The story so far

Welcome to our thoroughbred diaries. We hope you enjoy what you read and, if you do, will tell other people about us.

Who are we and why should you be interested in us?
We are two thoroughbred fillies who were born in Ireland earlier this year. Just over 6 weeks ago we were brought over to the UK to be taught how to be racehorses, and we thought that you might like to come on this journey with us and follow our progress onto the racecourse and, if we are any good, into the winners enclosure. It could be quite an adventure.

At the moment we don't have proper fancy racing names and so our owners have given us what they call stable names.

Mine is Thelma - I'm the tall brunette with the white star and I was born on 6th March 2009 (star sign Pisces, which is quite appropriate given Mum's name). I'm the boss in our stable as I'm older and wiser than Louise, and someone has to keep her and all her 'french' ideas in their place. She will no doubt introduce herself later on.

People tell me that I'm well bred and I have no reason to doubt them. My dad (those in the know call him my Sire) is Primary who is a bit of a star at his Stud in Ireland (actually he's jet setting in Chile at the moment), and my Mum (Dam to the smart set) is Seaborne and actually I think I rather look like both of them. Dad did rather well on the racecourse until he got injured and I think that's where he picked up his rather jet-set ideas as he raced in Italy and America. He also mixed it up with some fancy types - I’m going to name drop here - such as Papal Bull, Ivan Denisovitch, Horatio Nelson, George Washington, Sir Percy, Red Clubs and Pressing just to name a few, so I suppose he's entitled to have a few grand ideas. Mum led a quieter life but won some races for a well known Trainer so she's no slouch, so I guess I’ve got what people call ‘potential‘. My grandfathers were a bit smart too - on Dad’s side is Giants Causeway who really was a bit of a superstar, and Mum’s Dad was Slip Anchor who won The Derby as did his Dad (Shirley Heights) and Grandad (Mill Reef). But as I overheard someone in the stable say the other day ‘handsome is as handsome does’ and I guess I have quite a lot to live up to!



Going back to my stable name, apparently it’s the name of the lead in a well known film - I don’t know about that - but according to what I’ve heard there was a tall dark one (Thelma - like me) and a smaller redhead (Louise, of course). They seemed to be a bit wild from what I understand and had some quite hair-raising adventures. We could take take after them - not sure myself if that would be a good or bad thing?

So who needs to be introduced - well there are our owners of course. I call her the ‘Mrs’ and him ‘The Gaffer’- they seem to be in charge of us - or is it the other way around - and there is the Vickster as well. The Vickster helps out at stables every day and mostly looks after Louise (spoils her a bit if you ask me) but sometimes we swap over - particularly if Louise is being a bit uppity! The fourth member of the Team we call the 'Mysterious Broom Man' because he's always walking behind us with the yard brush in his hand.

Our stables and fields are very busy places. There are other horses, people, dogs, sheep, geese, helicopters, tractors and even an Alpaca. I’m used to it now but, after the quiet of Ireland, it was all a bit of a shock to the system. But now that I'm starting to settle in it's actually quite nice as there’s always something going on, and something different to look at so I don’t get bored.

Next time I thought I'd tell you a bit about the journey over and my first week in England. I won't pretend it wasn't tough packing up and leaving home for somewhere new, but I'm here and I've heard people saying that I'm doing well, so it could have been worse!

Bye for now - Thelma.