Horses First Racing
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Last Saturday we staged our open day and it proved to be a resounding success. Despite the murky weather forecast giving us all nightmares in the week, the clouds mercifully emptied their contents between 5am and 6am on Saturday morning and glorious sunshine prevailed thereafter. The team here had risen as early as 5am to help get the bulk of the work done before working even harder to get the yard looking in tip-top shape. From the moment the first public car pulled into the car park, it was only a matter of minutes before the lawn in front of our office was heaving with people young and old keen to see and hear what we had to offer.
Following a brief introduction from Eamonn Wilmott (see picture above), the visitors made their way down to three waiting tractor and trailers on which they could sit atop straw bales to be ferried down to the gallops. It was a reflection of just how nice a day it was that a fair proportion of the people opted to walk the half mile or so journey. Once all had assembled on the hill, Jeremy Gask took the microphone and guided the crowd through what was going on in front of them (see picture below). First of all, Nobelix, Eleanor Eloise and Medicean Man cantered around the bowl before lobbing up the hill, then two pairs of two workers (Parisian Gift and Horseshoe Reef, then Count Trevisio and Chief Exec) sped up the hill from the bottom of the spectacular new gallop. Thankfully, all the horses behaved themselves in exemplary fashion, despite the obvious distractions around and ahead of them.
From there, the trailers were reloaded with people and made their way back to the yard for a cake and coffee reception and an informal tour of the facilities. The SeaWalker, Vitafloor, Softwalker and particularly the high-speed treadmill attracted big crowds and the horses were obviously popular attractions too.
The next scheduled activity was a parade of a selection of our horses and once everyone had made their way down to the new walker and positioned themselves around its perimeter, Jeremy once again took centre stage in the middle of the enclosed lunging ring to fill everyone in on what they needed to know. With the new walker having only been completed a handful of days before, none of the horses in the parade had ever stepped foot inside it, so it is again to their great credit that the 14 horses (in pairs of two) consented to walk around the unfamiliar ring whilst surrounded on all sides by over 100 people in relatively obedient fashion. Pictured below is Ivory Silk being paraded.
Once the parade had concluded, a number of current and potential owners joined us for lunch in our owner