A Wonderful Winter Week

I know it’s not really winter, but it sure felt like it with all the snow we had on Tuesday!

It’s amazing what a month can do to the fortunes of a racing stable and again the excitement is bubbling away at the barn. With two winners this week and both in impressive fashion there appears a smile on the trainers face. Aqueduct has opened and it can seem like a long and daunting winter when you lead your first runners over there in early November knowing that it’s going to get colder and harsher for the next four months. We started Aqueduct putter track meeting in good style however as the stable stalwart Ithastobegeorge ran an excellent second to Dawly in an allowance race on opening day. Dawly returned to win again this weekend and George has been gelded since his second place. He is such a big heavy horse I didn’t want him putting more body mass weight on and potentially therefore extra strain on his limbs. There is a stake for three year olds going one mile at the end of the month that I am thinking of running him in as all year he has had to face seasoned 4,5 and 6 year old sprinters and would like to give him a shot against his own age group before the year is out.

Garmentos Girl won first off the claim for us on Wednesday and sported a very fetching eye shield for her win. She had a sarcoid growing in her lower eye lid when it claimed her and to protect it I decided to add this equipment to her, she thrived in it during training and so we decided to run her in it. She is a tough and honest filly who when she is right she may have further improvement in her. I was delighted for one of my longest standing owners Robert Murray who has supported me in the claiming game since we started up in the spring with great enthusiasm and is a complete joy to train for. GG as she is known went to surgery the day after her race for “plastic surgery” and has had the sarcoid removed, she comes back to me on Tuesday and it will be great to see her back without anything bothering her eye anymore.

Canal Six has been a steadily progressing two year old filly for us this year who has always looked a bit special. However, entering November still as a maiden hadn’t been my plan when she came to us in May. However she had to sprint at Saratoga and has always been crying out for a longer test so after two excellent seconds going 5 1/2 furlongs in Saratoga and an honest third in a stake race we finally got our race, a maiden going a mile, and didn’t she win well. She appears to switch off almost too well behind horses in a race but when Irad Ortiz really asked her to wake up and showed her some daylight she took off in the lane and having been 5 lengths behind with 1/4 mile to run she was 5 in front on the wire.

Irad has been riding a lot of my horses at this meet and he is a young, extremely talented jockey who has already won a multitude of grade 1 races. He and I have an excellent understanding and his feedback is exceptional. He and his brother Jose are bound to be doing battle for the jockeys title here this winter and it is an association I hope will bear fruit for many years to come.

My mother and father have been here for the past week and so Maggie and I have been enjoying spending our days and evenings with them! Sadly Finns Quest, joint owned by myself and my mother, didn’t run too well at the weekend and will return to the dirt for his next start.

This month will see the debuts of two or three more of our two year old crop, a few solid horses in there that should do OK here through the winter. They have all been working together and so it will be interesting to see how they step up to the plate in the coming months.

Tom Morley