Merry Christmas to all our website followers and friends of the yard and Owners..apologise for the lateness of the update, its been a busy time with the girls, ponies and horses at home today but now time to have a relaxing evening.
new horse at Dibble liking the look of ‘Top Cat’
It has done nothing but rain all day at Castleton and its raining heavily all across North Yorkshire tonight and tomorrow by the looks of it…will racing survive the downpour? It looks very much in the balance. Heavy rain is forecast all night tonight over Wetherby and Sedgefield, and more in the morning – we have 3 declared at Wetherby, Rumble of Thunder, Bold Henmie and lexington Bay , and Eastview Boy in the bumper at Sedgefield. The horses who are running over the new few days were of course still ridden out this morning and Sarah sent me this photo from Sharp Hill this morning – upcoming runners out on the low moor with Simon, Steve, Katie and Julie.
All the team had a ‘Secret Santa’ present giving on Christmas eve and to put a close up photo of Simon’s ‘secret’ present to Phil may get me some outraged emails, but a small picture just give you the idea…needless to say I think it is Phil’s best Christmas present or certainly the one that has made him smile the most. On the Team photo above you can see some of the gifts!
Today our eldest daughter Izzy (10) opened a special present – her racing colours and breeches for next years Shetland Grand National racing – she can’t wait to have a go and takes place in her first training day in April at Newmarket – we just have to train the shetland up well before then to jump and gallop in a pack! She looks so grown up in her silks we can hardly believe it. The 29th sees her first day going out Hunting on him with The Cleveland – and Phil will be taking Foxhunter hope, King’s Grey – providing its on! They both went out for their annual ‘Christmas Day hack’ this morning, thankfully before the rain started to fall.
We are not going to go into too much depth about tomorrow as we are not holding our breath it will be on, but perhaps our best chance of the day may be the bumper horse ‘Eastview Boy’ who ran a pleasing race on debut and looks a nice each way price for the frame again. Its a tricky bumper though, and all the races we are in tomorrow look competitive. It will be a big ask for Rumble to carry top weight first time out on heavy ground, and while we think the flat winner Lexington Bay wants soft, we are really not sure he wants it heavy over hurdles, nor Bold Henmie who looks too high in the handicap at present. I think we can guardedly say we wont be repeating our fantastic TREBLE of last Boxing Day, although we will be delighted to be proved wrong!
A reminder of last years Boxing Day wide margin winners – Bedale Lane, Hail the Brave and Istimraar.Boxing daywinners…
Meg has sent me some photos from Sharp Hill yesterday, and I am adding a few from Castleton today…
Cureent stable star, Courtown Oscar
Two year old Dalakhani colt, Rajapur
Splash of verve talking to Tara Time
City Dreams
The Monsun gelding and entered at Catterick – Keep Up
