Fillies galore

The foaling and covering season is properly upon us and we've had many early starts to Newmarket and Shropshire with mares, along with some sleepless nights sitting up waiting for foals to arrive.

With four on the maternity ward for the last week or so and a couple of them overdue, we were rewarded on Wednesday with two cracking filly foals born exactly 12 hours apart at 4.40am and 4.40pm.

First to arrive was a special lady indeed as she is a full-sister to Shalaa, and so by Invincible Spirit out of Ghurra (pictured). We knew Shalaa from his foal days having pinhooked him from his breeders Aisling and Mark Gittins, so we were delighted when they asked us to take Ghurra for foaling ahead of her intended date with Dubawi.

Later in the day came a really strong filly by Showcasing for one of our full-time boarders Nandiga and we’re happy to say both foals are thriving.

This weekend we had another two fillies, one by Helmet from our own mare High Will, and another for a client. When we add our Rajsaman foal born in France in January, plus an Acclamation foal here on the farm some weeks ago, we are now six for six with fillies. However, we’ve plenty more to foal so I’m sure it will even up eventually.

It was a good weekend on the racecourse with updates

for High Will, who is a beautiful High Chaparral mare. Her third runner, Midnight Express (Myboycharlie), became her third winner at Chantilly and another member of her family, the Lord Rothschild-bred export McCreery, won a Group 3 in Australia.

Irrevocable, the first of our two mares who will be covered by Lanwades’ new boy Bobby’s Kitten this year, headed to Newmarket for covering last week and our homebred Vallila followed on Monday. We’ve had several mares leave us to be covered by Intello and Dabisrim in France and my son Conor’s mare, Volochkova, is now up at Mickley to visit Heeraat.

So there’s plenty to contend with, even without the added frustration of Storm Doris and the seemingly endless rain.