Norris Bloodstock

At Book 1 of the 2013 Tattersalls October Sale we sold four yearlings that we’d pinhooked as foals. The first job of a pinhooker is to sell well and we were delighted with the results when the quartet we’d bought as foals for 330,000gns sold for a total of 700,000gns. Of course sales results are important for anyone in the bloodstock industry to stay in business but where it really matters is on the racecourse, so ultimately my job isn’t just about making profit for the pe

We’ve had a hectic spell of late, both here on the farm and travelling around to the breeze-up sales. The warmer weather followed by a good drop of rain has been welcome but of course it means the grass is now growing faster than I can cut it, so plenty of hours are being spent on the mower. With all our foals now safely delivered there have been trips back and forth to Newmarket, to Juddmonte’s Banstead Manor Stud and Darley’s Dalham Hall Stud, to get the mares back in fo

We've had mixed fortunes with our mares this year. With neither Villabella or Nut having had a foal last year I was looking forward to seeing what this spring would bring but early in the year we found Villabella had absorbed her foal, which was extremely disappointing after sending her all the way to Germany to be covered by Dabirsim. Worse was to come, however, for poor Nut. She delivered a good strong colt by Rajsaman who seemed perfect in every way bar the fact that he ha

We’re counting down the days now until we load our beautiful Zamindar colt onto the lorry for France. He’ll be the first of our yearlings to sell this year when he goes under the hammer as Lot 27 on the opening night of Arqana’a August Sale. I always really look forward to the French yearling sales – William and I have had plenty of luck buying in France – but there’ll be a bit of extra pressure this year with this colt becoming our first horse to be consigned in Deauville