A Very Merry December! I hope everyone had a good Christmas and a lovely New Year. We seem to always comment on the weather but it just doesn’t seem to stop raining!!! In between the heavy downpours, we have had an excellent and very enjoyable December. We all had a lovely evening at The Firehouse for our Christmas Party the week before Christmas. It was full of games and Secret Santa and the team all had a lovely night! All the 3 year olds went for an away day at Larkhill before their two week holiday which was very satisfying to see them gallop well. Diamatiste went for his second run at Chaddesley Corbett on the 3rd December. He finished a pleasing 4th behind Just A Rose, who went on to be sold for £175,000 at the Tattersalls Cheltenham Sales. We went to Wadebridge on the 10th December with a strong team. Bang On Target made her seasonal debut finishing 2nd in the Intermediate. Hearts Corner was back to form and won the Restricted very well for loyal owner Becky Kealey both under Josh. Bud Succes ran in horrific conditions at Larkhill on New Years Eve to finish 5th. Stellar Stream ran a brilliant race when staying on well for 2nd at Lingfield on the 11th December. He galloped strongly through the line and was only beaten 1 1⁄4 lengths. A couple days later, Iris Des Issards headed to Exeter. Georgie had an unfortunate blow out on the A30 on route to the races but we were very lucky that Polly Gundry was not far behind and got Iris to the races for us. Georgie had to miss Exeter and spent the afternoon with the AA while Josh made a rapid exit from the yard to get to Exeter to sort out Iris and lead up. Luckily it all paid off and he ran brilliantly to finish 2nd by 2L. Stratton Oakmont headed to Doncaster on the 15th December. This was his first reappearance since winning at Southwell. Oak ran another consistent race to come 2nd and give the Kayley Woollacott Racing Club another fun day out! Ben Godfrey took the rides on all these occasions. Yard superstar, Gyllen, headed back to Taunton to try and defy a 13lb rise in the weights and a huge step up in trip. This time, partnered by Harry Cobden, he ran superbly and won easily by 1 1/2 lengths. This was a very impressive performance from both horse and jockey. Harry gave him an ice cool ride to make sure he saw the trip out only 14 days after his first win. The handicapper has not been very fair to him and he has had another 7lb rise. Hopefully we will see him out again towards the end of the month. A massive well done to owners Tom and Sally Dalley of Stables Business Park Ltd. The New Year didn’t quite start with the bang we were hoping for. We headed to Exeter with 4 horses that we thought would all run well. Longshanks went back under rules and ran a pleasing race to finish 3rd over hurdles. Diamatiste also made his debut under rules for us. There will be plenty of improvement from him and he will learn well on the job, he finished 4th in the Novice Hurdle. Unfortunately Iris Des Issards was too bad to be true and pulled up and Stellar Stream never seemed to be going from flag fall. A mixed bag of results but they are all home safe and sound and will go again when they are ready!
Author: Admin
Stratton Oakmont and Gyllen Deliver!
Stratton Oakmont and Gyllen Deliver! Another couple weeks have gone by and the weather has continued to play games with us! Great Trethew Point to Point did a splendid job with their ground on the 19th November which surprisingly rode a lot better than most thought it would. The ground cut up as you would expect in the dip where it became quite dead and tacky. There was a pretty ferocious wind that did not ease off at any point so this saw the rest of the ground being good to soft. Liwah made a pleasing yard debut for owners John and Sonia Gardener. She came 4th in the Maiden, which was divided on the day. She summered very well and even with an away day to Larkhill to gallop, we know she will improve a lot for this run. Longshanks flew the flag for us at Great Trethew with yet another impressive win in the Conditions Race under Callum Pritchard. Callum led from 3 out and Longshanks looked to enjoy every second coming up the hill in front by 9 lengths for owner Richard House. Stratton Oakmont reappeared at Southwell on the 28th November under Ben Godfrey. The ground went heavy so unfortunately they lost several runners at the meeting. Oak’s jumping is far from perfect but it is something we are working on and it is nice to see the improvement with him winning for the first time under rules. The Kayley Woollacott Racing Club have been very patient so we are delighted to finally get them a winner! He got his head in front twice last season in Point to Points and this has really helped his confidence. Gyllen, on his second appearance for Blackmore Farm, absolutely bolted up at Taunton on Thursday 30th November under Rex Dingle. Gyllen has been nothing but a bundle of joy to have on the yard since arriving with us back in September and is one who has thrived off our training regime. He is extremely enthusiastic with his work and there isn’t a day that goes by that he’s not squealing with excitement at the bottom of the gallops. Georgie did a splendid job turning him out so beautifully and rightly so, won Best Turned Out. Work Rider, Grace Lay, who is new to us, has taken a massive shine to Gyllen, so it was wonderful for her to come and lead him up at Taunton and thoroughly enjoy her day! A big thank you to Gyllen’s owners, Stables Business Park Ltd, who have been very patient with Gyllen and deserve this winner! Josh has spent the last couple of weeks moving our Schooling Fences up to the top of the farm. We have 6 fences around the outside of the field. This is brilliant for all our youngsters to get used to jumping more than 2 or 3 fences in a line and then pulling up. They can jump 6, trot back to the beginning, go again and before you know it, they have nearly jumped the same amount of fences they would have in a 2m4f race! Most of the 3 year olds have been up and had a jump over them, which has been very pleasing! They will now have a busy December before having a couple weeks off over the Christmas period in preparation for some hard work in the New Year to hopefully get them to the track in the Spring.
Back With A Winner!
Back with a Winner! Point to Pointing has returned and we are so excited to be back to spending our weekends enjoying such a wonderful sport. Dunsmore was on the 5th November and we had two runners. Diamatiste made his debut in the 4 and 5 year old Maiden. He finished a very pleasing 4th and will have learnt an awful lot for this experience. We bought him from the Land Rover Store Sales in 2022 and although he was ready to run last season, the ground never played in his favour, so we decided to give him a holiday ready for this season. Longshanks made his stable debut for us in the Grassroots Conditions Race under last season’s Champion Novice Jockey, Callum Pritchard. It was all about allowing Longshanks to enjoy himself and hopefully allow him to regain some confidence. He certainly did just that and Callum gave him a lovely ride to power home in front by 8 lengths. We were delighted for his owner Richard House. Richard’s daughter also had the winner of the Mixed Open with From The Heart so it was a very pleasing day for the family. Richard has been a longstanding supporter of racing and we are thrilled to have got Longshanks back to winning ways! We headed to Badbury Rings this weekend with Paloma Blue and Love That. Blackmore Racing Club’s Love That had an educational run in the Maiden and we learnt a lot about her moving forward. Hopefully we can find a slightly slower paced race this side of Christmas for her. Paloma Blue had his first outing of the season and ran in an extremely hot Mixed Open. Josh was not hard on him and he had a good blow after. This was most certainly not his Gold Cup and we will now plot our way with him with the aim to go back to Cheltenham Hunter Chase Evening. Back with the National Hunt horses, Stratton Oakmont made his seasonal debut and finished 3rd at Warwick. His jumping was not as fluent as it could be, but the engine in him is very impressive. Hopefully one day they will both click at the same time and he will get the win that both him and his owners deserve! Iris Des Issards outran his huge odds of 150/1 at Exeter to come 4th. He finished behind some very classy horses and we hope the future is bright for him! Stellar Stream was hit with a heart defib problem last season, so it was great to see him make a pleasing Chase debut around Ffos Las in some pretty awful conditions on Sunday. Hopefully he can build on this for next time. He is one of the horses in the yard that certainly won’t mind if it keeps raining but as for the rest of us, we have had enough now!!!
The Countdown Is On!
The Countdown Is On! Our first entries are in and we are on the final countdown to the first Point to Point of the season. Dunsmore is fairly local to us and it will be great to get back racing! We have a handful of entries made including horses from Blackmore Racing Club. With Storm Ciaran hitting the South West hard, we will take each day as it comes with the ground conditions and any possible runners. We have had more than our fair share of rain over the past couple of weeks and luckily our fields around the farm can cope with it very well which allows us to continue using them. The 3 year olds have all schooled over the fences on the grass which is brilliant. It is lovely to start seeing them progress which builds excitement for the coming few months. Josh received his Foran Equine prizes from winning the Point to Point Trainers Title last season. We are extremely grateful for these companies to sponsor the Awards and would like to thank Foran for this. Foran Equine is part of Connolly’s Red Mills, which led us to being introduced to their feed. Charlie Ward, the Thoroughbred Specialist representative, has been extremely helpful with introducing us to the company which we have now made the decision to change feeds too for the coming season. We had Arioneo in the week before last to use their Vet Equimeter on the horses. This is a device that attaches to the girth that has patented electrodes that collects exercise ECG coupled with GPS and locomotion data. It was a very interesting morning seeing the device and how it works along with the data it can produce. We have various work routines here at Blackmore Farm, so it was very helpful to understand how hard each horse works doing different pieces of work. We are hoping to have a couple of devices to hand on the yard which will be a huge positive to look into each horse’s fitness, heart rates and recovery. Longshanks has been very kindly gifted a big tub of Gut Balancer from Protexin Equine Premium. We hope it makes a big difference to his general wellbeing and will support his digestive functions and efficiency to get his results back on track. It is never too late to get involved in our very exciting Racing Club. Please do not hesitate to drop us an email or message for more information on this.
Introducing the new Blackmore Racing Club!
Introducing the new Blackmore Racing Club! September has been and gone and before we know it, we are nearly in the middle of October. The horses are all coming along nicely and we will start to have a few National Hunt entries in the next couple of weeks. Hunter Certificates have started to be submitted for the beginning of the Point to Point season, which is just over 3 weeks away at Dunsmore, near Exeter. It is a track we have had plenty of success at in previous years. We have a couple of horses that we hope to run there, including a horse from our new club, Blackmore Racing Club. We are very excited to launch the Blackmore Racing Club. It will consist of 2 or 3 horses that will run throughout the season across the South West Area. The club is open for anyone and everyone to join for a one off fee of £395 (October – June). Club members will be invited to come to the yard to meet the team and watch the horses along with breakfast rolls from The Sausage Shed. There will be weekly updates via Email or WhatsApp and plenty of fun to be had at the races along with fabulous Car Park Picnics! Did Ja Ever, a 5 year old mare who was 3rd in an Irish Point to Point, will hopefully be our first runner. It is a great way to get involved in our sport and our yard at an affordable cost and we hope you will join us in this exciting journey! The horses work routines have increased and they are all feeling very fresh and well. On the 10th October, we were lucky to have Yogi Breisner come to Chard Equestrian (pictured below) for some schooling. We took 14 horses up there for a jump under Yogi’s watchful eye. All the horses are at different stages of their careers but it was brilliant to see things come together and they all jumped well. We have also got most of our 3 year old store purchases out on the grass jumping this week, which they took to very well. We love watching their progress and look forward to them hopefully making their racecourse debuts next Spring. Nickelsonthedime had his final run of the season on the 25th September finishing 5th. The handicapper has got a big hold on his mark so he will now enjoy a well deserved holiday. If you would like any more information or to get involved in Blackmore Racing Club, please email us on info@kayleywoollacottracing.com