Saturday Gallops

Banks O'Houxty (Callum)

Heavy rain for most of the day across the Scottish Borders but this did not daunt the enthusiasm of our team on Saturday morning.
Eight of the string worked in pairs, with the second time up being covered at a faster pace. The remainder worked on their overall fitness and did a couple of fast canters.

The eight working in pairs were

• Big Bad Dream and Bushmill Boy
• Danced Every Dance and 'Margaret'
• Eternally Yours and Keyboard Gangster
• Banks O'Houxty and Dali Mail

All went well.

Saturday used to be the day we could regularly expect several owners to pop down to the yard, wander round the stables, before making their way across the road to observe a few morning lots on the gallops. Saturday is still a good day for viewing horses in faster work, but there was a plethora (steady on! - ed) of owners in on Wednesday which is our mid-week 'work' day.
Rob Bewley, Les Dodds, 'Wee Davie' Brown, Bill Aitchison and his wife plus various members of TD9 Racing were all in to see their horses and then have a chat and cuppa.
Enjoyable times!!!

Reflecting on some fine racing at a couple of Northern racetracks in the last week, it seemed that those horses coming off a summer campaign, or that had already had recent race experience this season were to the forefront in contesting finishes. Some useful sorts from the likes of Sue Smith, Ruth Jefferson and to a certain extent Phil Kirby seemed to be at a distinct disadvantage to runners from the more specialist autumn yards like Nigel T-D.
Come the second half of the season and the situation will be roles-reversed as these horses primed for October will be in need of a break to see them through to the end of April.

We suspect our runners will be very much in the category of 'needing the run' when we start to have our initial forays on the racecourse in the next couple of weeks. Kelso next Saturday may see the yard kick off the 2019-20 season.
At present, the team are delighted with the general health and overall progressive fitness of the string. Can't wait to get cracking though!!

 
Eternally Yours (Rebecca)

Another youngster completes his education

Our young Valirann gelding, 'Theo', has been here at Dodlands for a couple of weeks now. We're pleased with his progress and feel that he's done everything asked of him to begin with.
He's a very likeable young gelding, so he's been dispatched off to a local paddock to mature and strengthen for the rest of the autumn and winter months.

'Theo' - our young gelding by Valirann (Callum)