There is plenty of excitement and anticipation in the Esprit Racing camp as we enter Brisbane’s Summer Racing Carnival in December and hopefully participation in the Magic Millions weekends in January!
Trials this week saw several good performances, including Southern Swing’s first trial with the stable for a great 3rd, Thunder Mania’s wonderful return from major surgery with a strong win in good time, Daintree Diva’s smart win controlling the trial from outside the lead, and Il Toro d’Oro’s excellent 2nd indicating he is ready to debut.
Racing this week saw Beltaria break his duck after returning from a throat procedure, Dovetail Diva show off her improved behaviour at the races with a nice 4th from a poor draw, and yesterday Dutch Delight ran a huge race over a most unsuitable 1350m at Ipswich to run 2nd at huge odds.
Next week we see the much awaited debut of Medaglia d’Oro 3yo Il Toro d’Oro, and Daintree Diva at Doomben, so we look to continue the good form.
Shajaea and Irish Ace did a great job, performing well over the last few months; he has now returned from a quick break looking marvellous, and Irish is spelling whilst the tracks firm up. Grey filly Spooky Spectre has shown she is mature enough to get going as has Missile Bound, and they have commenced pretraining. She Shall Rule didn’t bulk up as much as we would have liked over her spell, but she is also in pretraining and on her way.
Several 2yo’s are awaiting their names and will then barrier trial in readiness to race, so watch out shortly for the No Nay Never colt, the Better Than Ready colt, the Extreme Choice colt, and the new Press Statement colt…. and the Star Witness and All Too Hard fillies won’t be too far behind. Unfortunately The Mission filly (Mission of Love) and the Headwater colt have succumbed to growing pains after displaying very good ability, and will be out for a month or so on some green grass, whilst the Starcraft filly is coming along beautifully as she grows into her frame.
Shares are still available in several of them, at different price points, and all have been selected by John Symons and come recommended. Check them out here: https://symonslaxonracing.com.au/horses-available/
Smart horses So Dapper, Set Me Up, El Maestro and Without Thinking will all miss the carnival with injuries unfortunately; nothing major, but when you are dealing with athletes exerting themselves to the “max” it doesn’t take much of a problem to slow them up, and time is the best healer.
Assistant Trainer Ned Coldbeck has been a tremendous addition to the team with the added feature he brings to the role in his riding, giving him the ability to provide valuable feedback to John and Sheila, and the trio can better formulate plans for each individual. We are enjoying Ned’s talent in the team and his contribution into the regular horse videos is no doubt very much appreciated.
It is worth acknowledging how we are utilising the services of Johnny Robbins at Pine View Lodge more and more, when horses return from spelling at Golden Gully. As they progress, they are brought over to the track regularly for trackwork, and once they are closer to trialling they come into the stables. This foundation work seems to be paying dividends the way they are arriving and performing so far.
We welcome new horses and their owners into the stable with Southern Swing, The Beat Goes On, Kim Alicia and Fide et Amore joining us recently, and a new lessee group for each of Love Demon, Dutch Delight and Spooky Spectre. Several new owners have also joined us in the new 2yo’s and we look forward to the new wave of equine talent showing us what they have got. Welcome all!
Many owners were enquiring about the possibility of sourcing Esprit Racing merchandise, so we have partnered with Fanfave and the offering has been well received so far. We will be buying some navy blue gear for the team uniform and we would love to see owners showing off the Esprit logo on the track over the summer. https://www.fanfave.com.au/collections/vendors?q=Esprit%20Racing
We look forward to the Queensland borders finally being opened in December, so we can start to get back to normal and see plenty of Esprit Racing supporters on the track over the summer!
John, Sheila and the Esprit Racing team