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I was just wondering with the recent bad weather, and Richard Lee for example mentioning problems, whether people could provide a list of trainers who use the beach for training horses, either regularly or as an expedient in situations such as the current one.
It is quite common for some Irish trainers to work their horses on the beach.
Forpadydeplasterer regularly has a spin on Banna Strand in north Kerry. Michael Hourigan used to bring Beef Or Salmon there as well before all his big races.
A lot of trainers in Meath and north Kildare would bring their horses to Laytown Beach. I was reading on Robbie Hennessy’s blog on the RP site that he took Sublimity there a few weeks ago.
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He was that with his lad Billy Ellis.
We took a horse to the beach from Malton to Scarborough about 15-20 years ago. More than a few trainers did but I’m not sure if it’s allowed these days.
I think you have to pick your times of day and year, Fist. Certainly when I lived on the Yorkshire coast a few years back, there wasn’t any objection to horses exercising on the beach at a "first lot" sort of time of morning other than at the height of the tourist season. I wonder if Roy Robinson used to do that.
As for who’s still actually doing it? I’d be surprised if some of those trainers close to the Somerset coast don’t take advantage of the beach – has Philip Hobbs ever said he has, perhaps?
Anecdotally, and because I haven’t mentioned him for, ooh, at least a fortnight, Ted Caine frequently used to work his band of heroic losers on the beach of what his assistant referred to as "Nad al Redcar". Don’t know if it’s still on there, but one early entry on the Quixall Crossett website meditated on the eponymous hero’s frequent attempts to see how quickly he could drop his shoulders and give his rider an unscheduled bath in the North Sea.
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Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
I think sand work on a beach has to be gradually built up as the change in going can damage the tendons. I remember learning about this in the Pony Club, they told us not to gallop our ponies on the beach if they hadn’t been worked on it for a number of days.
If this is correct then it might not be worth trainers just going for a cold snap. In Red Rum’s case the beach was his main gallop any way.Back in my riding out days I was always taught that the absence of any "spring-back" (for want of a better word) from beach sand puts horses’ tendons at risk.
For that reason we only used to take horses to the beach when everything else was frozen, and we only ever did very long, very steady canters on the wet bit next to the sea. (Apart from one memorable occasion when I got carted, and received a bollocking too.)
Didn’t Ferdy Murphy take Kalahari King and a few other festival hopefuls for a beach spin last season?
I would have thought the main reason for taking horses to the beach might be mental rather than for fitness? It would proably do some good to have a change of scenery every now and then – just like us humans who go to all these foreign beaches every summer!
Oh well, so we’re [edit] NOT going to get a post saying so-and-so at thingy-on-sea does it regularly oop North, and look out for his horses when we actually get some racing up there.
I think sand work on a beach has to be gradually built up as the change in going can damage the tendons. I remember learning about this in the Pony Club, they told us not to gallop our ponies on the beach if they hadn’t been worked on it for a number of days.
If this is correct then it might not be worth trainers just going for a cold snap. In Red Rum’s case the beach was his main gallop any way.I think I am right in saying that Ginger used to gallop Red Rum on a Harrowed strip of sand to put some give into it and there is a good story that Caughoo was fittened up on his local strand prior to winning the 1947 National, it being a terribly hard winter that year.
Capt Ryan Price used to take his horses down to the beach a few miles from Findon when there’d been a big freeze-up.
It was always worth following trainers based near the sea after a thaw.
As for who’s still actually doing it? I’d be surprised if some of those trainers close to the Somerset coast don’t take advantage of the beach – has Philip Hobbs ever said he has, perhaps?
Don’t know, but some of the "sand" along the Minehead – Weston stretch is more like Chepstow mud!
Phil Kirby-and he’s got runners declared at several tracks next week.
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A qualified Farrier, Lancashire-born Phil Kirby sent out his first ever runners in January 2007 resulting in 2 impressive winners (neither horse had won over fences previously) and a close second. With just four horses in training, he then went on to become the leading British trainer of Hunter Chases at the National Point to Point Awards. Taking the title in his first season of training was a major factor in Phil applying for his full National Hunt Licence, gained in December 2007. With 8 horses, Phil trained 5 winners and 6 seconds in his first fully-licensed season and has not looked back since. Set in the pictureseque North Yorkshire Moors, Dibble Bridge Stables is a small but successful dual-purpose yard. Phil’s horses benefit from daily turnout and frequent schooling in large grass paddocks, plenty of hill hacking, long steady canters on Redcar beach and the use of near-neighbour Keith Reveley’s 6-furlong all-weather gallop. The Kirby team take special care to treat each horse individually, with specially-tailored training regimes. Stable luminaries include classy hurdler Amazing King; exciting young chaser Agglestone Rock; the consistent and tough Goldan Jess; German Listed-race winner Andorn.…the consistent and tough Goldan Jess;
Damn right!!
Believe me, Keith Reveley’s gallops are incredibly steep.
One of the up and coming trainers in NH racing. Aggie has been declared for the Castleford Chase at Wetherby on Sunday, although that meeting looks doubtful.
The latest update on his site:
‘Busy day today with all the boxing day runners having their last piece of work. It is just like Switzerland so all went on a trip to the seaside with Phil and Simon in 3 seperate lots. Everything went to plan and all seemed fine on their return home. The remainder did strong canters on the soft snowy fields, which gets a nice bit of work into them.’
He does remarkably well with such a small string and all his horses cost £10,000 or less, bar one (which cost £15,000, I think). He has saddled three winners from six runners over fences this season (50% SR) and his overall strike rate over the biggers obstacles since 2007 is 22% (8 – 38).
Due to the size of his string, each horse is treated as an individual and they each have a specially-tailored training regime.
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