Onward And Upwards

I firstly must apologize to those who follow and read this blog for my total lack of input over the past two months. However with moving house, moving barn, attending the countless two year old sales, welcoming our first group of 10 babies to the barn all rolling towards Triple Chrome Mania I have neglected my duties here terribly!

April was indeed a busy month as we closed out the winter months, thank goodness, with a solid end to the Aqueduct meet knocking out a couple more wins and several solid return performances from the grass horses who begin their assault on the turf for the year. The bitter conditions of winter began to subside although throughout the month we were reminded of what we had just been through a couple of times and it was amusing to see the Florida trainers returning aghast to see us riding out in T-shirts when it was 55 degrees outside! April bought about the OBS two year old sale which is always a straining and difficult sale to work with so many babies breezing and then to be sifted through. I was delighted to purchase a Kittens Joy colt and a Scat Daddy giant who has suitably been named I Am Atlas. He is owned by Robert Murray and the Kittens Joy who will be named Zandar is owned by Zilla racing stables and is a colt who has done fantastically well physically since the sale.

The first group of babies arrived into us at the end of the month and amongst them is a Langford colt owned by my attorney John Hicks and Hobby Horse stable who we welcome as new owners to the barn. They also have a Northern Afleet filly who is to join us this week and are new owners to the barn. On this front it has been an extremely exciting and encouraging start to the year as we have welcomed a series of new and exciting owners and their stock to the barn as well as maintaining an excellent relationship with our current clients. My assistants Ray and Maggie are invaluable to this growth as they are both more than capable of entertaining and communicating with clients when they come to the barn. Susan Austin has kindly sent us a lovely Majestic Warrior filly as well as a Quiet American colt who both appear to have an above average level of ability.

The two year olds are always such an exciting time of the year and I sincerely hope that my initial impressions are correct as it would appear the quality of the young stock is a significant improvement on last years. My meadow view already have 3 babies at Belmont and the two OBS graduates are back in after a 30 day break.

May brought the welcome return of two things to my life, firstly racing at Belmont and secondly Canal Six returned to us from the Fairhill Rehab centre. Canal six was instrumental in our success last year as having a filly of that quality in your first year is invaluable, although only a maiden winner she ran two huge races at saratoga as well as getting stakes placed at Belmont before pulverizing a maiden field at Aqueduct.

She sadly got hurt in preparation for a stake in the winter and hopefully has returned as good as last year for she is an extremely talented filly and it would be great to have not only a very talented son of Noble causeway but also a daughter for Len Riggio to enjoy after the untimely death of his stallion.

So Belmont is back up and running, we have had a couple of winners already with Handy Stan once again winning making it 3 wins and a 3rd off the claim and pillar of strength getting his maiden broken in stylish fashion. We have however had a run of bad losses and head bobbing defeats and that never makes for a happy trainer. However the horses are running well and look fantastic so it’s onward and upwards and tentative plans for the Spa!

– Tom Morley