Mount Oscar
You will probably recall from my last post that we have a horse called Fr Humphrey who is being aimed at a valuable veterans’ race at Newbury in March?
To ensure that shareholders had the chance to get to the races over the winter I paired Fr Humphrey with another horse called Mount Oliver in a “two horses for one share price” package!
The two horses are owned by the same gentleman in Ireland who was happy for us to have them to race for us for the winter.
Olly arrived at Neil Mulholland’s in October having been off the track for two years and whilst he had done some exercise, it quickly became clear that he was going to need a lot of work to get him back to race fitness!
Neil and the team have really worked him hard though and in early December, Neil suggested that we might like to look for a race over Christmas. He knew that he could not get Olly fully fit for then but felt that a race or two would get him to full fitness quicker than a load of galloping at home.
So it was that we ended up at Taunton on 30th December!
Taunton is a lovely little track, but it is somewhat in a field outside the town and over the Christmas holidays apparently everyone in the area decides to go racing.
It was packed which resulted in a great atmosphere, but it was much busier than I am used to when racing with a runner on a Monday afternoon.
Olly looked pretty fit, but Neil was concerned that he would really need the run and could struggle to finish his race, so our expectations were not high.
As it transpired, we were pleasantly surprised as he travelled well until tiring on the home turn when he plugged on to finish a respectable 7th.
Tom Scudamore rode for us and he was delighted with the feel that he had got from Olly and he felt that with more fitness in the bank, he ought to be very competitive for us in the coming weeks.
Neil thinks he may still need one more run to get him cherry ripe, but perhaps he is one for the notebook, as I will actually be a bit disappointed if he does not win a race for us in the next couple of months.
Fillies Going Forward
Our two fillies, an un-named Anjaal filly with Michael Attwater and a Yeats national hunt filly with Neil Mulholland are both progressing well.
Several shareholders came down to Neil’s in December to see the now named “Dynamic Kate” along with our other horses, Fr Humphrey, Mount Oliver and My Brother.
Kate is doing really well and she is on track to make a debut in a national hunt flat race at the back end of the season.
We saw the Anjaal filly on the gallops on 28th December and she is going really well. We will start her off on the all-weather hopefully at the back-end of January and will then hopefully campaign her right through the turf season as well.
There is plenty to look forward to!
Further Updates
I will keep you posted on progress through these blog posts and if you want a more regular update, then there is a news update on my website www.bgracingsyndicates.co.uk every week and I also post on Facebook and Twitter.
If you have any specific questions about racehorse ownership, I would also be happy to respond to them, just drop me a note via my website contact page.
