Another phenomenal week at Sefton Lodge saw us score with our first two year old runner of the season ‘Sex On Fire’ at Southwell on Tuesday evening. Having fluffed the start he ended up shuffled back to the rear of the field and showed an impressive turn of foot when pulled wide by Hollie Doyle to win by one and a quarter lengths whilst eased towards the line (almost 4 lengths to the third). Only time will tell the strength and depth to the race but an early positive is that we were 11/2 seconds faster than yesterday’s two year old race over same course and distance.
The Lily Agnes at Chester could be the next start for this cracking little fella, although we may play a couple more of our two year old cards prior to this date – so much to look forward to.
This victory was our seventh of the month from just 16 runners – an unbelievable 44% strike rate and form figures that I have never experienced before. Added to our 20% strike rate for January and 25% for February, we close out Q1 with an impressive 32% winners to runners ratio (11 from 34) a remarkable performance from Richard Spencer and the whole team at Sefton Lodge.
Just the one dart this week as Giant looks to follow up on his last time out victory at Wolverhampton under Jason Hart on Thursday.
Elsewhere we are delighted to join Super Agent, Arthur Hoyeau’s, Windfield Partnership which sees us take shares in ten fantastically bred colts and expand our global footprint with horses trained in France by Jean Claude Rouget and Christophe Ferland and back in Newmarket with George Boughey and the Crisfords. Let’s hope we get off to a winning start with our first runner Foro Romano at Wolverhampton today.
We ended last week with a fantastic days racing on Good Friday with All Weather Finals Day – three packed racecourses, plenty of runners, fantastic prize money and a genuine party atmosphere. With all the criticism re British Racing and endless funding of ‘think tanks’ to come up with solutions – days such as this must be the objective. With just the two runners we picked up close to £45k in prize money with Aidan Andabettin’s third place at Lingfield and Cross The Tracks desperately unlucky second at Newcastle.
…. and of course if you hadn’t heard we finished second in The Owners Championship.