BUSY DAY AT THE BELMONT TRIALLS.

Next Monday will see us have a very very busy and interesting day at the Belmont trials. I have ten horses listed to start however I doubt very much if they will all go around. I am not a big fan of trials at the best of time let alone having ten in the one morning. We don't do it very often so I guess I shouldn't complain.

I tend to use trials for the purpose of qualifying to race only and it is very rare if one of my horses shows up in a trial. This is simply because of the way I train where I like to leave plenty of improvement in each horse after they have trialled and I then like to see if they make that improvement. If I had my way I doubt that I would take many if any of my horses to the trials if it wasn't a condition prior to them starting. I have always felt that most "professional trainers" are capable of producing well schooled and well educated young horses to the races and have them perform genuinely without the need for a trial.

Either way the next month or so should see us have a bit of fun with our unraced and lightly raced young horses. I do love training young horses and watching the improvement that they can make from one gallop to another and from one preparation to another. Then of course there are the ones who show enough to keep you interested but don't improve a yard.

It's all good fun and I can't imagine training a team of horses that didn't include a lot of young unraced ones!