Two Cheltenham meetings done, and the Paddy Power Gold Cup in the record books, the jumps season is in full swing. The flat season did not depart quietly. It was great to see the Breeders Cup on terrestrial television this year, with ITV Racing at Del Mar. I really enjoyed the two days of action.
I will always be a jumps’ man at heart though, and I have really enjoyed the early season skirmishes! There were some good performances at Cheltenham, where again the form of the October meeting carried through to November; there can be no doubting the importance of course form at that track. I thought Adagio ran a cracker under top weight in the Greatwood, and I witnessed firsthand the amazing “sit” by Rachael Blackmore on Gin and Lime, when I was sure that both horses in the race had fallen at the same fence. That second last fence proved troublesome to many over the course, during the meeting, and I am not sure why, as I do not remember seeing as many mistakes there in previous years.
There should be some good racing at Christmas with many of the big races starting to look very attractive.
BG Racing – On The Track
The BG Racing horses were both in action in October.
After finishing 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the summer and autumn, Dynamic Kate was 3rd again at Ffos Las in October. She is certainly knocking on the door, and will definitely win when things fall her way, but we had a scare when she suddenly went very lame a couple of hours after the race. Scans were negative, but when there was no improvement in the following days, we got the vets in again. This time they found a hairline fracture in her left hind leg. This kind of thing always has you fearing the worst, but thankfully we were given a very good prognosis, and she is expected to return to the same level, once she has recovered from the operation that was scheduled to pin the bone. She was due a winter holiday anyway, and the recovery time is three months, so the two dovetailed nicely and I have had no qualms about renewing her shareholding, as was necessary on 31st October. It does mean that her share price has gone up a bit with the extra costs, but hopefully she will win some prize money this year, which will help offset that.
Far Too Beautiful was also out again in October at Leicester, where she ran in an amateur riders’ race. She hung right in the home straight, and only narrowly failed to finish 4th despite that. This was always going to be her last race before the Spring, and we found some muscle spasm in her right shoulder, which would explain her hanging, and could explain other disappointing runs over the summer. Fortunately, a couple of months off should sort that out and she is already enjoying her winter break.
Having both horses on holiday meant possibly no racing for a couple of months, so I was delighted when Michael Attwater suggested leasing me a hurdler on a month to month basis for the winter. He will probably be no superstar, but shareholders are looking forward to chances to go racing.
Christmas at BG Racing
We will be having winter stable visits to one of our yards in December with a Christmas lunch to follow, and to the other yard in January, which we hope to combine with a visit to the Winter Million meeting at Lingfield Park. Social events are all part of the syndicate ownership experience, and it is great to see happy faces around the yard, spending time with the horses and feeding them some carrots!
Podcast
The new Twitter account that I set-up for the Inside The Rails podcast, has resulted in November already being a record breaking month for downloads! If you are a Twitter user, then following @InsidetheRails and liking and retweeting a few of our tweets would be really appreciated, as I try to grow our following further. The latest episode features an interview with Rod Street, the CEO of Great British Racing, who was a really interesting guy to chat to. It also features my review of Cheltenham’s October meeting. The November meeting review will be in the next podcast episode at the start of December. You can find us by searching for “Inside The Rails” on Apple or Google podcasts, or on Spotify, or any other podcast app that you may use.
Any Questions?
As ever, if you have any questions about racehorse ownership, or about anything I mention in these monthly articles, please feel free to get in touch. I am always happy to chat about racing, and I would be happy to answer your questions personally, or even write a future article on whatever subject you are interested in!
