With all the foals safely on the ground, we are busy with recovering the mares-a race against time for some as the breeding season end point gets closer.
Eight mares are now in foal (Winter Light/Iffraaj, Tianadargent/Time Test, Carina/ Masar, So Funny/Kameko, Apres Midi/Kameko, DoReMiFaSol/New Bay, Rubira/ Camelot and Swept Away/Ulysses as are four of the five mares who are boarding with us this season. The remaining boarder has visited her mate and we await confirmation of the success of that assignation!
For the rest of our own mares, we still await news of two that have been covered (Brassica to Sea the Moon, and Unnatural to Oasis Dream), two need to be re-covered (Special Purpose to Zoustar and Tippy Toes to Bated Breath), and one has yet to visit a stallion ( Wake Up Call-who will visit Mohaather).
We have 7 foals on the ground- 4 colts (Make Believe, Bated Breath, Mohaather and Muhaarar) and 3 fillies (New Bay, Zoustar and Sea the Moon) all of them good bodied, attractive and correct.
We purchased Tippy Toes at Tattersalls in November as she is an offspring from our home bred , the very successful Mullein. Having decided to keep her in training, we were pleased to see her win a Listed event last week and add to her breeding credentials. It was important to get back into the family having bred the feisty Mullein and bred many from her dam, Gipsy Moth. Tippy Toes does not have her mum’s excitability at all and is an especially sweet and kind filly. Unfortunately, we have not been able to get her in foal whilst training despite two visits to her chosen Newmarket mate and so we will be able to run her for most of the season before she breaches the 120 day in foal limit.
Madame Bonbon remains in training with Charlie and Mark Johnston , Snooznyoulose (of whom we are hopeful) with Karl Burke and Shakenotstirred with Sean Woods, who we also are hoping will pick up from her first run last summer having been off injured for nearly a year. She is reported to have been training very well.
Jenna Miles will join stud grooms Charlotte Brandon and Sophie Comar in July on completion of her Equine course at North Kent College and we look forward to her coming to work here.
Over the breeding season we have had invaluable help from third year RVC Vet student, Luschia Johnson as well as A Level student, Abi Harris, who will be applying to Vet school in the autumn and we look forward to having them here from time to time over the summer for prepping.
The hours creep on apace and before we know it , we will be selling yearlings. This year we will catalogue a Wootton Bassett /Apres Midi filly ( at current stud fees she will be our last Wootton!), a New Bay/ Original Song filly and colts by Profitable, Almanzor, Calyx and Nathaniel , the last being part owned by our stud grooms.