Another month has flown by and September is creeping around quickly. The majority of the horses are back in work now with the last handful still out to grass enjoying the final few weeks of summer. It has definitely not been the greatest of summers weather wise, but all the horses look in great shape considering. Some have grown upwards and quite a few have grown outwards!!

All the staff are back at Blackmore Farm after their holidays. We have a few new members who have joined the team. Oli Watson has joined us from Sarah Humphrey’s. He rode out the quirky Nickle Back every day, so he will be a brilliant asset to the team. Purdy Peaster and Tilly Garton both have joined us from Joe Tizzard’s. Purdy has ridden successfully Pointing on her own horses while Tilly’s family have purchased the lovely Tip Top Mountain to teach her the ropes. Oli’s mum, Michelle, also joins us on the yard. She is another great character to have around and will very much be the “Mummy” of the yard. 

We also have several new faces on the yard in horse form. Most were purchased throughout the summer, whether it be 3yo stores, horses in training from the sales or a few from other trainers. It is always an exciting time of year as we learn about their characters and abilities. It will be our biggest number of horses in training to date so fingers crossed we have another successful year! The 2023/24 season was incredible and it will be extremely hard to top, but we will give it our best shot.

We are launching the second season of Blackmore Racing Club with new recruit, Ted The Thief, joining the club. He is a very exciting maiden horse who ran 3 times in Ireland in 5 weeks. He is still only 4 years old and has benefitted from a holiday. Please get in touch if you would like to join. Last season, we had 5 winners and 3 placings from 12 runners. Every horse that ran for the club was cheered into the winners enclosure at decent tracks such as Larkhill and Cothelstone. The club joining fee is £395 (no extra or hidden fees). There is no price increase from last season when we had plenty of fun. 

Lalor had a very successful trip to Aintree for the ROR Dressage Championship with Steph, where they won the Intro Restricted Championship Class. Enormouse also won the ROR National Dressage Horse Novice Restricted Championship Class with Sophie Hawke. It was brilliant to bring home two winners to Blackmore Farm, be it in a different discipline.

We have been embracing the Olympic spirit and had our own Blackmore Farm Olympics with new scull hats that we had kindly been given by Charles Owen. It was a 15 meter sprint, unbox your hat, get your hat on and put your hat silk on! It was a tie break between Josh and Lauren. The whole team  are very grateful to Charles Owen for keeping us safe!

As most of you are aware, Josh and Kayley went to Guernsey during the summer, where they got married. Their day didn’t go without its problems with the weather challenging them, but the photos look beautiful and sounds like it was a lovely day.