Weekly Round Up

Its been a quiet week with no runners. Back at the yard we’ve started doing a bit more work with some of the more forward two year olds. We waved good bye to some nicely bred pre-training horses that have gone on to other trainers but with several arrivals in the next few days, including a couple of our favourite four year olds there’ll be plenty to keep the team busy.

We also hosted Megan Sullivan who is doing research for her Equine Science degree dissertation analysing stride length in race horses. We have been collecting data for about nine months now since Equinity who provide our performance monitoring equipment added this feature to their kit. It will be interesting to see what conclusions Megan comes to in her research although it is only a relatively small sample size at this stage, if over time we are able to replicate her findings it could certainly be useful.

On Tuesday we went to see a sharp early looking filly that a breeder is looking to lease that is currently in pre-training with Chris and Claire Bonnor in nearby Aldbourne. If anyone was looking for a horse to go racing with early in the season without having the outlay of purchase costs get in touch, as she looks and is bred to be a real early type. Her sire Hellvelyn won the Coventry at Royal Ascot and her mother Rebecca De Winter was far from disgraced in the Queen Mary, beaten less than five lengths having won a Chester maiden before Royal Ascot. Her mother is a half sister to Ripon Champion Two Year Old trophy winner Isthatright who won four races as a two year old.