Newly appointed assistant trainer - the former national Hunt jockey and friend of the family ‘Brain Storey’ had an uneventful first week in the job. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know his way around Sun Hill because he and wife Jackie have been doing bits and pieces of work for us for years, a spot of clipping every Autumn, some breaking in of yearlings when Allen endured an unfortunate and untimely injury when he broke his shoulder last year, just as yearlings were arriving at the farm and things were getting really busy. And, many of our long term owners remember Jackie as travelling head girl several years ago, before she met with a horrible head injury while out riding their farm. In addition Brain came to oversee things while George and I were away earlier this year, so he knows the place inside out.
He is already well known to many of the owners and loves to get involved in every aspect of running a busy racing yard, he will be a huge help as well as another trusted pair of experienced eyes and hands.
Brian’s paperwork was already completed in January so there was nothing for Anna to do when he started full time on Monday, the powers that be (the BHA) are a fussy lot, and trainer’s secretaries have to register staff as soon as they start work on a yard, and equally as they finish. The super-efficient Anna went online to registered Rowan as having left, as per the BHA’s rules only for the system to show that, having registered his termination of employment here his apprentice licence was immediately withdrawn making him temporarily, a jockey without a licence to ride, because a new licence needs to be applied for from his new base and that could take up to two weeks.
There is an ever increasing amount of red tape and paperwork in racing offices and our website also takes a lot of work and effort but it’s worth it. We have been busy again updating owner’s logins and Hayley has taken dozens more photos and videos. The blog mentioning the ADR login as both username and password to show non owners what our owners are privy to in the private login area, was a huge hit with over 1000 people viewing it in the first twelve hours.
On the yard, many of the horses work has been ramped up again this morning, jockey Shane Grey is coming in twice a week now, he rides very well, is very hard working and gives us good feedback, Georges first impression of him was that he has a “lovely pair of hands and horses run for him”. The horses look tremendous and so far I am really impressed with the Equilux lighting system we installed in December and January, it was not a cheap addition to our facilities but I think it has been a worthwhile investment.
The very nice colt by Dragon’s Pulse owned by Middleham Park Racing is one of the early looking two year olds types, he has had his work load increased and has done nothing but please us so far. George has been on board a few times lately, including this morning and smiled as he pulled up (a great sign!).
The as yet unnamed colt is coming to hand just in time for Middleham Parks open morning next Saturday March 11th at 9am (please see “upcoming Open days” ) and I have no doubt that if there are any shares remaining, they won’t be for long.