Holly Blades

Hello!

Welcome to my blog. I will quickly introduce myself as Holly, the Head Girl for Course 219.

I caught the racing bug when I spontaneously got offered the chance to take a racehorse up the gallops by a friend. As it had been a dream of mine to do so, I eagerly accepted. From then on I was hooked and quickly found a job working part time at a point to point/national hunt yard in Gloucestershire. I was fortunate enough to be offered a full time position at the yard on the condition that I attended the 9 week foundation course at The British Racing School and I haven't looked back since.

You join us in Week 5, everyone is excited and eager to continue with the second half of the course after the 3 week break. The horses however were not so keen to be caught from the 50 acre field after a well earned holiday!

The new barn and horse walker are finally finished and look very smart. These new facilities are a fantastic addition to the School, allowing us a better insight into how racing yards on the outside are run.

We also welcome our Beginners who seem like a really nice bunch, everyone is looking forward to getting to know them better.

The first full day back working on the yard has been a hectic one, assisting the Beginners with tacking up and helping them settle into the yard routine. We all had slight reservations when it came to riding as we weren't sure how the horses would react to being ridden after their break however these quickly faded when we were having to push them into trot! It seems they are all quite fat and happy.

Catch up soon.
Holly x

Matthew Kington

Hey,

Welcome to Matt's blog on Course 219 here at The British Racing School. We have just come back from our 3 week break all ready and raring to go. First of all we had to catch all the horses from the field (50 acres) where they were at rest during their 3 week break, which as you can imagine provided a few hours of entertainment.

At The British Racing School we have now had a new barn built, so as well as the few of our horses that are being kept in there, it will be where the livery horses are kept for people doing their courses with them.

Over the 3 week break 5 new horses have come into the yard, some that have not yet been ridden. On Monday our new Beginners arrived, eager to get onto the yard so as you can imagine we have had our work cut out showing them around and helping them to tack up. New they seem to have settled in and got used to the routine and pace around the yard. We are all looking forward to getting to know each other and having fun around the hostel.

Before I came to The British Racing School I worked in a racing yard in Gloucestershire for Peter Scudamore. I decided to come to the BRS because I wanted more experience in a racing yard and thought this would be a great experience for me.

Now I have been here 4 weeks I have made some great mates and have had a good laugh. I have also, since we have been back, ridden 3 of the new horses at the yard all of which were very well behaved and are settling in nicely. I am now looking forward to riding the horses on the straight in a few weeks' time.

I will keep you all updated on how the next few weeks here at the BRS go.

Matt

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