Browse News
News Archive
Other news can be filtered by narrowing your results by month, or by topic on the left. Alternatively, if you are looking for something specific, why not try searching for news using our search tool.
Visitors from far and wide
24th June 2008
We had another influx of foreign visitors last week, giving the yard a bit of an international feel. Jeremy had a visit from his good friend, the Australian vet Darren Arnold, who was over in the UK for a conference and took the opportunity to call in and see how Jeremy had settled in. His visit coincided with that of Pierre Bens, Managing Director of Belebro, who had brought three scientists to come and look at our new world-class water filtration system and also our walkers, which Belebro supply the parts for. When visitors travel from all over Europe, and indeed the world, to come and see our facilities in action it serves as a reminder to us of how lucky we are to be able to use such pioneering technology in our horses' training regimes. The man on the far left of the photo below is Justin Chittendon, a fantastic friend of mine and Managing Director of the Equine Health Centre who manufacture both the Seawalker and the Softwalker. Jeremy and Darren are next to him and then come George Brom (from Vital Water Systems), Pierre, Loek da Regk (Filtration and purification expert), Paul Vdenheigden (a water scientist) and myself.
I had looked forward to taking Jeremy to his first Royal Ascot for a while and our day out at the festival last Thursday did not disappoint. Joining us and our wives were fellow directors Harry Findlay (and his beautiful wife Kay) and Graham Doyle (both pictured below with myself).
We had a marvellous day, Jeremy and his wife Kerry got to see the queen close up (see photo below) which they were very pleased about. Our tip for the first day, Henrythenavigator, duly obliged (sorry price was so short!) and let me say right now the horse of the week for me was The Duke of Marmalade. The Duke was still 5-1 this morning for the King George next month and even at half that price I make him a nap. Tonight Harry's lovely young bitch Flying Winner runs in the final of the williamhill.co.uk TV Trophy and is a big favourite in trap1. We all think she'll win and so if you hear cheering at 9.45 tonight coming from the farm don't be alarmed.
Jeremy made it through a typhoon to Australia safely over the weekend. In typical Australian parlance the flight was "a bit ordinary". He's already checking out the local talent (equine) and we will have some more Australian members of the team soon.
We should soon be back to having plenty of horses heading to the races every week. Those with entries in early July include Ravenna, Gaborone, Danetime Lord, Seribase, Northern Endeavour, Silent Dream, Cheonmado and perhaps most excitingly, Yanza: the very first of our recently purchased two year olds to make her racecourse debut. This lovely little filly by Bahamian Bounty has been working nicely at home and has turned into a bit of a favourite at the yard. She holds multiple entries over the next couple of weeks and we are all looking forward to seeing her progress. Ravenna (pictured below) will be another interesting one as she is yet to race for the yard and really seems to have come into herself in the recent months, as has Silent Dream who has been off the track for nearly two years but looks and feels fantastic.
