Sunday 29 April

Back from a few days at the wonderful Punchestown Festival - a great few days racing - and a chance to look at some young stock, and some horses for sale while we were over there! Yesterday saw the climax of the National Hunt Season. It has been a strange season for us in many ways. We have seen some great times on the track, but we have endured some sad and sorry times away from it! The season has produced 10 winners from 49 runners, and strike rate of over 20% - add to this the tally of a further 20 runners finishing in the first four, and you can see that we have had some great days out, and had a whole lot of fun! 30 out of the 49 runners to grace the track in the black, red and white colours, have ended up unsaddling in the winners enclosure which is where we all want to be. We aim to provide value for money - and I think these figures back up the fact that we certainly do that! We have also managed to pick up all important 'Black Type' for two of our mares - Kaloci when she was third in the Listed bumper in Huntingdon, and of course Queenohearts winning Sandowns Listed Bumper in March. These results are all important for mares, as it gives them a head start in their future careers as broodmares - as it proves that they are capable of running to high standards on the track. Other highlights included Pull Together winning in Plumpton - he really desereved that. Chandos Belle also getting a well desereved win in Huntingdon. Classic Ben really getting it together and winning twice in Novice Hurdles. Land League getting the show on the road last September with a win in Bangor. Molly Childers romped home in Market Rasen, and then took her owners to Cheltenham in December. Kaloci was just awesome all winter! With all the success we have also had some sad times - the loss of Cloonacool to colic was a tough one, as was having to have Apasionado put down after a severe injury in Market Rasen. Recently we have our testing times as well. new girl Getaway Mixie, has been in the vets for a long spell, after an adverse reaction to an antibiotic. She has been very poorly indeed, and the vets have done a fantastic job - I can't praise their efforts highly enough! It looks as though she is on the mend now, and we can look forward with her. Chandos Belle suffered a career ending injury in Market Rasen and has been retired. She will be found another career when her rehabilitation is complete, and Land League was all ready for a spring/summer campaign when he suffered a set back a few days ago, and underwent surgery. He is now home and in good spirits, but will be off games for a few weeks - he is a lucky boy! Sneaking Budge showed us once and for all that he wasn't in love with racing, and has been retired - he has left Fences Farm, and gone on to a new career, with Rhian who knows him well as she rides out for Stuart. We have secured some lovely horses for the future - Kaloci's half sister joined us in March - she has been broken in, and is now out at grass again (Shares Available), she will begin her career in July. Figarella Borget has been broken and has done a good bit of cantering with Stuart. She is a lovely athletic filly, and we have high hopes for her. She is only 3 and will come into training in the autumn. We have recently purchased Lion Rouge from France. He has had just 3 runs over hurdles there, and looks like a smashing recruit for the summer. His latest run was very eyecatching, and Stuart has been really pleased with him since he arrived. He has done a couple of bits of proper work, and he looks sure to have a successful time of things over the summer months. There are just a limited number of shares left available in him now - priced at £350 (plus £25/week all inc training/keep fee). I would like to thanks Stuart and his entire team at Fences Farm for all of their hard work in producing the horses to both look and run superbly on our behalf - a great team!! We are already planning ahead, and will be adding to the squad over the forthcoming weeks and months. The 2018/19 jumps season looks like being a very exciting one - and we have some exciting ideas, that hopefully we can get going in the autumn!! Please get in touch if you would like details of any of the horses we currently have on offer - or if you would like to discuss future syndicates and partnerships we will be putting together. nickbrownracing@gmail.com or call me on 07909 518902.