18th March 2019

Its nearing the time of year when we welcome future stars as we enter the foaling period. We have had some good foals with the few broodmares we have had; Miss Conway being the most prolific and now we are hopeful her full sister Miss Amelia will follow in her footsteps after achieving her first win last time out. Orkan is another of our homebreds out of a mare called Zefooha, and if you've seen him you'll understand why he is taking his time to meet his full potential as he verges on 17 hands. Ironically his brother Half Bolly is half the height, but what he lacks in size he makes up for in guts and determination, he's a tough little fella who can hopefully make his mark over middle distance races on the flat this summer. Our star of the breeding shed has to be Gaspara. Her name tends to crop up round Cheltenham time as she is the last horse to do the Cheltenham and Imperial Cup double in 2007 and scooping the £100,000 bonus! She is in foal to Jack Hobbs and is due in the next month or so.

The horses out on the track aren't performing too badly although it's a quiet time of the year for us. We had a nice filly by Lethal Force make her debut last week called Polaris Angel, she showed plenty of promise and we're hopeful she can progress a lot further in the months to come. Orkan, who I mentioned earlier, ran a cracking race at Doncaster, he is now qualified for handicaps but will only get better with time. His brother Half Bolly has shown promise so far but I’m confident with a bit more time he will step up to the plate. Quest For Life also put up another good effort on his chase debut and new avenues have now opened up for him as he has taken well to the larger obstacles.

The team have been in good form with Marcus getting his first winner on the board at the Holderness point to point last weekend, Marcus has only had a handful of rides so far but is learning and progressing all the time. He steered one of our former inmates Big Sound to success trained by my mum Gill. He has already done his job for Marcus but hopefully he can make it a great season for him and perhaps will make a conditional jockey in the future!

We saw some great racing at Cheltenham last week, I thought we saw some brilliant performances one of which was in the Foxhunters, a race for amateur jockeys. With most of the staff riding in point to points it was great to see a contingent of English pointers fighting it out in the finish and we were delighted to see Hazel Hill win. He has been campaigned all his life in points and has slowly risen up through the ranks even winning at our local track Sheriff Hutton a couple of years back.