25/10/20

With the clocks changing, the time has come to finally accept the end of the turf season for 2020, shortened as it has been. The ground at most of the tracks we went to was more 'ploughed' than 'heavy' as the condensed racing schedule has taken its toll on the turf surface. Hopefully the winter is kind enough for the grass to recover sufficiently for next spring. It has definitely been a successful one for us as we have almost matched last year's winners tally despite not racing for three months during the lockdown. I must thank the owners for their patience whilst there was no racing and I hope you have been rewarded with some memorable victories - the extra time off certainly benefitted most of the horses as they were given a bit longer to mature and we didn't have to rush to run them after the winter holidays.

We had a busy week just gone and a few of the horses are now packed off on their holidays for the winter so it's no surprise that we don't have many runners this week.
Winter Snowdrop made sure that we ended things on a high as she showed a great attitude to win by a nose at Chelmsford on Saturday night. The weather was absolutely horrendous with the rain pouring down and gusty winds but jockey Tyler Heard managed to get the job done despite all this. It was the filly's second win from her last three runs and rich reward for owner Carol Bushnell who has been very patient with her. Now we know the key to the filly there should be more to come next year as she is now having a break until next season.

Winter Snowdrop & Tyler Heard put their heads down on the line to win at Chelmsford

A soggy Tyler, Carol, Winter Snowdrop & Sam in Chelmsford's winner's enclosure

Elsewhere, War Empress ran another solid race in the mud at Newbury on Friday to finish third and she remains a model of consistency. She'll probably have one more run before going to the mares' sale in December so hopefully she can get a much-deserved win.
Fen Tiger put in a promising display in a hot maiden race at Newmarket the day before. He was only going there for a run but showed enough for us to give him another try before he too has a winter holiday. He will be a lovely horse for next year.
New boy Productive was a shade disappointing on his first start for us at Chelmsford but we learnt lots about him from the run and he has plenty of time during the all-weather season to get back on track.

As I said, there aren't too many horses for us to run this week and that's just as well as we will be busy at the Tattersalls Autumn horses in training sale which is the annual dispersal sale for most of the big yards and a great opportunity to find some new talent. We are hoping to purchase a couple of horses for syndication so we have been putting in plenty of catalogue research to try and find some bargains. Full details of any new horses will be posted on here next week.

Entries wise, we will just have Alibaba at Newmarket on Saturday for the track's last meeting of the year. Things will have to dry up for him however as he doesn't like really soft ground. We must be due a dry spell after all the recent rain so fingers crossed he can have a final run before enjoying the winter off.