Racing round up

It's sod's law....

Our last stable update painted a rosy enough picture of season 2015-16 so far, with some promise to look forward to over the first few days of the New Year.

Well, our 4 runners at Musselburgh over their New Year fixtures, didn't trouble the judge, with maybe only Bearskin - on his third run in a novice hurdle - offering up any promise.
Both Tomahawk Wood and Ellistrin Belle in their respective races gave Callum the 'feel' that turning for home after 4 out that there was a good chance of being placed, but neither horse was able to put in a challenge and  faded over the final 2 flights. We had each horse scoped by the course vet immediately afterwards, but the results did not reveal any problems (such as mucus or blood in the lungs).

Snapping Turtle is far too high in the handicap, and was just run out of it by the leaders in the staying Class 3 handicap on New Years Day. We can only hope that he comes down the handicap as quickly as he went up. But we're not holding our breath......

We'd had the Class 2 staying handicap at Ayr on the 2nd January lined up for Shades of Midnight for some time, and there was a good deal of confidence behnd his chances on the day. However, when he was walking around the racecourse stables upon being unloaded from the horse box, we noticed a slight swelling in one of his legs. Upon taking advice from the course vet,  we felt we had no choice but to withdraw from the race.
In the following days back at home, our vet Sarah was able to spend more time investigating the swelling and probable cause.
This has been identifed as a slight hoof infection but we've been able to keep 'Shady' in light exercise and this infected area is responding well to treatment, so much so that we expect him to return to full work next week.
We've pencilled in Haydock at the end of this month for his next run.

Champagne Agent is retired

Scott and Alison's lovely Smadoun gelding Champagne Agent has been retired and just the other day he made the journey up north to join his owners for a new career post racing.

A talented perfomer for all 3 of his trainers (Willie Mullins and Lucinda being the others), he was a fair bumper and hurdler in Eire in his younger days, and he retained his ability well although wasn't the easies to train in his time in Scotland.
That said, he brought delight to all when winning a handicap chase at Sedgefield in October.