Ros and Vaughan Ellis wonder if we're too late.............
Thanks to our dear friend in Australia John Pittard, Master Farrier, owner of event horse Pluto Mio, the racehorse Yosei and general blagger of invitations around the world, we were very lucky to receive an invitation to visit one of the most important and impressive thoroughbred studs in the world; Darley at Newmarket. The place is absolutely mind blowing and I’ll cover it in more details in another article but it is really impressive.
However we were told that, as we were going to Newmarket, the home of racing in the UK, we shouldn’t miss seeing the early morning gallops so we decided, after several bottles of wine the night before that we would get up at 5am to make sure we didn’t miss the experience. Hmmm...in the words of one of our crew, Vaughan Ellis, we were feeling ‘slightly dusty’ the next morning and wondering if it had been such a good idea.
Galloping on the Limekiln
After a bacon and egg sandwich in Newmarket we were feeling slightly better but thought we had missed the gallopers, until we found a very friendly man who worked for the Jockey Club Estates which manage the gallops. We bumped into him on the Limekilns Gallop, 205 acres of grass gallops where some of the best horses in the world have been trained. Frankel was galloped there last week and Black Caviar also stretched her legs on this hallowed turf on her recent UK trip. It turns out that, unlike Australia where they train only very early in the morning, they gallop the horses from 7am, head off for breakfast then come back out again. Very civilised.
Down they walk at Warren Hill
Our new friend (I think he is officially known as a Heathman) told us what time the next lot would be on the Limekilns and then we followed his car to the Warren Hill tracks where there were literally hundreds of horses galloping up the hill and walking back down. Unlike the Limekilns, the Warren Hill gallops are two artificial tracks both 4.5 furlongs in length, one is a Polytrack and the other is a Mactrack which both rise over 40 metres in the last two furlongs. Apparently the Polytrack receives approximately 16,000 horses per month. The tracks are located almost in the centre of town and most of the horses cross a main road to get out there.
Newmarket really is a horse town and of course we managed to find a saddlery for few purchases. The National Horseracing Museum is located there as is Europe’s leading bloodstock agency, Tattersall’s but after the gallops and our tour of Darley we didn’t have time for these as we were heading to nearby Cambridge to show the Aussies what history is all about (Did You Know?: Trinity College is one of the richest landowners in the UK and also the scene in Chariots of Fire set here was actually filmed at Eton)
This statue is on the road from Newmarket to Cambridge - wouldn't mind that in the garden at home
Today we went back to the Olympic venue at Greenwich Park for the first day of Grand Prix dressage. The horse parking area is now full of very fancy European trucks as the eventers have moved out and the showjumpers and dressage horses have moved in. Some eventers are still around however and I bumped into William Fox-Pitt, here to support the highly fancied Team GB dressage riders.
Carl Hester and Laura Bechtolsheimer from Team GB rode today and were given a fantastic reception by the crowd. The other riders who got a big cheer from the crowd were the 71 year old Japanese rider, Hiroshi Hoketsu and the Danish rider Anna Kasprzak who rode a great test in torrential rain on her fabulously obedient and willing horse Donnperignon to score 75.289 to be in 5th place at the end of the day. The next rider to go in similar conditions wasn’t so lucky; David Marcus from Canada had to retire when his horse Capital decided that water in his ears wasn’t his thing.
So, yes by now I was drenched again but I was determined to stay in my seat as Lyndal Oatley was about to go and she must have been absolutely soaked too as she had warmed up in the downpour. However the rain stopped a few seconds before she entered the arena and the sun came out; she looked very happy at the end of the test as you can see below (score 69.377) and was probably hugely relieved to escape actually riding her test in those conditions. Her cousin Kristy had ridden earlier in the day to perform a solid test (68.22) and tomorrow Mary Hanna rides for Australia.
The forecast is for more rain and I need to buy some waterproof trousers. This very wet ticket came out of the back pocket of my jeans.
