Horses First Racing

Previous Newsletter - 03rd April 2008

April Newsletter

03rd April 2008

Another winner and the horses are running well

We started the last newsletter with news of a win on the flat and I'm delighted to follow up in this edition with the announcement of a recent National Hunt winner. The classy Desert Quest won a novice chase at Ludlow on March 20th to get Jeremy off the mark over jumps in fine style. The horse (pictured above left) jumped well throughout and went on to win by a length and a half under Liam Heard from City Affair. Never one to do more than he has to, he came home in excellent order and the race doesn't appear to have taken much out of him. Quest's next engagement is set to be an exciting one. He is all set to run at Aintree today (Thursday) as part of the Grand National meeting in the 2 mile Handicap Chase at 16.20, shown live on BBC2. He also holds entries at the Punchestown Festival at the end of the month in the €110,000 Grade 1 Novice Chase, as well as the Champion Hurdle. Another option is the Scottish Champion Hurdle on April 19th. He is a class horse and deserves his chance at a big prize. The rest of the team are doing well too, with our last seven runners being placed 1st, 2nd 3rd, 4th, 4th and 6th. When I mentioned this to Jeremy recently he said "yeah, that's terrible isn't it". Typical Australian sporting mentality!

Introducing Coops

I'm absolutely delighted to introduce you to our new Assistant Trainer, Paul Cooper. 'Coops' (pictured below) joins the yard having previously been a highly regarded Head Lad to the David Hayes empire at Lindsay Park in South Australia. Lindsay Park was set up in the 60's by the Late Colin Hayes and instantly became a powerhouse of Australian and International Racing with hundreds of horses and a constant stream of Group 1 winners.

Coops has been lucky enough to throw his leg over some top class horseflesh including Japan Cup winner Better Loosen Up, Miss Finland (pictured below winning the Golden Slipper in 2006) and many other top class performers. His experience and feedback will be of great benefit to the yard as we bring on the young horses. His first day at the races in the UK with us brought some luck with the recent win of Desert Quest. Coops' riding expertise is extensive- in his first gallop here Jeremy asked him to ride 'even time' i.e. 15 seconds a furlong on the uphill gallop and he hit it spot on. That's a huge part of how horses are worked in Australia and it's something we will be focusing on. In fact we are seeing our own homebred riders already getting very good at riding to exact times. It's great to add such an important member to the team here as we gear up for the coming season.

New horses

It wouldn't really be a Horses First Racing newsletter without introducing you to more new horses. Danetime Lord joined the yard a few weeks ago. The five year old gelding is a useful flat horse, currently rated 82 on the all-weather. He has six wins to his name and we hope to add to that tally as he looks like a horse we can have a bit of fun with. Wendy Price, an old friend who used to have a horse in training with us, dropped by earlier in the month and kindly brought us a 2 year old filly (see photo) by Kyllachy to go into training. We will take our time with this lovely youngster and so look for her on the racecourse at the end of the summer.

Another 2 year old joining the yard is a filly by Proud Citizen who Jeremy spotted at the Goffs Kempton Breeze-up sales. He was impressed with her laid-back attitude to her work and was also taken with her movement. Her sire continues to impress with his offspring, making both her and the little fellow pictured below exciting future prospects.

The handsome chap in the photo above is a colt by Proud Citizen who was born in Kentucky earlier this year. The stud is impressed with his conformation and fearless attitude which they feel will stand him in excellent stead when he makes his way to us to start his training. He is owned by John Hawkins who has Eleanor Eloise and Cheonmado with us. Two more stunning young colts arrived today from Mark Dwyer- full details next month.

Facilities

With new horses arriving and others due back from their breaks at spelling yards, it is a relief that our new barn is nearly finished. It should be usable within a few days (you can see from the photo below that the floor in the aisle is going into place today), providing us with twelve extra boxes and thus taking the pressure off until the new 20 horse barn is completed in the summer. The floors of the new boxes are surfaced with thick rubber which should be much better for the horses' joints than the traditional concrete. We have also used this rubber in our wash-down barn and some walkways around the farm, providing us with a great - and safe - non-slip surface.

Runners

We are sending more runners out now than ever before and the numbers are set to increase further as the flat season gets underway and some of our National Hunt horses go summer jumping. Cheonmado produced his best result to date when finishing a fast-closing third, losing out on second place by a head, over a mile at Southwell on Monday. We are learning about this horse with every run and hope to be able to put the pieces together and place him to win soon. Chief Exec (pictured below) and Danetime Lord are other flat horses who have recently run well for the yard (1st, 4th and 2nd ) and should pick up some more races between them.

Northern Seren should hopefully qualify for her handicap mark on Saturday when she is set to run in a novice hurdle at Chepstow. Her half-brother and sister, Northern Endeavour and Northern Destiny, will also be out fairly soon. Northern Endeavour will make his seasonal reappearance over hurdles this month and Destiny will make her racecourse debut in a bumper. Seribase is looking a picture and should make his debut for the yard soon, possibly over 2 miles at Wincanton on April 20th. The Empty Tin (pictured below) and Silent Dream are other jumpers to look out for and last but no means least, don't forget to cheer on Desert Quest when he runs today.

The flat season

Looking further ahead, the two year olds are really coming into themselves and we couldn't be more excited about what the forthcoming flat season is set to bring us. Hanta Yo, our powerful colt by Alhaarth, is looking like a nice horse and the wonderful-natured Bahamian Bounty filly (see photo below) is also progressing well. We have 15 two year olds to work with as well as some very nice older horses (Ouninpohja, Hopeful Purchase, El Diego, Count Trevisio, Maidanni, Street Power to name just a few) to send out this season and it is no surprise that Jeremy has been picked by Boylesports' Dermot Keelan as a trainer to follow: "Jeremy Gask, who trained his first UK winner last month, has come over from Australia and his runners will certainly be worth a second look".

Thanks again for all the good wishes and support. It's going to be an amazing summer and we hope to see you at the races!