Monty’s Award Blog – March 2023

At this stage I was hoping to expand on another glorious triumph for Monty-kind, but Monty’s Star failed to win the Albert Bartlett at the Cheltenham Festival despite some very vociferous support from my corner of Shovelstrode. I am not always sure that people realise how importance it is to give a horse a strong and motivating name, and to clarify what I mean by that is that it ideally includes the word “Monty” somewhere. If you type “Monty” into the Racing Post website’s search, no less than 1,883 responses come back for horse names. By comparison, the word “Aztec” only produces 56. Confusingly “Pooh” has 356 instances, but it is hard to tell between references to a certain fictional bear and those to manure. I think that we can all now appreciate that names are important.

{Reader’s will be spared the detail of an extended debate between horse and editor as to whether it is better to name a horse after a Rush song or one by The Cure. Everyone bar Monty knows that the answer is Rush – Ed.}

Since my last missive, the saucy but bonkers Gold Clermont has won a couple of times, jumping like an ocelot both times (a good thing, in case you were wondering). That was personally disappointing because now I am only tied as the yard’s winningmost horse of the season, and she expressly ignored my advice that succeeding over fences is not a good use of our time and energy. Therefore I have replaced her as my favourite mare with Brown Bullet, who also won at Plumpton – although she has not yet promised me that she is not going to win again.

{That is terrible grammar but I am morally obliged to repeat what Monty tells me – Ed.}

What Gold Clermont’s achievement has done is to convince me that I must redouble my efforts in exercise, as it is still possible that I could regain sole honours by the end of April. As long as the sun comes out…

I did have a brief setback in the form of a touch of colic, but after a little while it cleared. Colic is a proper old fashioned ailment because it can be fixed by walking it off. Anyway I feel fine now, but it is another reminder not to be complacent in my training regime. This does mean that I will not be able to dedicate quite as much time to mentoring other horses, as between training, eating, dozing and moving my meals around my stable, pretty much all of my day is occupied. Fortunately, I think those that I have been working with are ready to sort things out for themselves now. My team mates in the Jokulhlaup colours have both finished second, Hesbehindyou has a second and a third and I have realised that quietly coaching behind the scenes is the sort of cushy number that I have been looking for.

Originally I had no questions to answer this month, but then one came in from Mr L D Maulde, of Cowbridge in Wales. He asked, “Have not seen you at the races lately, is everything OK?” My answer is, “yes, everything is splendid. You have been out slogging through mud and sleet in the coldest part of winter, and I have been at home, nice and warm in five rugs.” With any other horse I would ask him how he crosses the river, but between you and me, I do not think that he would get what I am talking about…