You may not all know the great affinity that we have at Essential Financial Management Ltd. with horses.
Sonia Wheeler owns a three year old Belgium Warmblood mare which she is bringing on to event and we all hold our breath on a Monday morning to see whether Sonia comes in limping or smiling.
Helen used to hunt with the Vine and Craven and, for those with long memories, owned an eventer that made it all the way to Badminton and now owns a young Irish Sport horse which is being ridden by her daughter Emma who is also an eventer.
We were casting around to see what we could do as a group that might give a general interest, not only to us, but perhaps to some of our clients and friends and as we are next door neighbours to Highclere Thoroughbred Racing we decided to buy into a racing syndicate. Ours is called The Spearmint Syndicate that has just bought a filly and a colt. The filly was born in March 2009 and once she has been brought on by Highclere Stud she will go to Richard Hannon at East Everleigh Stables near Marlborough and the colt, born in February 2009 , will move on to Michael Jarvis at Kremlin House Stables at Newmarket.
We already invited a few people to the yearling parade at the stud and to lunch in Highclere Castle afterwards (Downton Abbey fame now) and we hope that once the horses get into training that there will be opportunities for stable visits and occasional race days. We also have access to the HTR box at Newbury on some occasions.
Our horses have not yet been named but once they have been and there is something interesting to report, we will keep you informed and post information on this news page.
Finally, Highclere Thoroughbred Racing and Essential Financial Management are swapping offices in December (as you do just before Christmas). HTR have many more staff than we do and we are rattling around a bit so in a bid to cut costs we are downsizing. We will be in the same place but a bit cosier, mainly brought about by having scanned in over 30 years worth of files to our computer network and freeing up lots of space. That took two people over six months but apart from space saving, it has made us much more efficient in tracking down events that happened over a quarter of a century ago. There will be no change of address or phones but we will be “off the road” 16th and 17th December and maybe a little shell shocked on Monday 20th December!
Please find below pictures of our filly (the bay) and the colt (the chestnut).
