Dubai Honour

Thankfully there here has been plenty of change in fortune since my last blog update. I was just about to return to riding, and thankfully had a smooth return to the saddle, and within my first week of being back riding had a couple of winners, including a group 3 on day 1 of the championships for Cieran and Maher and David Eustace.

But of course the main anticipation was for what was to come with Dubai Honour running in the G1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes for Team Somerville Lodge. He was absolutely devastating in the G1 Ranvet under Ryan Moore whilst I was still out injured, and obviously the hope was that he could put up a similar performance on Saturday and win a third Queen Elizabeth for Somerville Lodge and I.

Everything in the race went perfectly to plan, and he was ultimately extremely impressive in beating the field, which included a multitude of group 1 winners and horses from all over the world. It was a massive thrill to be back in the saddle on such a major day, and having William Haggas here for the first time to be part of the occasion made it all the more sweet. It’s been a Herculean effort from Issy Paul, Adam Faragher and James Hobbs who travelled the team of horses down here, and got them in absolute top order for the big day! The plan with Dubai Honour now is to go to Hong Kong with Issy and James on the 30th of April for the QE2.

Adam has subsequently gone back to England to resume race riding and hopefully after taking him along to the gym plenty with Trent Langlands (I’m sure a lot of you will have seen the videos!) and getting a bit of sun on his back he’ll be feeling fresh and ready to have a massive season.

I’ll be heading home after racing this Saturday, which is the last day of the Championships. I’d imagine my first day back riding will be on Monday and likely to be Windsor, then with 10 days riding in the UK. I will be flying out to Hong Kong to join Dubai Honour alongside a few local trained rides at Sha Tin.

I’m really thankful for all the work that both Dr Duckworth and everybody at Oaksey house has put in to get me back straight in time to be back riding so soon, we ended up cutting the recovery time short by nearly 3 weeks from the initial estimate, so a fantastic feat by all.

Huge thank you for all those messages of support for both myself and Hollie, who has obviously come back with a bang to riding in the last 10 days and had a multitude of winners already.

We are both thoroughly looking forward to seeing what the season ahead can bring, hopefully lots of winners and good health.