Category: News

Eight for El Capitaine! Firstly, as I am sure most of you have heard, we are devastated to say that on Friday 17th October, we lost our yard stalwart, The Kings Writ. Words will never be able to describe how much of an impact this horse had on Kayley’s life and he was a true gentleman through and through. Many of you saw him display what energy he still had for life at our recent Owners Day, but a severe bout of colic unfortunately meant he was taken from us. He achieved a highest rating of 140 when owned by David & Steph Stevens and gave them so much fun. He then retired to the Point to Point field with Kayley and gave Josh and Hannah some fabulous wins over the past two seasons. Everyone at Blackmore Farm and beyond, will miss him deeply.   El Capitaine’s win at Newton Abbot the following day gave the team something to smile about. It was a huge achievement from a horse who won seven Point to Points last season after he was purchased by JD Moore from Chris Jones. To come out and win on his rules debut for us was incredible and he has such an exciting future ahead of him. The team were rewarded well with owner Ivan Thompson, supplying a famous Sausage Shed breakfast the following week! Lucky Bere made a pleasing seasonal debut at Worcester to finish 3rd and we are happy to report that Vol Royale is fine after being bought down at the first at Fontwell.   We are delighted to renew our sponsorship with The Firehouse again this season and were very excited to receive our FlexiChase hurdle a couple of weeks ago. We cannot thank The Firehouse enough for making this possible and it is a huge asset to our facilities here at Blackmore Farm. The Firehouse has just released their new Autumn/Winter menu which looks incredible, so please do get down there if you haven’t yet been! Please click the following to see the menu.   Our three year olds are coming along nicely and have all schooled outside over the jumping lane and the birch hurdles. We will try and get them away for a couple of outings before Christmas just to give them some more education before their small break over the New Year.   The first Point to Point is only 10 days away and it will be full steam ahead again to have a successful and healthy season.

A Sunny September! We have had a very busy September and it is crazy to think that October is just around the corner. We had our Owners Day at the beginning of the month and we soon packed up the day after and it was straight back to the normal day job come Monday!   The horses’ work load has increased and we have started planning a few targets for some of our early National Hunt horses. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for some more rain to be able to get onto the fields, but we are also enjoying the dry, crisp mornings that we are currently having, followed by some glorious sunny days!   We have started giving some of the horses a pop in the school over the barrels and hurdles. The 3 year olds had their first jump in the school and all were very good. Some initially find it easier and more natural than others, but they will do plenty of jumping between now and Christmas and it will be amazing to see how much improvement they will have in a short period of time. Some of the older horses have also had a jump and showed plenty of enthusiasm!!   All our new staff have settled in and we have a great bunch of girls going forward for the season (poor Josh!). Sydney Kedge has a great background in Eventing and Dressage and spent last season riding out at Ben Clarke’s. Georgina Pratt joins us having finished College at Hartpury and has experience riding out for Leslie Jefford. Emily Pennington has recently moved down and joined us in August having spent plenty of time hunting on Exmoor!   Kayley and Lauren are delighted to have moved into the new office, which I am sure many of you saw on our Owners Day! The electrician came in on the 15th and once the plugs and WIFI were working, it was moving in day! The fire has been lit several times and it most certainly looks like it’ll be a warm, cosy winter in the office! If you cannot find Kayley on the yard, you know where she will be!!   It won’t be long before clipping will begin and then you really know winter is upon us! The Pointing season will also soon creep around and hopefully we have another successful season ahead of us.

Owners Day Another busy summer has flown by and autumn is definitely upon us. The weather is on the turn and finally the rain has come! All the horses are back in work now and the majority have started their cantering work. Josh spent a couple of weeks redoing the drainage on the gallops and we will also start to top the gallop up over the coming weeks.   We have an extremely exciting string of both National Hunt and Point to Pointers to run this season and these were on display at our well attended Owners Day on Sunday. We had an amazing turnout of around 160 people and paraded all the horses before a lunch, which was made by several very loyal helpers! It takes quite an army to pull this day off and we are so grateful for all the help everyone gives us. All the horses looked a picture in the parade and are a credit to all the staff for their hard work. There was no rest for the wicked and we had Gary Waters and Gabriel Hannon in on Monday to do all the horses teeth. This is such a crucial part of a horse’s wellbeing and it is always reassuring to have everything checked and treated, especially when we have a lot of newcomers at the beginning of each season.   Our team of 3 year olds is as strong as ever and we will spend the next month or so getting to know them. They all loose schooled in the summer during their breaking in process and we will get them jumping under saddle fairly soon. It is great to watch them all progress and find their strong points and fingers crossed we can get them to the track in the Spring. The “proper” National Hunt winter season kicks off at Chepstow on the 10th October and we could possibly have a few runners around this time. Some of our National Hunt horses could start off in a Point to Point first before switching back under rules.   The Point to Point season starts on the 8th of November at Knightwick but the first meeting in the Devon and Cornwall area is on the 23rd November. We hope to have some runners again early like we did last season but it all depends on the weather and how the horses are coming along.

Summer Holidays Another busy summer is nearly over for us and the first few winter horses have come back in from their holiday. The girls have been busy pressure washing and painting the yard ready for the new season and we will have Equine Bio Genie in to do a final disinfect soon! All the staff have had their well deserved breaks and it will soon be full steam ahead with a yard full of horses and several weeks of road work and steady cantering in preparation for another exciting season ahead.    Kayley and Lauren have been busy restocking for next season and we have gained some lovely form horses as well as some beautiful stores. The last Store Sale of the season is this week in Ireland, so hopefully we can add another to the team for 2025/26. So far stores have been purchased by Getaway, Passing Glance and Free Eagle. We have a couple homebred 3 year olds that are joining the team and we are very excited about getting to know them all in the autumn.    A couple of exciting form horses that have been purchased include Beacon Edge and Electric Jet. Beacon Edge has a CV that speaks for itself. A winner of a Grade 1 and 2 in Ireland when trained by Noel Meade and Gordon Elliot in the famous Gigginstown silks. He won a hurdle race the day before heading to the Sales back in May and has joined us to go Hunter Chasing. After watching Jet Smart win impressively for the 2nd time in two runs at Upcott in May, a quick look into his family found the full brother, Electric Jet, at Charlie Longsdon’s and he still remains a Maiden. After a quick road trip for Lauren to go and try him, he was back in the yard a couple days later and is a very exciting prospect going forward. He finished 2nd over fences at Ludlow for Charlie and looks to have plenty of ability to switch to the Points.    The team thoroughly enjoyed attending the National Point to Point Awards at Cheltenham Racecourse. Josh picked up the Trainers Trophy at Nationals and Zena Williamson was one of three finalists for Equine Products Stable Employee Of The Year. At the Devon and Cornwall Awards, at Exeter Hotel and Golf Course, Josh collected Leading Yard and Leading Male Jockey. Hannah Morgan won Leading Lady Novice Jockey and the Keagan Kirkby Shield, which is presented to an up and coming jockey who is progressive and hardworking in the area. Clondaw Drake won the Devon and Cornwall Leading Horse and Leading Novice Horse and his owners, John and Sonia Gardener, took home leading owners for the season. At the Wessex Awards, Hannah won the Rising Star Award which was brilliant for her.    In other news, we will have a new office for this coming season! If you’ve been to the yard on a cold winter’s day, you will know how exciting this is! The old office had done us well but it was most definitely time for a new one!

National Champions! On Sunday we managed to secure the Foran Equine Champion Trainer award at Kingston Blount, when Caspers Court won by a head under Hannah Morgan. We sat pretty comfortable at the top of the leaderboard going into the final weekend but with Hannah and Casper beating Young Rich from the Ellis yard, it meant we could not get caught.    It has been an amazing season for Josh and everyone at Blackmore Farm. We have had 43 winners from 113 runners, operating at a 38% winning strike rate. A further 25 seconds and 19 thirds meant 77% of our runners finished in the top 3! We supplied 6 different jockeys with winners across the season. Josh, Hannah, Izzie Hill, Will Biddick, Darren Andrews and Jack Stenhouse.    A big highlight of the season was Wadebridge in December, where we had 5 winners on the card! We had a brilliant start to the season and it put us at the front of the leaderboard from a very early stage. Gina has kept us on our toes throughout and pushed us every weekend, so we are thrilled to get the job done. With the highs, come the lows and losing our stable stalwart Sixteen Letters was very hard to swallow. He was a complete hero for us all and will always be incredibly missed!    Josh had an incredible season in the saddle, riding 45 winners and finishing 2nd in the Tattersalls Jockey Club Sales National Men’s Championship. Josh’s best season previously was 22 winners, so to double his best and finish 2nd in the leaderboard is a great achievement. Hannah had a fabulous season riding 6 winners and therefore finishing 3rd in the Highflyer Bloodstock National Ladies Novice Jockey Championship. El Capitaine was runner up in the Connolly’s Red Mills Champion Point To Point Horse leaderboard with 7 wins and Clondaw Drake finished 4th with 5 winners. John and Sonia Gardener finished 3rd in the Isuzu Leading Owner Championship with Clondaw Drake supplying them 5 winners and Holiday Fund another 3.    We have set the bar pretty high for next season and will spend the next few months refuelling, restocking and giving the yard its annual clean. We look forward to celebrating at the National Awards at Cheltenham Racecourse in July with all the team. Before we know it, horses will start to come back into work and we start all over again!