Newmarket Sales Week

Last week was a good one with three winners, two at Exeter on Tuesday and another at Wincanton on Sunday.  Soulard was ridden by young amateur jockey Tom Bellamy who was a late replacement for Kieron Edgar.  I thought that Tom gave Soulard a good ride despite the obvious expectations upon him that come with riding a 1/9 shot – this was his first winner for me since joining us at Pond House and I hope that it is the first of many.  My Brother Sylvest completed a double for the yard when winning nicely in the three runner handicap hurdle, but the handicapper obviously saw something that I missed – reacting by putting him up by a whopping 16lbs!  Most Cheltenham Festival winners would struggle to get a rise like that, nevermind a winner of a three runner race at Exeter!

Consequently we had to turn My Brother Sylvest out again at Wincanton before the assessor could have his say, and he duly followed-up that success with Conor O’Farrell offsetting some of the penalty with his 3lbs claim.  He is in entered again for Chepstow on Tuesday as well as a number of other meetings so he could be kept busy in the short term.

My Brother Sylvest follows-up at Wincanton on Sunday - he bids for the
hat-trick this afternoon (Tuesday) at Chepstow 

I will be attending the Horses In Training Sale at Newmarket this week looking to buy more potential jumping superstars.  We have a proven track record of finding the right horse for the right money and it is not necessary to pay ridiculous amounts to secure a decent horse – recent examples are Royal Ascot and Cheltenham Festival winner Junior, Midlands National winner Minella Four Star and Punchestown Festival winner Street Entertainer (to name but a few) that are all high-class animals bought for sensible money.  If you would like to purchase a horse, or would like to join a syndicate I would be happy to speak with you on an informal, no obligation basis to discuss your requirements.

We have a number of entries for the remainder of the week (full running plans can be found on Chester’s Daily Chat), including some familiar names such as Ashkazar who is entered in Wetherby’s Johns Smith’s Hurdle (a race my father won with the great Pridwell),former Hennessy Gold Cup winner Madison du Berlais who is engaged in a novices’ hurdle at Fontwell and high class hurdler Notus de la Tour who is being prepared for a novice chasing campaign.

I spoke with Peter Thomas about all of those and more when he visited the yard earlier in the week for the Racing Post’s stable tour feature.  We even gave him the leg up on one of our dark horses (pictured below) – Peter is the latest in a long line of visitors that have been taken for a spin on our equicisor (a training and practice tool for our jockeys) and his picture will take pride of place alongside his Racing Post colleague Ben Newton!  The stable tour will appear in the Racing Post next Monday and should make for interesting reading…don’t forget to pick up your copy.

Racing Post journalist Peter Thomas takes our equicisor for a spin - move over McCoy!