It has been a quiet month on the track as we’ve only had a small handful of runners, but they have pretty much all run well and I hope we can keep the scoreboard ticking throughout the summer to have a good base from which to start in the autumn. Despite not having many runners, we’ve have been flat out on the buying front with more horses acquired for the coming season from both the sales and bought privately.
Having won two on the bounce, Our Three Sons endeavoured to land the hattrick under Page Fuller at Stratford last week, but hit the crossbar when coming 2nd to a talented horse who had dropped to a decent mark.
Our Three Sons hits the crossbar.
Between the Waters is one of the most consistent horses we have in training this summer, and he was 2nd once again at Fontwell earlier this month. He jumped beautifully for Will Featherstone, and was 14 lengths clear of the 3rd horse. He has now been in the money in 6 of his 9 career starts! Surely, he’s not far away from getting his head in front.
Lord Topper won his maiden hurdle in style late last season, and I was looking forward to stepping him up in trip at Fontwell, but he was just run out of 2nd inside the final 200 yards, but he unfortunately shifted his sacroiliac and was therefore pulling himself along in front and not using his bum! Our chiropractor put it back into place and he shouldn’t be far away in a couple of weeks when trying a further step up in trip.
Lord Topper will be winning again soon.
One of our longest serving horses in the yard is Breaking Bits who won his third race last month after being second on ten other occasions. Unfortunately, he strained another tendon on his last start at Worcester and he now deserves an honourable retirement.
I went out to the Goffs Land Rover sale (the only store sale to sell Cheltenham Festival winners in 2017) in Ireland earlier in the month (where Tom Malone bought Present View previously), and I was lucky enough to buy three stores there. We bought a cracking Stowaway gelding (pictured on the left below) out of a Kings Theatre black typed Grade 2 winning mare; a Fame and Glory filly (centre below) out of a full sister to the RSA Chase winner, Cooldine; and a Martaline filly (the grey on the right below) out of a decent French mare who was closely related to Norse Dancer. All three will be in training from the back end of the summer and the Fame and Glory filly will be available for lease.
We have also bought a couple of horses with point-to-point form from both Ireland and England. Kalahari Queen (pictured below with me on board ‘trying her’) won a competitive maiden at Mollington this season and is a smashing looking Kalanisi 4-year-old mare out of a full sister to the Grade 3 winner, Kings Banquet. The Cheltenham sale always sells a decent type and I was thrilled to buy Grange Ranger (below right), another Kalanisi 5-year-old gelding out of a full sister to another Grade 3 winner, Grangeclare Lark. He fell at the last with the race at his mercy and looks another decent recruit to Folly House.
We haven’t had many runners on the track this month, but I’m pleased with how they are running and fingers crossed we can have some luck with Fact of the Matter in the Summer Cup this weekend, which is the most valuable race run over the summer months. He won 3 of his 5 starts last season, and put in a good performance last month when 3rd in a class 2 handicap at Aintree, where he didn’t get the run of the race…..with a bit of luck on our side, I hope he can win this race and follow in the footsteps of Knight Combe who won it for us in 2011 (our first year in Folly House).
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