Out of state, out of MY mind

Oh this is savage. People who have been here for a lot longer than I have are amazed at how hard this winter has been on us trainers, riders, grooms and hot walkers. There have literally been days and days on end when we haven’t been able to leave the barn with the horses because of the extraordinary amounts of snow and the brutally cold temperatures. The interesting thing for me, and this is why I haven’t listed them earlier, is the horses… They seem to be doing really quite well. Several of the horses still look like it is August.   In fact I have only had to clip 55% of the barn which is a testament to the grooms that I have working for me! They keep their horses extremely well bedded, groomed and rugged up.

The highlight of the month of February has been Ithastobegeorge, who has been an absolute servant to me since I started training. We claimed George off George Weaver last year and have struggled to win a race with him since, however he has run some COLOSSAL races for us in defeat – probably highlighted by his second in a hugely competitive allowance race at Saratoga. George has been severely inconvenienced by not being fast enough for 6 furlongs on the inner track but being overly stretched going two turns. Finally I decided to send him out of state, down to Laurel Park where they have his preferred distance of 7 furlong races, and I was delighted to secure the services of Forest Boyce to ride him. Forest is one of leading riders at Laurel as well as the girlfriend of my really good friend Francis Abbott III or Tres as we know him. Forest gave George a great ride and having finished an honest third going a mile and a sixteenth on the first of February, he won a shade cozily down in Maryland. I have to say a huge thank you to the family support cast of Howard and Tammy Wolfendale who took care of George on race day.

My brother Billy came to visit this month, which was a little bit of a wake up call for him. Bill works and lives in Nairobi and so a February visit to New York was a little bit of a culture shock for him. It was amazing to have him here but sadly he arrived during one of the weeks that we couldn’t get the horses out of the barn due to the amazingly cold temperatures and huge amounts of snow. Bill is a wonderful horseman having served in the cavalry regiments of the English army and rides extremely well so he appreciates what I do for a living.

Honestly I can not wait for the spring, this winter has grown long, cold and frustrating. It’s become a battle to get horses fit to keep them sound and to enjoy it. I wish I had had more fit horses heading into the winter months so as to be really competitive in a lot of races but lessons learned are lessons learned. Next year heading into the winter months I want and need a barn full of fit, competitive horses, there is a huge opportunity to win a lot of races… And that’s what we want to do!!!

Tom Morley