March Blog 2025

After an emotive Cheltenham Festival, which saw Jonjo Junior winning two races including the Triumph Hurdle at 100-1, the late Michael O’Sullivan’s winners from two years ago both winning again, Jeremy Scott training the Champion Hurdle winner, owner JP McManus winning the Gold Cup and, for us personally, Johnnywho finishing second in the amateurs’ Kim Muir. That was a bit frustrating because he jumped the second last in front, but the winner rallied past ‘Johnny’ and we lost the race – that was the third year in a row that the pens have sent out a placed runner at the Festival!

These were wonderful highs, but we also had the heartbreak of losing Springwell Bay, the most talented of young chasers. Our thoughts went to his owners, the Smith family, but most particularly his dedicated groom Tirana Jakupi. ‘Springy’ had taken her to the winner’s enclosure at Cheltenham, Ascot and Wetherby, and she truly loved him.

Time always moves on so quickly and it helped to focus on Aintree. Monbeg Genius (‘Minnie’) is in the big one but, as the saying goes, I’m not counting my chickens before they hatch!

Before these big meetings, there’s a lot of weather watching. For us and Cheltenham, which is easy being so local but of course, we’re miles from Liverpool. Yes, there are a lot of weather apps, but I’ve contacted my friend Dec Thompson, former Aintree stable manager, who still lives on the Melling Road. He’s been sending me wonderful daily updates on the weather, watering and the state of the course. Dec has even sent me a photo of the water cannon sending its jets high above the boundary fence of Aintree. Often, it's who you know, not what you know!

The ground is still a concern, as we would've preferred more rain, but it's still beyond exciting to have a runner in the actual Grand National.

On Saturday March 15th, we had a busy day at Uttoxeter racecourse. Lots of staff attended our eight runners as there wasn’t much time between races.                

The strangest thing of the whole day was the pair of teeny-tiny lacy red knickers discarded on the ground between stables fifteen and sixteen in the stable yard. I’ve seen bigger knickers sold at Anne Summers.

Flo Willis, second travelling to Paul Nicholls, took a Snapchat, moving the phone my way before saying, ‘Are they yours?’ Which they weren’t. In fact, our team denied all knowledge, including the boys Ionut ‘Gabby’ Gabriel’ Ungureanu and Evan Lonergan. I’m not sure how someone would drop them, let alone why they wouldn’t try to secretly pick them up again!

Anyway, they were eventually removed by the stable manager, whilst muttering ‘When you thought you’d seen it all’ and ‘Definitely not paid enough’…as she picked them up gingerly between forefinger and thumb as if the red lacy knickers were radioactive.

For years, I’ve travelled racehorses round the country, often on my own. The routine is easy: fill up the lorry from the diesel tank, load up the racing kit and my bags, strap on the padded boots, tail bandage and travel rug, buckle up the head collar, hang up the sweet-smelling haynet in the lorry and off we go! The clump of hooves up the ramp, stomping on the lorry floor or kicking the sides. It all seems remarkably simple now.

I thought travelling with a toddler would be equally simple but no, it isn't! There's no back-arching protest that made the loading into the car seat an issue anymore, but he started to wind down the window, dribble or sneeze followed by snot pouring from his nostrils like the yellow-green goo of gunk tanks. Or I hear the kkkkkrrrrriiiiissssshhhhhh of Finn undoing the Velcro fastenings on his little blue shoes; one might fly into the front or into the footwell, often followed by the suspicious silence of him tugging off one sock after the other. I had to get a boxy contraption that stuck to the car door to stop him winding down the window. The first day it was fitted, he squealed with the unfairness of it all.

But preceding this, getting out the house isn't easy. He runs in the opposite direction, takes out everything of his bag I've just put in, lines up some little toy cars with heartachingly sweet attention or charges out the door whilst I'm still trying to put on my wellies, which seemed to resist my feet and eventually go on, secreting a farting noise. When I finally get Finn buckled into his seat, the dog is sitting behind me, ears pricked, wanting to be taken to the nearest patch of grass to do her business. I must walk with her to satisfy her neediness. I pray her to hurry as she sniffs, takes her time, sniffs again, eventually peeing before trotting back into the house to sleep the morning away.

And, by now, it's 7:55 – on a good day but we will often be far later than the 8:00 I want to get him to nursery for! I try to absorb Chris Evans on the Virgin Radio morning show – it's jolly and the music is good but this toddler babbling breaks through.

Unloading Finn at nursery is easy – he loves going. I pass over his bag, stuffed with spare clothes, nappies and a soft muslin square with the tiniest feeling of relief. I drive the few miles backup Stanway Hill to work, and there’s sometimes that I'd love a morning to myself or a spa day, but work is still ‘me time’. There’s banter, chats with my colleagues, laughter and, of course, the horses. By the time I go home and make myself some lunch, usually a ready meal because by then, I'm famished. The dog begs, licks clean the microwaveable dish to save me from washing up and we settle on the sofa just for a brief rest before she’s there again: ears pricked into little triangles, eyes expectant, sometimes sneezing and wagging her stumpy tail. Demanding a walk.

At the end of the day, it is an unknown quantity what Finn I'll pick up – the one that runs to me or the one that bats me away with his tiny plump hand or lies on the floor, refusing to move, a dead weight when I try to peel him away. Then I have to carry his protesting small, solid frame, his bag, often stuffed with previously forgotten muslins and small pieces of abstract colourful glittery art, awkwardly banging against my thigh. Finn is more animated on the way home, shouting out gibberish, roaring, chanting something only he knows the meaning of. Before we stopped him, there was always that rush of cold air, the aerodynamics of my car ruined by that window going down…

It's easy to reflect that racehorses are easier to handle than toddlers!

One job I've done a lot of recently is hanging up the rubbers, the little towels that riders put beneath their saddle pads, in the fuggy drying room situated right by the horse swimming pool. Above the whir of the heater, I listen to the horses swimming. The Romanian language of Fred Mirea and John Dina is always accompanied by plentiful laughter. Fred's cackle punctuates the chatter and yardie Megan Petrie joins in

with howling merriment too. The lap of the disturbed water sounds like a lake, the splashes as horses wallow and wade in, the snorting breaths as it swims and an even bigger splash if a horse jumps in. The metallic crash of the bridges being swung across and the water cascading up the chute as the horse exits, and the spatters, sprays and sploshes of the hose pipes as they’re being rinsed off.

As I often reiterate, all the residents have their quirks but, throughout this winter, none have been quirkier than the horses living in the new pen. From day one, they’ve been hard to catch, awkward and full of devilment. I even had to limit their feed rations to make them tow the line! Yet recently their behavior has eventually become really good and two of them have even won.

The handsome Boston Boy (shortened to Bosty) won well at Fontwell and Yes Day (nicknamed Daz) have won back-to-back chases at Hereford and Exeter. As these have boys have found their form and have become winners, maybe it’s a hint the pens have come back into form again just before Aintree…

Yes Day's back-to-back wins and Bosty's win at Fontwell