Afternoon all,
Obviously a no bet kind of day for me, but I thought the odd reader would find a brief snippet of interest from my day out yesterday.
We went to see Fergal O'Brien's current yard and had a good chat with Sally (asst trainer) about all things FOB racing. Firstly, as Stick will no doubt attest, trying to find the yard isn't the easiest, and we ended up in the middle of NTD yard as they were turning out a lot!! Amazingly everyone was so friendly at NTD, and it was amazing to see his massive string heading out onto the road (and then onto the gallops). The lads/lasses were so friendly and made my lads day by saying hello to him.
Anyway, after that quick excursion we found FOB yard, and were made very welcome by Sally. We had a quick chat about the horse i'd gone to discuss and went through his form, pedigree and why his price is what they suggested. The amount of detail that came out of the conversation was brilliant and I was at ease knowing that Sally knew massive amounts about not only the FOB horses but the form of other yards. The passion she spoke with about their horses was compelling and very interesting to hear how a few of the string had developed over the summer.
Now, what is interesting is that they are moving yards this year and they are expanding the string because of that. The new yard has 80 boxes and they've already got approximately 78 horses ready for the move. I say approximately because Sally wasn't quite sure how many they had in pre-training yards scattered around the country!! That is a big step up from the 50 boxes they had when they started at this yard. It showed me something I wasn't really aware of, how yards have to manage their stock from satellite yards to pre-training/owners yards in the early months prior to the season. Quite a staggering operation.
So the new yard sounds really interesting, and with it being very close to Kim Bailey's yard, it is in a great location for us folk near to Cheltenham. They are very hospitable and what is more, they know their onions and how to train winners.
So will I be investing? Of course.