Weaning has started

Wednesday, 01 August 2012

"Don't find fault. Find a remedy."

Henry Ford.

22_Astroleo_3 22_lady_B

Astroleo Lady Bellatrix

Cantering on Bury Hills

A warm, close morning with a little light breeze which just helped keep the mugginess away, especially when we were out on the heath. A good healthy canter and a quarter of an hour picking grass has been the exercise for most of the horses this morning after faster work yesterday, and I can report that they are all in tremendous form - plenty of bucking and squealing.

22_Astrodonna

Astrodonna and Four Miracles were both weaned yesterday

We have started weaning at the stud and Four Miracles and Astrodonna were the first to be done yesterday. We left the foals in with their friends and a few other mothers and everything went smoothly. We will move a couple more mares on Friday and then the last ones early next week. That will leave group of foals who, once settled down together, will be moved en masse up to Garrowby and the cycle will begin again.

A couple of other things to mention today - firstly we have got Frankel in the Sussex Stakes at 3.10. Unfortunately he has only three opponents and one of those is his lead horse. It is a bit disappointing but he is a superstar and I am sure everything will go off smoothly.

The other thing of interest is the report commissioned for the Irish Ministry of Agriculture on their racing future. Hopefully progress will be followed closely by our leaders. If Betfair are moaning it must be a good blueprint but, typically, we tied ourselves down to a five-year deal before this report came out.