Welcome to Spring
One day after the official start of Spring, a small group of owners gathered at Hughie’s yard to see Surrey King looking magnificent in the glorious March sunshine. After the traditional pre-inspection ritual of coffee and sausage rolls, we all wandered up to the top of the grass gallop to watch King and Caprelo stretch their legs in what Hughie described as a “working gallop”. Both horses moved nicely, but King certainly looked the stronger of the two and gradually edged away as they powered up the hill. A few of the more cynical members of the group suggested that perhaps the performance was carefully choreographed for the benefit of the assembled shareholders. However, with Caprelo’s owner standing amongst us, we decided there was enough evidence in front of our own eyes to remain optimistic.
Surrey King remains the best Surrey Racing horse I have ever seen on the gallops. He has a lovely loping walk and really uses himself when he works. He travels low and compact, which is exactly the posture you want to see in a racehorse. That said, racing has a habit of keeping everyone humble. Some horses look spectacular at home and forget the script on raceday, while others train like cart horses and then turn into champions when the gates open. So, as ever, a degree of cautious optimism is the sensible approach. Of course, there is still the rather large elephant standing squarely in the middle of the yard — the stalls test. Before we can even start thinking about raceday, King needs to pass that, and then he needs to behave himself when the real thing comes around. Now King will happily walk into open stalls and tolerate the front and back gates being closed. He can technically take a stalls test that way and the BHA may, at their discretion, allow him to be loaded like that on raceday — provided he goes in first. That’s manageable, although it becomes a bit less ideal if he has to wait for another 20 horses to be loaded – he’d fall asleep before the gates open!
The BHA’s preferred solution is to put a hood on and whip it off as the stalls open. Unfortunately, King takes a dim view of having a hood fitted anywhere near the stalls. One possible workaround is the red hood, which can be put on before the parade ring, but the BHA won’t allow a horse to enter the stalls wearing it. It must be removed at the stalls and replaced with another hood — which would almost certainly cause King some distress and potentially create a welfare issue for him, the jockey and anyone else within flying distance. The BHA really are an incompetent organisation. For now, the most promising option appears to be ear plugs which worked very well today as King was foot perfect. On raceday the plugs are simply pulled out as the gates open. The plan from here is plenty of repetition. Different methods, lots of practice and steady patience. With luck, King will eventually become thoroughly bored of the whole process and simply decide that walking quietly into the stalls is the easiest option for everyone involved.
Plans are for King to race at Newbury on April 18th. He could be the next horse to run for us, although Surrey Lord may just pip that date. He’s still building his muscle back up on his injured leg although he wasn’t quite right to gallop last week but the plan is for him to work this week. It rules out a run at Ascot next Sunday, so the two main options now are at Cheltenham on April 15th or Sandown on April 25th.
We are also hoping that Surrey Moon makes his long-awaited debut next month. He’s doing a lot of routine work which he is taking well and this week he will asked for more as we near that time to start looking at raceday options. Stablemate Surrey Bolt is looking great and has benefitted from his break. I thought he was back at Tom’s, but he was still at the Callans last week, apologies, but he is moving this week and will commence trotting at the end of the week. He’ll have 4-6 weeks of trotting before he starts cantering, that will take us to mid-May, and Tom has suggested that we invite the owners along towards the end of May so we will come back to you with a date once he has settled back in. Tom feels that if he has a free path from now, then Bolt will be able to debut late summer.
Surrey Etoile’s x-rays were looked at by the senior vet on Monday and he commented that everything is exactly as it should be 2 months post op, so that’s good news and the rehab will continue as initially advised, which was 10 minute hand walking twice daily until week 10, which is about now, so that walking will be increased to 20 minutes twice daily for another 4 weeks. All going well Etoile he can be turned out into a small paddock 3 months post op so that is about the second week of April (op was 7th January). A gradual return to work can be considered after the 4th month examination, around mid-May.
Possible races and events.
April
Wednesday 15th - Surrey Lord - Cheltenham
Saturday 18th – Surrey King – Newbury
Saturday 25th – Surrey Lord - Sandown
May
Wednesday 20th – Surrey Racing Golf Day – Silvermere GC
July
Sunday 5th – Surrey King – Hamburg - https://www.deutscher-galopp.de/gr/renntage/rennen.php?id=1363190&d=20260705&s=A