Love You Mums

Here's looking at you Kurt... Gwen (front) and la Grande Duchesse (rear) have returned to Gerolstein to concentrate (we hope) on delivering the stuff of which dreams are made of towards the end of 2008!

Endurance and Perseverance

Who's this then? Not a thoroughbred galloper (of course), but an Anglo-Arab endurance horse called Royal Rebellion, who has just one on his first outing in Al Wathba in the Emirates. And why on this blog? Because he was 'made' by our good friends Nicky Freud and Richard Allen, met through other good friends in Montourtier (Philippe Morin and Michel Desnier) who are also keen endurance riding practioners. Nicky and Richard have a property near Gevres (30 minutes away) with exceptionally good raspberries and home made bread among other attractions. I will leave you to follow the wikipedia link to find out more about endurance riding and give you the beginning and end of the item on endurance.net in which they tell of the path to the top of 'Mr McHenry' and 'blow a trumpet for all those who have a horse not 'bred in the bone' for endurance but have persevered with a horse who they believed in'
Then: "four years ago we bought a four year old Anglo Arab unseen (apart from some photos) from an internet horse- selling site for 1500 pounds delivered. His registered name is Royal Rebellion but we were going through a Magic Roundabout phase at the time and called him Mr McHenry.
Now: "Fast forward to his first ride for the new owners, a 3* with 92 other horses. At 8, he was one of the youngest, and being ridden by the trainer's brother. We were following the ride from freezing France on the website and cheering to the cats as ... the nervous horse from Wales without a drop of endurance blood in his veinscrossed the line over 2 minutes ahead of anyone else and pulsed at 58."
As a result of this success Nicky says he would cost £250k to buy back today. But the only money in developing, training and racing endurance is through making horses successful and therefore attractive the sheiks.. so congratulations on 4 years of hard work and perseverance and here's to the next Mr McHenry among the residents at Les Mulocheres.

A good R start

Resico gave Marion his first 2yo winner from his first 2yo runner. He is by Esotico Star out of Jasmine du Fanil, a daughter of Belga. Won impressively and looks likely to repeat quickly.
Tim had his first sight of Quitus in a race at Vincennes but a 'racing incident' which saw him nearly fall put paid to his chances on this occasion. Querido had run eighth in the Criterium des Trois Ans (the French Trotting Derby) a week earlier, where the top Love You filly Qualita Bourbon was narrowly beaten by Quaro after repelling a succession of earlier challenges.

Good news, very bad news

Both Kurt's mares (Gwen and la grande Duchesse) have been pronounced in foal to Love You by the frozen route, so we can look forward at this time next year (and beyond) to see how our joint bet on this new trotteur francais-standardbred cross will turn out. (Since Love You's paternal grand-dam is by Super Bowl and his maternal grand-dam by Speedy Somolli one might be tempted to say he already represents this cross... but I will resist the temptation!)
But sadly news has just come from Australia that the VERY expensive galloping foal from the excellent Rosmarino that he was a partner in had been found dead in its box. Mind-numbing. And so soon after John McDermott lost his valuable Christian Cullen colt... in its box.

Great race videos

Set includes Ourasi winning Prix d'Amerique in 1987 and 1988, the famous March of Dimes in the US in 1988, Mack Lobell winning the Elitlopp in 1988. Click on menu at bottom right to select race, after starting March of Dimes video.

Currier and Ives Slideshow

From 1834 to 1907 the lithography shop of "Currier & Ives" produced over 1 million prints ( more than 7500 different titles), recording the history of mid to late 19th century America in picture. The thrust of a forthcoming PBS documentary is that Currier & Ives launched the beginning of mass media as we know it today. In a picture-less society, the firm became one of America’s greatest business success stories by tapping America's thirst to see things for themselves. While many of the prints are highly romanticised versions of American life and some are overtly racist, Currier and Ives provided trotting enthusiasts with a wonderful collection of portraits of the great horses and events of the opening decades of the sport.

Stable Music

Courtesy of Deezer...French! You can turn the sound off by clicking on the || symbol. The same goes for the slide shows ... clicking on the || symbol will pause the show at the selected pic. (And clicking on any pic will take you back to the original image in the web album, from where you can download it if you wish) Musical suggestions welcomed... they will be moderated however, musn't scare the horses...

Homeward bound

The last few days in Sydney went very fast. Finally caught up with old mate Robert Marshall (and Gina), who have been forced to develop new Friday night habits as a result of the shutting down of Harold Park because of equine flu. Robert is on the NSW Harness Racing Regulatory Authority . It looks as if Harold Park will soon become part of Sydney University (is this progress I ask?), with a replacement 1400 meter track (that's progress) being built out at Campbelltown in the Western Suburbs. It will be much easier to reach for most trainers and likely to attract a better crowd. Possibly. [You wanted to know why it is called Harold Park? After Childe Harold (USA) an 1871 grandson of Hambletonian imported to Australia, to whom many good horses (both gaits) can be traced, especially via his son Rothschild. So not because Lord Byron was an early pilgrim.]

Heard that Laura had been entrusted to take the Cowan's promising 3yo filly Torias Secret* up to Auckland, where she is aimed at a $NZ125,000 race on New Year's Eve. So she gets to see the 'big smoke' in Kiwi land. Seems she will be staying on in Leeston to help prepare Peter and Vicky's yearlings for the February Sale. [*Vicky=Victoria, but Victoria's Secret is a big commercial name in glamour lingerie, so not available.]

Was able to check out Jack's latest run at Geraldine on the HRNZ video in the lounge at Hong Kong airport... well back on inside most of way and never likely to get into the finish from there... will wait to hear what the connections have to say.

And no, I'm not up one of those up there doing the Bridge Climb... not at $AU200 or more!