Saturday 26 May 2012

Garthorpe today - We had intended to take Frog (Quand Je Reve De Toi) and Coeur de Lionne but had an unfortunate incident on the grass gallops on Wednesday and Leon is now out for the season.
The idea was to have a hack canter around the grass gallop trying to get Leon to learn to breathe, as that is his main problem. being a flat horse he has never really been taught to control his breathing over three miles and tends to hold his breath which is why he hasn't been finishing his races. Anyway, to cut a long story short both horses were feeling extremely well and ended up going much faster than myself or the jockeys would have liked, with the result that Leon has injured a tendon. It is such a shame as we had just turned the corner with him, but hopefully he will be fine for next season.
Surprisingly Frog, who has always been the 'fragile' one is fine and is ready to run. Our main concern with her is that she is so highly strung that she tends to run her race in the preliminaries - She pours with sweat and by the time the flag goes down she has wasted an enormous amount of energy. We are trying her with earplugs for the first time and also with magnesium supplements which is supposed to control the adrenalin. We are also having a change of jockey as Sam Davies Thomas is very good with highly strung horses (he rides for the Tarry's!) he schooled her last season, and he is in the running for leading novice rider and needs a few rides ( and wins...) to secure the title. Also Pete is at Dan Skeltons wedding today and couldn't ride her anyway.
It is a beautiful day so off to make the picnic...