple of days up in Scotland with owners Sean and Josie Tracey.  We had an enjoyable time racing at Perth – I can’t remember the last time I was able to go along to a race meeting without having to rush around, saddle our runners, liaise with owners, discuss tactics with the jockeys and the like…it was certainly a nice change, but not something I would be looking to do on a regular basis!  Whilst we were there the rain even relented long enough to get in a few holes of golf at the famous Gleneagles golf club.

While we are on the subject of golf, you may recall that a few weeks ago I participated in a prestigious charity golf event that is organised annually by Jim Old in aid of the Injured Jockeys Fund.  While not exactly double tailed-off, it would be reasonable to suggest that our team never really threatened the leaders and now for the first time I can tell you why…the video below (and apologies that it is shot in landscape mode) shows Ashley Farrant terrorising the green keepers in yesterday’s Hemyock Classic – an event that a number of our staff participate in each year.

Ashley Farrant 1st Tee

I won’t be too mean to Ashley as it was his birthday on Saturday, but he managed to lose six balls in nine holes during practice before the Jim Old day, and from the video you can see that he hasn’t improved much since then!  I think calling his tee shot on the first hole ‘a slice’ might be stretching the imagination a bit!  Perhaps Chester might be able to give him a few pointers?

In the interests of fairness though, I will give Ashley a chance to redeem himself and below he is the latest star in our series of staff interviews with SIS broadcaster Mike Vince.  Ashley, who rode plenty of winners for my father as an amateur jockey and indeed, was champion point-to-point rider whilst I was training ‘between the flags’ talks of his role since returning to Pond House and nominates a very nice horse to follow for the remainder of the season.

Ashley Farrant Horse To Follow 2013/14

Over at Chester’s Chat we are featuring the video of Gail Harrison, secretary at Pond House for almost thirty years.

We have had one runner this afternoon (Monday) at Newton Abbot, Purple ‘N Gold who finished runner-up in the novices’ handicap hurdle.  I thought that he ran another solid race to finish runner-up on this softer ground and there certainly would appear to be more races to be won with him either over hurdles or on the level.  It’s a shame he couldn’t have gone one better to provide a topical winner following the victory of the Minnesota Vikings in the NFL match at Wembley yesterday evening.  The governing body really does make an amazing spectacle of their sport – it’s a shame that we can’t raise the same sort of fanfare and razzmatazz for horse racing in this country.

Our next runners will not be until Fontwell or Hexham on Friday at the earliest – we have made entries for Street Entertainer, Basil Fawlty, Soliwery and Kings Palace at the Sussex track, while Decoy and Basil Fawlty have engagements at Hexham.   On Sunday the stable has My Brother Sylvest (pictured above) entered at Huntingdon, while Soliwery and Sir Frank are entered at Uttoxeter.  With all of the recent rain the ground has altered quite considerably so we will keep one eye on the skies before deciding on the best opportunities for each of those.

We are always on the lookout for potential new stars to join our team and there are plenty more sales at home and abroad coming up shortly, but one thing that occurred to me when I was watching a race from Enghien-Soisy last week, was how many more flights the French horses jump.  The race in question was a 3500m (or 2m1½f) hurdle and while in most cases they would jump eight flights in this country, at Enghien they had to jump fifteen!  Perhaps that goes some way to explaining why the French horses always seem to know what they are doing from a young age.

Finally, I was saddened to learn of the sudden passing of prominent owner Patsy Byrne this morning.  It is well documented that Patsy was a successful owner of both racehorses and greyhounds, but he was also a big supporter of racing in this country, sponsoring big races through his company Byrne Group Ltd.  Patsy had a number of horses at Pond House throughout the years and was a wonderful man to have dealt with – he will be sadly missed by the racing world and our thoughts are with his wife Bridget and family at this very sad time.