Dam was a fairly useful hurdles and chase winner (stayed 3m) but this one finished stone last on debut at Wincanton, showing next to nothing, and can't be backed on that.
Good Luck
[emoji38][emoji38] oh the joys of being a small breeder - if he’d been bred by anyone “known” she’d get the credit she deserves [emoji849]
Though whoever wrote that is more polite about Grape than the other guy - she got “fairly unreliable” in the first write ups, which pissed me right off as she is 132 rated ( by Timeform - she’s a TBA elite mare, not some random walking uterus I felt like abusing!) who won over hurdles and fences from 2-3 miles and was placed in 24 of her 46 races. Not sure I’d deem that “fairly unreliable” but each to their own [emoji849][emoji849]
“Next to nothing” eigh? So something... [emoji6][emoji1787] I’m quite surprised nobody’s put “tailed off last, but still better than the previous one from the same breeder” [emoji38][emoji38]
They are right in the bare bones of their observations - last month didn’t go one bit to plan ( as I wrote about after it!! ) Paul thought about pulling him up but decided to let him coast home instead, hence the completely tailed off. You don’t make a horse enjoy its job by beating it into finishing closer last and his chance had gone when he panicked. It was the hottest bumper at wincanton for a long time and bumper races are about young horses learning things like being in a pack and the hurly burly of actual racing. All the stuff you can’t properly replicate at home.
Nobody knows how a horse will react to a race day until they are there - not one person involved with him was expecting that to happen, not Jess ( who knows him better than anyone - even me now) Brian or Paul who has ridden him at home a lot, so knows him quite well. Even coming past the stands, you wouldn’t have picked him as the one that would be tailed off - they were lobbing along happily while others had already been started to be ridden. Given the way the race turned out after declarations we all thought he’d finish somewhere in the middle - definitely not tailed off - that shocked all of us.
He may turn out to be a morning glory - plenty do. He may yet **** himself (again !) and throw the towel in, in which case we’ve got some thinking to do - but he will be there tonight, learning more stuff and trying his best. He’s been better than ever at home, he scoped clean and no wind issues showed up, his bloods are spot on - there is no explanation for his first run and making a noise other than brain overload and he couldn’t cope. Or maybe he just really isn’t very good !! We’ll find out later which it was. knowing my luck he won’t like racecourse rain ( it’s different to home rain, mum)/ “it’s bedtime - you want me to what?!! ” / “ AAAAAAAAAAARGH IM SCARED OF THE DARK “ [emoji849][emoji3061]
To look at him, any racing future clearly lays over obstacles. If he ever manages a place, not only will I be over the moon - but it will very much be considered a bonus. It might turn out that I have bred someone a lovely dressage horse, but hopefully not yet.
( notice I’m not calling tonight “racing” just in case [emoji2356][emoji38])
[emoji1696][emoji1696]
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