When September Comes!
A winner to celebrate!
Surrey Fire won for the 2nd time this week, both wins coming at Lingfield, both in similar circumstances, breaking well, setting great fractions in the lead, and pushing on whilst the others were gamely trying to hang on to his coattails! The introduction of blinkers may have played a major factor in the improvement, but also setting the pace in a much easier contest has its benefits. Whatever the reason, it was fantastic to get back in the winner’s enclosure, we’ve waited a long time! That was our third win at Lingfield (Surrey Mist the other) and the first winner with Kieran Shoemark on board. Kieran became our 31st winning jockey, it was our 47th winner from 248 runs, our 10th with Hughie. Surrey Fire was fine after the race and hopefully ready to go again by the end of the month. We have looked for a similar conditions race (he’ll be over 75 rated when the handicapper announces the new weights on Tuesday), pencil in a class 4 (0-85) handicap at Southwell on Tuesday 23rd for 4-year-olds and above, over 1m 6f.
On Thursday we were confident of a very good run from Surrey Shadow who will relish soft ground and so the conditions at Salisbury were looking just about perfect, we’ve been waiting so long for the heavy rain for him. Unfortunately, Salisbury couldn’t cope with so much rain, and the meeting was called off. Instead, Shadow was declared to run at Haydock yesterday, but unfortunately the rain never came, and so with the ground riding fast so we pulled him out on the day of the meeting with some of the owners already on their way, It’s always frustrating when that happens but the welfare of the horse is the main concern. We can’t believe there was too much rain in the South and not enough in the North! Tom is looking at 8-furlong races but options are somewhat limited over the next few weeks so we have made an entry at Sandown on Friday, it’s a 7-furlong race but with softish ground (although drying out) and with possible further rain in the week it could become an attritional 7 furlongs. Neil Callan has been booked to ride, but if the rain isn’t heavy this week, then we’ll wait for the next best option.
It was great to see some of the NH owners at Toby’s Open Day on Friday, what a change from a year ago when it poured down, the sun was out, and all the horses looked great. The champagne was flowing as Toby paraded some of his horses including our three. Kevin Brogan and Harry Bannister were in attendance and happy to chat and landlord Andrew Wates belied his 84 years of age. Sea Presenting had a successful operation on Wednesday, she’s already back working, while Surrey Quest and Surrey Lord looked fit and well, now it’s all about the fine tuning to have all three ready to race early in October. It’s fair to say Toby didn’t have his best year last year, only 8 winners and none for Surrey Racing, although he did win the Scottish Triumph Hurdle with St Pancras. However, there does seem to be an air of optimism around the yard, some better horses have arrived, and there has been an investment in technology with the all the horses wearing heart monitors to track not jut their wellbeing, but their gallop speed, stride length, recovery time etc. We are excited for the season ahead, only 4 weeks left to wait!
The two-year-olds are well ok but taking time. We are looking forward to seeing Surrey King on the 20th especially as his work is starting to be stepped up. Hughie was non-committal as to whether he would make the end of October date with Newbury but was certainly keen to run him this year, so we’ll be patient if we need to. King and Fire will be out at 9.45 on the 20th, we will wait and see what the weather is before setting a meet time, if it’s going to be wet we will meet at 9 and have breakfast beforehand, if it’s going to be dry will we will meet at 9.30 and have refreshments after the gallop.
Surrey Moon and Surrey Etoile are both being ‘managed’, both their trainers like the horses but they are taking time to get through the growth spurts, the most used term for owners – patience needed.
We are on the lookout for the next Surrey Racing horse, who will go into training with Tom Clover. The yearling sales have been buoyant already this year, especially at the top end where record averages are set. There were two sales this week, the Tattersalls Somerville Sale and the Baden Baden yearling sale. The sale in Newmarket saw the highest average that the sale has recorded, at £34.2k, and although the median was up 13% to £25k, that was lower than the 2022 and 2023 editions. In Germany, of the 198 lots offered, 153 were sold at a clearance rate of 77%, which was up 4% on last year's figures. The €55k average was up by 14%, the €55k median stayed the same as last year. It does appear that we will continue to see prices higher at the top end but further down there will hopefully be some value to be had, the Clover’s are the right team to find that value.
Have a good week ahead and good luck to Shadow and connections if he runs on Friday
Possible races and events.
September
Friday 12th – Surrey Shadow – Sandown – 4.15
Saturday 20th – Hughie Morrison Open Morning (timings tbc ~ 9.00-9.30)
Tuesday 23rd – Surrey Fire - Southwell
October
Sunday 5th – Surrey Quest. Surrey Lord – Uttoxeter
Saturday 12th – Sea Presenting – Chepstow (EBF Mares Qualifier).
Friday 24th – Surrey King – Newbury
Saturday 25th – Surrey Quest – Cheltenham