Snow at Marsh Stables

Winter arrives at Marsh Stables with a few inches of snow, which was stunning for the first two days and then a bit of a pain to be honest! The horses seemed to enjoy their time out in the paddock though.

Welcome Releaf and Tabi had a good mooch round, a bit of a play and then were happy enough to come back in!

The younger residents, known as Freddy and Harry, had a really good play, bucking and kicking about until the hay seemed a better option.

You forget how low the sun is during the winter, until you take a photo right into it!

Cliff celebrates 60 yrs in racing

Last week, we celebrated Cliff's 60 years in racing. Starting as a mere 14 yr old as apprentice to Noel Murless, Cliff worked his way through the last 60 years, riding a winner for the Queen, and in a later period rode horses such as JO Tobin, Heathersett, Shergar, Sonic Lady, Kayf Tara, Singspiel and Pilsudski. Know as 'Cliff the Clock' his ability to count his way through a gallop is legendary in town - he can ride a gallop at any speed and be within the second every time! He bought Marsh Stables a fair few years ago and has enjoyed plenty of success there over the years. In training now, he has Toballa and Ballesteam, both out of his good race mare, Ballgown. Toballa ran well on Sunday with Cliff in attendance as travelling head lad and he is looking forward to a good winter on the all-weather with her. Never one to sit still for long, Cliff recovered incredibly well from a couple of huge operations last year to remove a brain tumour and now is back riding out daily on Bertie - not bad when you are over 70!!..

Sue organised a great day for Cliff last week at Newmarket Racecourse. He was surrounded by friend and family as well as some racing legends which included Lester Piggott, Julie Cecil, Sir Michael Stoute.

He even got a mention in the Newmarket Journal! -

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_newmarketnews/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=460263

Finally a runner!

After a few weeks of the 'wrong' ground or having horses ballotted out of races, we finally had a runner in a new arrival, Wrenington. He arrived in fine fettle a couple of weeks ago and has been going well since. He ran at Wolverhampton on Friday, finishing a creditable fifth and we are looking forward to his next day out. He returned well and has spent a couple of days relaxing in the paddock with his mates, so the calendar is out again now!

We also had another new arrival, Calypso Girl, who kindly arrived from Dave Evans. She is taking a bit of time off, again out in the paddocks with Always the Sun and Wild by Nature. She will return to training shortly after her little break and again we look forward to seeing her on the course.

As much as I hate rain, our paddocks could do with a bit and so could a couple of horses. Our top hack, Tonto has worked out how to get through the electric fencing dividing his paddock (in a vain attempt to manage the limited grass growth!) to what must be greener grass on the other side. How he gets through is a mystery as the posts are not even slightly slanted and the tape remains taut and in place. Camera's are going up! As he won't go near the tape when we are in the field, I really think he is enlisting outside help to move a post for him!

John Virgo visits yard

We were very lucky to meet John Virgo at the yard a few weeks ago. John is good friends with Cliff and his long-time mate Steve, and has visited him at the yard many times over the years. He has a fantastic knowledge of racing and was really interested in the horses, as well as being interesting to meet. We are having a chat as I hold Tabi, our Kayf Tara gelding who is a great lad and will hopefully race on the A/W in the winter. The perfect question came from a little lad also visiting Cliff, who asked if John played snooker ever and if he had won anything!

Autumn approaches..

We have been busy again this month. We had a couple of runners recently with 'Where's Charlie' coming 6th at Newmarket on his first run. He handled the whole day out very well and even won the best turned out for James and Gail who do a brilliant job riding and looking after him. 'Toballa' ran in the same race, but unfortunately nicked a joint so did not live up to her best. She is fine now and will hopefully run again this week, with Charlie and 'Always the Sun' - ground permitting as always.

We bought a new colt at Doncaster sales recently and I have been really pleased with him. He settled well and will be working slowly away once he has been gelded this week - something for him to look forward to!!.. He is most likely to be owned by a small group of friends who have been waiting for the yearling sales this year to invest and have a bit of fun.

Yard wise, the horses are still out everyday, enjoying what is left of the sun, but they are now moving towards putting rugs on - it was quite chilly this morning! Nearly had to put my winter warmers on (don't ask!).

We had a good craic last night - anyone who is a budding singer and fancies a go at some high level karaoke should make their way down to the Waggon & Horses in Newmarket. Sunday night is the night for singing! There are some cracking voices to be heard and anyone and everyone has a go. Other trainers and some jockeys can be seen and sometimes heard - but I better not mention names! I am a 'Dire Straits' man myself and give another couple of artists a fair go as well.

After consulting with the vet and his owners we have decided to take Marlyn Ridge out of training. He has had all sorts of little 'issues' which have been resolved over the last few months with the help of Olly and Mike at Rossdales, plus some valuable input and exercises from Julia Smith-Pearse, who is a McTimoney practitioner. However as he comes right, something else crops up. He is a lovely natured horse who will do another job easily at some point. It is really disappointing as I thought a lot of the horse, he is a quick and natural jumper and I hoped would do well this year. However, you do have to value the horse and think of them - as well as the owner's pockets. He deserves to do well doing something else.

On a more positive note, we have been taking a trawl through the upcoming sales catalogues and have plans for purchases!

Horses, horses, horses!

We ended up not running Marlyn Ridge last week as he rapped himself - who knows where or when! Why are they so prone to doing damage just before a run... Luckily he appears to be have done nothing to serious and is recovering well. He has had some serious trips to the hose pipe for cold hosing and is sporting a very fetching pair of ice boots!







The others are all in fine fettle. We have a couple at grass taking a break, one being Madam Sylvia (the grey shown in the picture) who we hope to point-to-point this year. She looks like a barrel - a trip to Weight Watchers may be in order!







Welcome Releaf is a yard fav - he is such a lovely horse. Very enquiring, very cuddly and an expert Houdini- he can let himself out of any box, any time and any place. He is superb at letting himself out just as you nip in to fill up his water - he just checks when your back is turned and then slips the bolt when you are just that bit to far away to grab him. Luckily he is dead easy to catch! He was a bit of a space cadet last year becoming very stressed over silly things but since moving to Marsh Stables, he is a different horse. Horizontal infact! He is so good he has been turned into a card by a friend of ours, Serena Wyman who has her own card business. She recently went to the Festival of Hunting show with our sponsor, Blue Lizard Equestrian and Welks attracted two buyers!! Such fame!

Take a look at her other items at http://www.notnotrouble.co.uk/.

Nearly the end of a busy but good week. Always the Sun finally twigged what it is all about at Yarmouth this week and finished fourth. She is a great little filly but has a mind of her own! However, at Yarmouth she speed past quite a few and made up a good amount of ground in the final furlong. Daragh O'Donohoe gave her a great ride and I was really pleased with her progress.

Tomorrow we may be off to Salisbury with Marlyn Ridge. He has not run for a while and needs good ground so we are keeping fingers crossed for good weather. This is quite a trip from Newmarket and we will take Marlyn a companion in one of our unraced horses. This gives them the experience of going racing without actually racing - just absorbing the atmosphere and also gives him some moral support in the lorry! He is a lovely horse with superb owners - I would love to do well with him for them this year.

We are now pretty much fully moved into Marsh Stables - with many thanks to Cliff and Sue Lines.

We have around 14 residents, some of which are younger store horses and a couple are coming back into training after having a break. We have not had many runners this year and are still waiting for the elusive winner! It, as always, will come just needs a bit more time and patience!

Marsh Stables is perfect for us as we have around 24 boxes in total with 17 within the licensed yard. There is around 7 acres of paddocks which we have railed now into smaller turn-out paddocks and all of the horses pretty much go out in pairs or small groups daily. I am a great believer in turning out and like the horses to go out all weathers. We are about 10 mins walk from the gallops, again which is perfect as the horses have a good walk up and back to gallops.

We have a couple of nice bumper and jump horses coming up though which is giving us all something to look forward to.

New Website

Hi and welcome to my website which has just been launched. I hope you find the website interesting and we shall be keeping the diary/blog up-to-date with all the latest news from the yard.
Best wishes,
Pat