April 29th Update
We thought we would have two runners last Saturday, but horse welfare always trumps anything else, and the firm ground meant both Surrey Lord and Surrey King not running. Surrey King wasn’t even declared as Leicester were aiming for good to firm ground come raceday, and so now he has been entered to run on Sunday at Salisbury, the race currently scheduled for 4.20 is a class 3 maiden over 12 furlongs. Salisbury have been watering the course and there is some rain in the forecast so hopefully he’ll make his seasonal debut.
Surrey Lord was declared to run at Sandown but with the jockeys reporting far faster ground than advertised and the ground continuing to dry out in the spring sunshine, Toby was forced to pull Lord out of the race, much to the frustration of the 16 owners already at Sandown. We haven’t spoken with Toby this week, so we’ll update on Lord’s plans when we know more.
As I was sitting on my flight last week, I was pondering the price we paid for Hillsyde Hope. €55k is not a small sum for a NH horse, a horse that obviously won’t have value as a stallion, nor be bought for his sprinting ability in richer climes such as Australia or Hong Kong. Spare a thought then for the buyers of Monster Truck, who appeared in the ring at the Tattersalls Cheltenham Festival sale after winning his debut point to point (maybe Hillsyde Hope would have if he didn’t make a mistake at the last). The bidders of Ben Pauling and Willie Twiston-Davies sparred to buy a maybe one day festival competitor and at £500k, Pauling appeared to have upper hand until Gordon Elliott jumped in and ruined it for both with a winning bid of £530k - an incredible amount for an NH horse and one I think that made our purchase look good value. Time will tell but maybe add Monster Truck to your tracker !
The other horses are well. Surrey Etoile is now in a small paddock and enjoying some freedom after his box rest. He had x-rays last week which showed the bone is healing perfectly although because of the pins he does have a slightly odd, shaped fetlock which should improve as the healing process continues, the vet has no concerns and said it’s purely aesthetic. He’ll have his final x-ray in about 4 weeks’ time and after that we will discuss the next steps.
Surrey Moon is still on course for Windsor on May 11th. He’s been very slow to come to hand and is making his debut nearly a year after when we thought he would. He has continued to grow in that time and isn’t the small horse we bought for a knock down price. Stablemate Surrey Bolt is also well and enjoying an injury free run of training. We are looking forward to seeing both in a few weeks’ time.
Good luck to Surrey King on Sunday !
Possible races and events.
May
Sunday 3rd – Surrey King – Salisbury
Saturday 9th – Owners visit to Toby Lawes
Monday 11th Surrey Moon – Windsor
Saturday 16th – Owners visit to Tom Clovers
Wednesday 20th – Surrey Racing Golf Day – Silvermere GC
July
Sunday 5th – Surrey King - Hamburg