Fun in the sun, an eventful journey & the next big jockey...?

The glorious sunshine is allowing us to make full use of the paddocks with about sixteen horses able to be turned out at any one time in lots of different paddocks, the trick is to pair them up well and then keep them with the same partner. It's really lovely to see them playing together, just being horses and enjoying the freedom and sunshine. The video below was taken last week, long may the warm sunshine continue, especially while we are flat out doing a major steam clean and disinfect of the entire yard.

Horses enjoying the sun from Ann Duffield on Vimeo.

The new recruits have settled in well at the farm and we called in to photograph them yesterday (and again today while showing them off to visitors), they are now available to view on the website - you can see the SOCIETY ROCK colt here and the MAYSON filly here.

As you may have seen in the Racing Post our journey to Redcar races on Monday was cut short by an untimely accident in which George and I ended up embedded in a hedge on the side of the A19 dual carriageway. We are not entirely sure what happened and as I was asleep I didn't see much until all the cars airbags were deployed and a strange message came out of the radio telling us we had "left the carriageway" which was odd becasue by then we had noticed that bit!

It was a pretty unpleasant experience and we are very lucky it wasn't a lot worse. Thankfully the Range Rover took the brunt of it leaving us to walk away unscarthed and, while the car is not a pretty sight, it is only a car after all.

With family here to visit during this half-term break from school, George has been riding out with grandson Rhys who, at aged eight is throughly enjoying blasting up the gallop on his pony "Alicia"  in front of Grandad - I think we've got a future star in the making and, judging by the photograph below Rhys is probably the only person in the whole world that George will allow to pass him easily and without a fight!