This sport is wonderful and captivating when u learn how these animals are treated like royalty and the amount of work the people behind the scenes do like the grooms, stable hands and the trainers themselves. I love that i can wake up looking forward to watching these wonderful animals run.
My journey in horse racing has been a short but sweet one, I have been brought up on a farm my whole life in Devon. My passion for horses comes from my sister who has been riding horses her whole life and in the past few years has owned two wonderful ex racehorses. Marley Firth a Flemensfirth gelding who was in training with Dan Skelton and before retirement Jackie Du Plessis, we sadly lost him when he cut his leg in February 2023 and had to be put down.
After some time, my sister bought a lovely, dopey and stunning 17hh light bay gelding who was out of Selkirk, Hard Hitting as we know him as Hardy was bred by Juddmonte but was too big and got passed to a point-to-point yard where he did not quite cut it. He then tried life in eventing where he did not like the way his owner rode him, soon after my sister bought this now 15-year-old gelding where he was too skinny and malnourished, he is now thriving has put on loads of weight and he is really enjoying life at Sparhanger Stables as a 16-year-old happy horse.
In lockdown I was struggling with my mental health and one afternoon i put on the tv and put on Itv racing on a random Saturday just when the world started to feel more normal, I instantly got hooked on this wonderful sport. Yes, I watched the Grand National once a year but besides that i knew nothing. I began to watch all the meets televised on Sky Sports Racing and Itv and became more interested in the deeper ideas of racing including looking into form of the horses how much weight they carry and what the ratings means it all really began to interest me.
Luckily, we had a family friend who trained racehorses and his partner is a very successful point-to-point trainer, Joe Tickle trains near Tiverton and is a very friendly and welcoming family run stable who don't have many horses but are very successful at training at all levels. From April 2021 to now Joe has had 199 runners with 10 winners and 24 placed efforts earning a respectful £100,634. He also has an accomplished stepson Taylor Fisher who is an apprentice Jockey who is now claiming 3 pounds, He was also a pony racing champion. Taylor currently has a strike rate of 13% winning 64 of his 506 runners earning £279,955.
Soon into my racing journey I knew I wanted to own a horse, I had many conversations with a whole range of trainers from Tim Vaughan, Oliver Greenhall & Josh Guerriero and David Pipe but none of them suited what i wanted. I began having conversations to Joe about horses in the yard and we agreed on Daany a horse bred by Shadwell out of Pivotal. In His early career he was trained by Adam West where he won twice on the All-weather at Chelmsford and Lingfield.
He went on to be sold to Duckhaven Stud long standing horse owners who support Joe, Alan (Duckhaven Stud owner) has a few horses with Joe including Taritino who this year ran in the Grade 2 Coral Adonis Juvenile Hurdle at Kempton under jockey Ben Jones. Daany started on the All-weather when joining the Tickle yard when he finished a remote 7th on debut for them.
Soon after he started his National Hunt career over hurdles when running very keen in all these starts at tracks like Exeter, Wincanton and Newton Abbot. Since October hes took a big step forward, this began on October 23 at Windsor When he went a close 3rd under Finley Marsh on heavy ground. Soon after he went to Exeter where he ran a good 6th in a field of 16. On November 23rd he ran in a Wincanton Hands and heels novice hurdle where he finished 2nd under Ella Herbison who recently rode her first winner under rules.
Soon after he was upped in trip from 2 miles to 2 miles and 2 furlongs where he ran at Exeter in a 13-runner handicap where he finished 4th when weakening after the final hurdle under this year's champion jockey Harry Cobden.
On January 4th we joined ownership of Daany, he was due to run on the 6th of January at Wincanton and luckily enough with a few cancellations elsewhere with ground issues the race was shown live on ITV 1. Unfortunately, with my family being ill we were not able to make it to the track, but we cheered on from the sofa. He went off at 8/1 under Michael Nolan who won an earlier race on the card everyone involved with him was very confident he was spot on for the race and that was true he went and won by 1 and 1/4 lengths ahead of the 5/2 favourite trained by Harry Derham. Joe Tickle went on to say:
"Two miles around Wincanton seems to suit him down to the ground"
He then came back to Wincanton under a penalty to run a strong 2nd when hampered and almost ran out of the course over the last hurdle but we were all delighted with the effort.
Unfortunately, Daany hasn't managed to follow up this form finishing no better than 5th in Hurdle races and came 6th of 12 on an all-weather start at Kempton.
Currently he is having a break from racing and will be back within the next couple weeks possible over hurdles, but we are all excited to see him this summer running on the flat on turf, with a low mark of 46 we are not expected world class stuff, but we definitely believe he will be running some smart races this summer at tracks like Bath and Windsor under Taylor Fisher and Finley Marsh.
I would strongly suggest people getting into racehorse ownership weather it's through a syndicate or full ownership it's an amazing experience and a once in a lifetime opportunity.
I have yet to experience ownership at the track but just being at racing as a fan is the best thing ever hearing the crowd support their horses the own or have just bet on then when they jump the last and everyone roars them on it simply is amazing. if no one has got down to a horse racing venue i definitely recommend it, just prepared to be hooked on an amazing sport.
I hope you'll follow and support this website were we will bring all up-to-date news for all big meets throughout both the jumps and flat season. Bringing detailed analysis before and after each race also adding key information on all horse and jockeys.
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