What Price Love?

As some of you may have been aware, I sadly lost my beloved Golden Retriever, Solo, last year to cancer and have been pretty inconsolable since. I then plucked up some courage and asked a very kindly person (who at this moment will remain nameless but they know who they are) if they wouldn't mind doing a drawing of my loved one and his other mistress, Lady the cat. To my delight they agreed and above is the nearly completed masterpeice. OK - so its never going to hang in the National Portrait Gallery but to me its utterly priceless. It captures both their essesnces and spirits and to me thats more than I could ever have hoped for.

It has luckily managed to take my mind off the up and coming Breeders Cup races in which I will be sending out Ab-D for her last ever run in the black and white of Bally Doyle. Whilst its a sad day for all concerned, we cannot wait to see her babies run (hopefully forward but we will love them all the same if they go the other way!). We are also entering a couple of juveniles which is against the norm for us but nothing ventured as they say... So come the weekend A View to A Kill and Ordinary World will be lining up to take their chances. Just for once we have also said - what the heck and entered two further fillies, one in the Endurance where Wooden Rabbit will be hoping to keep up her fine record of placing in every race away from Shenandoah Downs and following her win last time out, Dangold will be competing in the ultra competitve Fillies & Mares Turf.

Whose to say any of them will return with a winners sash or placed money but at the end of the day if you dont enter them you just wont know.

There will be a review to follow for the last 4 racing weeks soon but at the moment we are just concentrating on our suitcase contents before we fly off next week to sunnier climes.

For want of a nail the horse was lost...........

A hot topic of conversation around the PF world currently are the proposals for the introduction of "season ending" and "career ending" injuries and needless to say that this has got the forum in a bit of tizz.

The suggestion is that any horse who incurs an injury over 20 days but less than 30 is considered to have sustained a "season ending" injury. This length of injury would indicate that the horse in question is either immature or reaching the end of its racing career and a long rest would be the best thing for it. Players are split between running with the minimum amount of rest or a set period no matter what the AR indicates. This stable has, on several occassions in the past, retired a horse mid season after it sustained an injury in excess of 25 days. This week we retired with immediate effect DANCESWITHWOLVES who sustained a 27 days inury but as the plan for her was to retire to the breeding shed at the end of the season, this retirement was merely bumped up a few weeks.

The second suggestion is that any horse sustaining an injury in excess of 30 days would be deemed to have suffered a "career ending" injury no matter what age they are. This is the suggestion that seems to have caused most furor. Stables are split again on whether to make the game more realistic and therefore have these injuries introduced (rather than merely give the horse the requisite number of rest days) should we just keep the game as "fantasy" as possible.

Its a personal thing and at this moment in time we are happy to go either way - ie introduce the season/career ending injuries or not, because as a stable rule all our horses are given at least 21 days rest no matter what their abilities.

In the long term though, I think that it will be necessary to bring in this rule as more and more players are running their horses with less rest and this is resulting in more frequent short term injuries but with the occassional long term thrown in. The percentage of injuries over 30 days is very minimal but the medium term (20-30 days) is getting more noticable especially with more new stables joining.

So there you have it - Bally Doyle's not quite definative answer but a subject that will be raised again soon no doubt!

(And a bonus prize for those who can quote the header correctly!)

Weeks 37-40

Apologies for the lack of commentary regarding our weekly results but things have been a bit hectic down here at the farm! We are already into the planning and finalisation of our breeding program and with the new legislation being bought into play regarding the foal no longer sharing its dam's stall for technical counting reasons, it took a little bit of time to sit down and work out that phew we were safe!

Back to the track and starting off with Weeks 37-38, we sent out 8 runners and rather disappointingly only got the one "on the board" result which was on relfection good going as it was a win for our homebred filly, Norwegian Blue. As had been decided prior to racing, if The Godfather and The Foggy One didnt show up in the top 3 then they would be placed for sale, and sadly this proved the case. There has been a lot of interest for these two guys and the last day of sale is 11th April - so keep bidding!

Moving swiftly onto Weeks 39-40 and this time from a shipment of 13 (unlucky you may say!), this resulted in one of our best overall set of results - 2 wins, 2 seconds, 2 thirds and spookily enough 2 fourths! The wins were courtesy of Hungrylikethewolf and New Moon on Monday (both 2yr olds!) and Ms Original managed to place herself just behind "Wolfie" (as is her want on the gallops). Other notables were the 3rd place for Three Gold Pieces returning after a long layoff (due mainly to lack of suitable races), Ab-D posted a fine 4th in the G1 Vosbrugh and Killer placed 4th in his first race away from Shenandoah Downs. So hopefully this is the start of good things! Sadly, Danceswithwolves pulled up sharply after the finish and the vets diagnosed a stress fracture to her front off fore which has resulted in her immediate retirement, although as she was due to retire at the end of the season its just put the date of transfer to the Stud Farm forward a few weeks.

So we are hopeful for a good showing this coming week when we will send out another 10 poor animals to earn their crust!

Significant Numbers

Are we all ready? Sitting comfortably with a stiff drink? Yes – ok lets go!

Highest PSR: Ab-Daledigaeth with a rating of 112 (and she only finished 2^nd!)

Lowest PSR: Embarassingly there is one and it was set by New Moon on Monday (who redememmed himself on his 2^nd run by getting a 3^rd place and a rating of 61)

Best Average PSR: Again this goes to Ab-Daledigaeth who averages 99 per run, closely followed by Rain Man who averages 98.3 per run and Two Sheckles who averages 95.8. It is interesting to note that these are all older horses and have had at least 5 runs this season.

Most Consistent PSR: Rain Man whose lowest score was 91 and has scored over 100 on three of his six runs.

Most Runs: Danceswithwolves and Norwegian Blue both having run 8 times so far.

Least Runs: Haunted, Notorious and Ordinary World each with one run. Although Haunted was sold on after that run and Notorious joined us mid season and has only run the once for us (but had run several times for his previous stable).

Total Average PSR Per Run: 73.2 (10,029 total divided by 137 runs)

And what does all this mean? Probably that I am an average player with average horses but who does consistently each season without impressing the judges, which suits us fine – nothing worse than having a stable that relies on ONE horse to get the money or has a stable full of non-achievers.

Results - Weeks 35-36

After a good set of results in Weeks 33/34, we wondered if it could continue and the answer was definately YES! A brief round up follows:

United - G2 Saratoga Breeders Cup 9f Dirt - 5th $0
Elidor - Darby Munro Stakes 6.5f Turf - 1st $30,000
Royal Ensign - Carbine Club Stakes 8f Turf - 5th $0
Hold Back The Rain - G1 Karrakatta Stakes 6f Turf - 10th $0
Gonewiththewind - G1 Haydock Park Sprint Cup 6f Turf - 4th $15,000
Dangold - G3 WA Champion Fillies Stakes 8f Turf - 1st $48,000
Volcan - G2 Del Mar Futurity 7f Dirt - 5th $0
New Moon on Monday - Maiden Stakes - 3rd $3,600
Unionofthesnake - G2 Summer Stakes - 7th $0

Summary - 9-2-0-1-1 $96,600

Overall a very good week - espcially with Dangold winning! Very complex filly doesnt show anything then suddenly it all comes toghether for a win!

Look out for next weeks round up and in between some pointless stats on our season!

Results - Weeks 33-34

Can you finish the next line of this song "Strut on a line, its discord and rhyme, I howl and I whine, I'm after you, mouth is alive, all running inside and I'm........"

Well heres a clue - its the name of a 2yr old colt from our barn who just won his first race and set a track record!

Not only that, can you name our other winner this week from the image above? Need another clue? Its not a 2yr old.

Overall we have had a great week and will go into more detail when we have more time!

Lets just say - this is probably one of our finest weeks of the season so far even if they arent G1 wins!

Results - Weeks 31-32

Frustratingly this week we sent 9 runners out and 4 returned with cheques which, on reflection was good although eerily, they all earnt $7,500! The shot above shows Ab-D coming late and fast to finish 3rd although you cant quite see her mid bob between Horse No 5 and the flashy chestnut on the rails.

In order to make up for the disappointment, we are sending out another large congingent next week - 15 in all coz one of them has to produce a win (right?!).