Happy Shopper

It's not often that I go horse shopping and everyone is happy with what I come home with but for once there were smiles all round as the ramp on the horse box dropped and the new arrivals revealed themselves.
As I'm sure you all know, the best horse I've ever trained was Spirit of Sharjah who ran and won at some of the world's biggest meetings, including Royal Ascot and the Dubai Carnival. I haven't been able to afford another horse by Spirit's sire, Invincible Spirit, as they are very sought after. However, I was delighted to be able to purchase Star Of The Stage at what I think is a fantastic price. A three-year old gelding, he was formerly trained by Richard Fahey and won a maiden at Lingfield for him in December and has run respectably in two handicaps since. Richard says he has had some problems with his feet but this is a part of the anatomy we seem to have few problems with so hopefully it won't be an issue in his new environment. As you can probably see from the photo, he still has some strengthening up to do and I hope that he could develop into a smart miler. He's pretty fit and should be ready to run in no time - hopefully he is the next stable star!
70% of this attractive gelding has already been sold but the remaining shares are available to purchase for just £1200 per 10% share along with £200 per month all-inclusive training fees. Email me on juliafeilden@aol.com for more details.

Star Of The Stage

The other exciting purchase I made came from the Juddmonte dispersal sale, a source we have had plenty of success from in the past, and is called Dissertation.
She has come over from France where she was trained by Criquette Head-Maarek who thought she had the ability of a Group horse on her homework but she disappointed in her two maiden runs when sent off at a short price both times. Like Star of the Stage, she still has some strengthening up to do but she is an unknown entity and should provide her new owner Dick Creese with plenty of fun.

The two new faces give us lots to look forward to in the future but in the present, we have a group of runners heading to the track this week.
Starting tomorrow, Attain makes the trip up to Beverley for a lady riders' pro-am race. I had the race lined up for him for quite a while with it in mind that Shelley could ride him. However, Shelley only went and fractured her leg on Thursday morning so that scuppered that! Shelley is in good spirits but it looks as though she'll be in a cast for six weeks, thankfully she doesn't need an operation. The show must go on though and we have booked Rachel Richardson as her replacement. Rachel has been in flying form this season, riding loads of winners for her boss Tim Easterby and you'd think we are at an advantage by using a professional jockey whilst the rest are ridden by amateurs.

Vastly (Adam) & Attain (Ross)

Vastly has been trying his best over the past year to avoid going racing and after a long time off with a tendon injury, his long-standing back problem has made a reappearance the week before he was set to make a comeback! I really don't want to miss the opportunity of running him at Nottingham on Friday as it looks an ideal race so he will be doing plenty of swimming this week to keep him trim as he was already very fit. We don't swim many as there isn't often much need but it is good to do with horses who can't be ridden so Vastly went down to Newmarket's public horse pool and had his first dip. After a bit of trepidation, he lept in and was a natural. He will have a couple more sessions before his run and hopefully it means we can get him back to the track.

Vastly takes a dip

Bethan has had a great season so far with one win and three seconds from four runs. Hopefully her good run can roll on as she goes to Leicester on Thursday. Taking the ride will be our new apprentice Luke Rowe who joined us a month ago and has got to know Bethan well on the gallops at home. He has 13 wins under his belt already so knows what he is doing and can hopefully get off to a flying start.
Dark Diamond hasn't disgraced himself since joining us in May and I don't think it'll be long before he gets his head in front. He could go to Pontefract for a maiden handicap on Friday where the drop back to 1m2f will be ideal. He has to give quite a bit of weight to three-year olds in the race but he doesn't have many miles on the clock.

Bethan (Luke), Dark Diamond (Caitlin) & Dakota City (Ross)

Rounding off the week will be Veeraya at Lingfield. He didn't have much chance at the weights in a claimer at Doncaster last time and hopefully the claimer this time won't be as competitive. He is a tad high in the weights, hence the runs in claimers, but he has a good deal of ability and deserves to win a race again.

Duke of Diamonds (Nick) & Veeraya (Sam)