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A Super Start To The New Season Last weekend saw Point to Pointing return and it was brilliant to be back spending weekends watching our hard work pay off. El Capitaine kicked off our good weekend with a 2nd at Knightwick. The race was not run to suit but he was only touched off 3 lengths by a Tom Ellis 4yo who cost €64,000 as a store.    Dunsmore was on Sunday and we took 4 runners and came away with 3 winners! Tip Top Mountain made his debut for The Garton Partnership and won the Mixed Open by 2 1/4  lengths. He was purchased for Tilly Garton to ride, who works very hard in the yard. Tilly is waiting to have her Point to Point license approved and in the meantime, Josh will take the ride.    Clondaw Drake and Holiday Fund brought up the treble for Josh and the yard and a double for long standing owners, John and Sonia Gardener. Holiday Fund stayed on well to gallop strongly to the finish line and win the Restricted by 6 lengths. John and Sonia purchased him off the back of his win at Bratton Down last season. He has improved leaps and bounds and should be an exciting horse to go through the grades this season. Clondaw Drake was purchased at Goffs UK Spring Horses in Training Sale at Doncaster out of Mick Goff’s yard. Both Hannah and Emilie have worked very hard to settle him at home and it duly paid off with an impressive performance to win the Maiden.   We have had a small handful of runners under rules. Iris Des Issards made his seasonal debut at Exeter and having looked outpaced turning for home, he galloped to the line resolutely and finished an extremely pleasing 3rd under Callum Pritchard. Stratton Oakmont and Stellar Stream went to Ffos Las on Sunday, both ridden by Ben Godfrey. Stellar Stream ran very well albeit finishing down the field, he was only beaten 17 lengths over 3m on Good to Soft ground. Having won the North Wales National last season over 3m5f and on heavy ground, there are plenty of positives to take away from this run. Stratton Oakmont ran another consistent race to finish 3rd in a competitive handicap for the Kayley Woollacott Racing Club. He has provided his owners with so much fun and we are excited for another season with him.   Our Dylan did the honors of partnering up with Jane Reed for the British Horse Society Charity Race last week. They finished 6th against some highly rated flat horses and gave 4Racing Owners Club a fabulous day out with Princess Anne in attendance. Jane raised an incredible £4,510! This was the perfect prep run before heading to Hereford on Tuesday, where he battled it out to the line to finish 2nd beaten a neck!    We took a handful of youngsters back to Dunsmore on Monday morning for a school. It is brilliant that courses give us the opportunity to take horses for an away day to give them some education.  Fingers crossed the horses stay in happy and healthy form!   Photos: Tip Top Mountain after winning the Mixed Open Holiday Fund jumping the last in the Restricted 3yos by Jet Away and Shirocco having a jump at Dunsmore

A Very Busy October! October is very much an all set sail month. The horses’ fitness work has all stepped up with the majority having had a good couple pieces of work. With the rain over the last few weeks, it has allowed us to get back onto the grass and keep the work very varied. The first bunch have been away for a racecourse gallop and Kayley and Josh have started plotting engagements for the ones that will be ready to run early doors.   All the horses have enjoyed a school on grass and we are really impressed with how our 3 year old store purchases have taken to jumping. They have been out on the grass on a couple of occasions with them all showing a great attitude and willingness towards their work which is so pleasing at this early stage. They will continue to do plenty of jumping and we can look forward to Yogi Breisner coming in next month to do some schooling with them at Chard Equestrian. We took 7 to Larkhill at the end of last week to have a good blow. This seemed very beneficial and we will try and get as many out as possible for an away day before they run.    On Saturday, we welcomed Blackmore Racing Club into the yard to see Ted The Thief. He is another candidate that we hope to get out early in the season. We have a wonderful group of members who have joined the club and we hope we can supply them with another enjoyable season. Soup, sausage rolls and cake were provided from our great support team and I think everyone enjoyed their morning.    The very last handful of horses have come into work which leaves us with a huge team to represent both Kayley and Josh’s yards this season. We have some really lovely prospects and several to get very excited about. We will have our first “winter” National Hunt runner hopefully this week and have a couple aiming for Dunsmore for the first weekend of the Point to Point season.   On the 7th November, Jane Reed, who has spent the last few months riding out for us, is taking part in the British Horse Society Charity Flat Race at Newbury. She will be partnering Our Dylan who she enjoyed a racecourse gallop on at Larkhill. The link for Jane’s Just Giving Page is below:   https://www.justgiving.com/page/jane-reed-1713889073516 Main Photo: Work days at Blackmore Farm Middle Photo: Ted The Thief looking a picture for his members Bottom Photo: Josh and Cue Jump

Six Weeks To Go With the majority of the horses now back in work, it has been a busy month with plenty of road work followed by a lot of slow and steady cantering to build up the horses fitness. Most of the horses have had their first jump of the season including the babies, who all look a really exciting bunch.    As the horses’ work increases, it is a good way to build up a fitness profile of each individual using our Arioneo Equimetres. We can evaluate who is working hard and having a good blow or who is finding their work easy and therefore their work can increase. The Equimetres were a huge asset to us last year and something that we found, as a team, very interesting to use and read the data coming from each horse.   Knightwick and Dunsmore kick off the Point to Point season on the 9th & 10th November. We will aim to have runners at both meetings but it will be very much weather and ground dependent. After the amazing 2023/24 season, it will be extremely hard to top it, but all we can hope for is happy and healthy horses. We will have our biggest number of horses to run this season, which is very exciting. We have expanded our team of staff to allow for this and we hope the weather is a little kinder to us this winter.   We are very excited to say that Jane Reed, who has spent the last few months riding out for us, is taking part in the British Horse Society Charity Flat Race at Newbury on the 7th November. We are hoping that Our Dylan will be her mount for the day and will give her a wonderful ride while raising money for the BHS. Our Dylan’s owners are also a charity based group, so it seems very fitting that Dylan can take part in the race. The link for Jane’s Just Giving Page is below:   https://www.justgiving.com/page/jane-reed-1713889073516   Picture: Cue Jump looking amazing in the sun!

Open Day Success! On Sunday 1st, we held our annual Open Day, where we invited owners, friends, family and anyone in between that has helped us throughout the season. It was lovely to see everyone and it was a great way to have a sociable catch up before the start of the new season. We had over 160 people here who enjoyed a parade of horses followed by lunch. Unfortunately, the weather did not play ball after it looked set to be a glorious day, but in typical English fashion, it rained – a lot!!   We paraded 31 horses who all looked incredible. Huge credit to the staff for having them looking immaculate. Most of them behaved bar Stellar Stream, who could not quite hold his excitement in and put on a lovely show for everyone watching. Lunch soon followed, along with the rain. With the help of The Sausage Shed and several members of the team, we had a lovely Ham and Lamb salad followed by plenty of cake.   Following lunch, we played a game of Heads and Tails with racing related questions, whether they were about Blackmore Farm or racing in general. Nina Hayton was the successful winner who won a membership to Blackmore Point to Point Racing Club. We raised £455 through donations and we have donated proceedings to Alice Procter’s Go Fund Me.   Alice was a brilliant member for our team a few years ago and unfortunately had a bad race fall at Cartmel back in July. She underwent surgery to stabilise a thoracic spinal fracture which was successful. Her recovery and rehab will take a while but we wish her all the best.    Into September and the horses’ work has all increased. We will spend the next month cantering away and introducing some jumping and before we know it, winter will be here!   Alice Procter’s Go Fund Me Link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/alice-procter

Time To Get Started Again! 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.