HorseyHotties.com sponsor female flat Jockey Laura Pike

HOT2TROT!!!

I'm very excited and pleased to announce that HorseyHotties.com is sponsoring female flat Jockey Laura Pike for 2011. Laura's first ride saw her sporting the HorseyHotties.com logo today at Doncaster Racecourse Saturday 2nd April

in the William Hill Spring Mile (Handicap) riding the David Simcock trained Pintura, LIVE on Channel4Racing. She even got interviewed by the silver fox himself Mr Mike Cattermole!!

Laura will be video blogging, aka 'vlogging' for HorseyHotties.com about life as a female flat Jockey based in Newmarket. Follow her progress, the ups and hopefully not so many downs over the next twelve months via our YouTube Channel HorseyHottiesTV. You can also follow Laura on twitter @LollyPike

Laura commented, "I'm really excited about

working with Ginny and representing HorseyHotties.com, its such a fun website and a great way for single racing fans to meet like minded people! I hope my followers on twitter and all the HorseyHotties out there enjoy my 'vlogging', we've got some great things planned, its going to be a lot of fun!"

Laura's first 'Vlog' will be up very shortly.. watch this space!!

HorseyHottie out! xoxo

The Derby Awards, Billy Aldridge.. And that speech!!

Monday 6th December saw the 44th Annual Horserace Writers and Photographers Association Awards Lunch at The Royal Lancaster hotel in London. I was very fortunate enough to represent Racing Welfare along with Richard Negus and trustee Antonia Deuters.

I was seated with Mike Marshall, Assistant Trainer to Henry Cecil and Head Lad Billy Aldridge who was receiving the award for ’Stable Staff of the Year’. Mike had mentioned that Billy was quite a character in the yard and I quote, “just wait for the speech.”

On arrival, guests were filtered down to the reception which was a sight to behold, I can only describe it as a sea of ye olde boozywoozy!! This grand reception room was laid out with tables from organisations such as The Jockey Club to Racing Post, the room was filled with Racings great and good, Lord Derby, Sir Peter O’Sullivan, Brough Scott among many other well known Racing faces, quite a sight for someone new to the industry such as myself.

The lunch followed and I was able to chat to Billy’s wife Carol who was hugely proud of her husband, “Billy is someone who eats, sleeps and breaths Racing, he’s dedicated his life to the sport and most importantly, the horses.” Finally it was time for the awards ceremony itself, some speeches were more coherent than others depending on the level of alcohol that had been consumed since 11am!! Then it was Billy’s time to shine and the speech, or should I say, his shopping list came out loud and proud.. “Milk, bread, cheese, Viagra!!” The room of 600 erupted with laughter, never before had ‘Viagra’ been ushered in an acceptance speech at the Derby Awards.. Until NOW!! I do believe Billy has been asked back next year as the warm up act!!

Mike very kindly asked if Id like to spend a morning up at Warren Place later in the week, an opportunity I jumped at and it would be great to see Billy at work. I arrived nice and early and was met by Claire Markham, Henry’s Racing Secretary who introduced me to her mount ‘SheLovestoBoogie’ before finding Mike and Billy. True to form, and keeping it real at 6am, the first thing Billy said to me was “You looked a lot better in a frock!” Thanks for that Billy!! Swiftly moving on, I was very fortunate to see Frankel, Timepiece and Midday, before speaking to Billy about the awards lunch. “Brilliant day, great food, I’m very proud and put the award on my sideboard, it looks good up there. A lot of people were saying well done and that they liked my speech!”.

Billy explained his daily routine, feeding all the horses before they go out on exercise, bandaging those that require them and treating any cuts or injuries before returning for evening stables. He lives 20miles from Newmarket and does an 80mile round trip every day. Billy is clearly passionate and proud about his job and working 38 years for Henry Cecil speaks for itself. As he said to me “ It doesn't matter how good a trainer you are, you cant train a lame horse, its my job to keep them sound.” Stable staff such as Billy really are the unsung hero’s of the Sport of Kings, and it was pleasure to spend the morning with him at Warren Place.

The HorseyHotties.com Bumper at Bangor!!

Well where do I start!! This last week has been pretty bloody fantastic for HorseyHotties.com as I decided to venture into the realms of horse race sponsorship.

Through working for Racing Welfare I was aware of HRH The Princess Royal (President of RW) would be attending our Charity Raceday at Bangor-on-Dee Racecourse on the 10th November. This was the perfect opportunity as Bangor is my home National Hunt track, somewhere I'd enjoyed many a days racing with friends and family. Also knowing that my race sponsorship would directly go to Racing Welfare was all the incentive I needed. So as a sponsoring newbee, the 4:10 was aptly named 'The HorseyHotties.com 'Newcomers' Standard Open National Hunt Flat Race'

I arrived at the racecourse for 8:30am to help with the final set up. Lunch guests arrived at 11am, including 'The Voice of Racing' himself Sir Peter O'Sullevan. A racing figure with whom I grew up listening to on the BBC whist watching the Grand National! It was really wonderful to see some friendly faces amongst the 200 guests, many I hadn't seen in nearly a year since moving to Newmarket.

Now we get on to the fun bit! Being presented to HRH The Princess Royal by Roger Weatherby (Chairman of RW and Chief Executive of Weatherby's Bank) "This is Ginny Rose from HorseyHotties.com".. as I recall there was a wry smile and quite possibly a raised eyebrow from HRH! I then explained how I started HorseyHotties.com and had a jolly nice chat, although to be fair I think it was me that did most of the talking! The funny thing is that during my time Eventing I had often seen Princess Anne, mainly at Gatcombe when I was competing. However for some reason in this oh so public environment I found myself getting a tad bit nervous and said to one of the guys from Coral Bookies, Coral were also sponsoring a race that day.. "God I've got sweaty palms.. how ridiculous is that!" He then pointed out that HRH was wearing gloves, phew!! I bet that's the first bullet point in the book 'The HRH Guide to Meet & Greets'. As a pro, one must always wear gloves, you don't know who's sweaty palm you might be shaking!

The rest of the day was superb, the auction raised around £11,000 for RW and Trainer Richard Phillips was the auctioneer. He has got to be my new favourite trainer after standing up and saying the following "I first met Roger Weatherby on HorseyHotties.com". I'd heard that he is a very funny man and after that he had the room in laugher and all eyes were on the auctioneer! Thank you Richard, that line made my day! Check out his website www.richardphillipsracing.com

The race itself was shown live on Racing UK and was won by Kings Grace trained by Donald McCain. Watch it back by clicking here.

And that was that! Today Bangor-on-Dee tomorrow... Cheltenham?? Now that would be cool.. wouldn't it!!

Gallop morning with National Hunt trainer Chris Bealby, North Lodge Racing

It was a glorious sunny morning as I left Newmarket to head up to North Lodge Racing, home of National Hunt trainer Chris Bealby who's based near Grantham in Lincolnshire. Chris, (@nhtrainer) who is a favourite amongst the horsey 'twitterati', had tweeted me (@horseyhottie) about his gallop morning earlier in the week, and that he would be holding a collection for @the_jockey_club charity @racingwelfare (for whom I work).

I've been wanting to visit Chris's yard for some time now, and what a great opportunity to promote Racing Welfare and the wonderful work that the charity does to a small enthusiastic racing audience, as well as enjoying a morning on the gallops and watching some of the horses work.

I arrived in good time, met Chris and his wife Antonia, and had a quick look around the yard as well as stick my head over a few stable doors before approximately twenty people arrived for the morning. I haven't set foot in a yard for about two weeks and it's funny how you miss that familiar 'yard' smell when you're not around the horses on a regular basis. Anyway, I digress. The order of the morning was to watch two lots with a break for coffee and bacon butties... yum! So we all jumped in cars, followed the first lot out and headed over to the gallop. The string came up the gallop twice, first time a nice canter individually and second time in pairs whereby Chris had asked they guys and gals to 'open the horses up'.

It was great to watch behind the scenes action, nothing better than seeing horses and riders enjoying the job on a beautiful day.

Back at the yard was my chance to mingle with everyone (I'd come armed with our Racing Welfare mugs and new wristbands!) and answer any questions people had about Racing Welfare, the most common was "What does Racing Welfare do?" In a nutshell, Racing Welfare is the only charity that helps all people that work or have worked in the British Racing Industry. For more information, here's a link to our website www.RacingWelfare.co.uk which has details on everything that we do.

Chris very generously pledged to matched what was made from the collection, so all in all we raised £260! Brilliant and a huge thank you to all, it really was a superb morning, and I would like to personally thank Chris, Antonia and the whole team at North Lodge Racing for inviting me up and enabling us to have a collection on the day.

Chris writes a brilliant blog with some superb videos of the horses working as well as some fun times in the snow last winter! It's very entertaining and one that I follow on a regular basis.

If you would like to know a bit more about Chris and North Lodge Racing visit his website www.northlodgeracing.co.uk

To conclude.. a fab morning and money in the bank for Racing Welfare.. Happy Days :-)

Until next time..HorseyHottie out!

Royal Ascot, Jimmy Choos & 'The Cabbage Patch'

To Blog or not to Blog? That is the question, and seeing as Id managed to palm off the last couple of posts on to @FoxintheCots and @theelfontour, its about time we resumed normal proceedings with one from me @HorseyHottie!! To be perfectly honest the girls had done such a superb job, I feared they may put me out of one, so I've kicked them in to touch quick smart.. See how I've already managed to get a football mention in.. brain washed I tell you, brain washed! My one and only thought on England and the World Cup is this: We were not fortunate to witness the beautiful man, playing the beautiful game and instead saw his, and our dreams of England winning the tournament dashed. We love you Becks. Hot flush, hot flush!! Right enough of that 'Fooosball' nonsense and on with Royal Ascot.. This is a HorseyHotties blog after all and I feel like I'm 'letting the side down'....!! OK..OK.. Enough already!!

So my day began bright and early on Royal Ascot Saturday, I jumped on a train from Newmarket to London whereby I would be meeting up with the HorseyHotties ladies @cbutterfill, @FoxintheCots, @theelfontour, @Miriam_Goddard & friend. Rondevu at pad 'Utterly Butterly' then KICK ON to Ascot!! The journey warrants an entire blog in itself but here's the short version. I nearly missed my connecting train at Cambridge.. managed to jump on it at the last minute.. result! NOT.. gone and plonked myself on a table of ruddy Germans! Typical! No I'm not making it up.. just look back at my tweets.. its on record! I arrive in London in good time, happy days, tube, sorted.. NOT.. Refurb work had closed the line further down and I was required to get on a bus, by this point I was thinking I should of driven after all :-s

So I finally arrive at pad 'Utterly Butterly' to be greeted by DJ Butter himself! He's not on Twitter yet.. but he will be! A quick outfit change and the HorseyHotties were 'Hot to Trot'!

"Quickly ladies.. ALL ABOARD the Ascot train" The train was filled to bursting point, but everyone was in high spirits. Top hats, floaty dresses, champagne, this is what its all about. The girls had come prepared with a couple of bottles of jolly nice fizz.. @cbutterfill being the 'Events Pro' that she is, took charge and coolly opened proceedings with no spillage on what was a moving train. The same couldn't be said for another group of ladies who's cork hit the ceiling and half the contents of fizz went all over them.. Unlucky!!

Now this is when we get on to that stunning pair of 'Jimmy's' @cbutterfill was wearing. Nothing less than 'KILLER HEELS', not only did she walk all day in them.. yes.. walk, not totter! She'd already done a full lap of the track on ladies day! And believe me its a good pull from the station to the parade ring.. now that's what I call a stayer!!

Right its about time I talk about some horses, as we had a look at the race card I saw there was a Clive Brittain runner in the first so I gather all the ladies together, gave my old pal Des a ring and said we'd try and say hello. We managed to get a good spot to see the Queen arrive in the main parade ring. Unfortunately by Saturday she was obviously suffering from 'WAVE ACHE'.. so we didn't get a wave but @FoxintheCots filled her waving shoes with such regal vigour, I felt one should curtsey! So Your Majesty, if by chance you read this, and why not?! She is a 'HorseyHottie Veteran' after all!! @FoxintheCots will wave on your behalf. (Apparently @FoxintheCots was Tweeting with @Queen_UK throughout the Royal Meeting, she's just too cool.. for pre prep skool!!)

Swiftly moving on!.. Once the queen had departed, I spotted Des in the parade ring, all the girls gave him a good old HorseyHotties shout out.. @FoxintheCots waved.. (any opportunity)!! It was a great day for the Clive Brittain yard as Zaidan stormed home to take the Chesham Stakes and we all got to witness Clive's winning 'Jig'! Top Man!

The standard, £10 a head to join HorseyHotties betting pool was in full force, except we never backed Zaidan.. Rubbish! I thought we were on to good thing with a tip from @jmaxse, he must have been having an off day! By the half way point we were down on our luck, however a good call from @cbutterfill saw us back on track. Just before the last race we hot footed it over to 'The Cabbage Patch', aptly named by @FoxintheCots (who by this point was secretly suffering from wave ache), however she pulled it together, showed her British grit to wave her flag, sing along with the big band and point and laugh at some crazy 'Cabbage Patch' lady wearing a full on body muff..! Only in 'The Cabbage Patch' would you find a body muff at Ascot!

And that was that! A super days racing, lots of laughs and a dam good sing along to God Save the Queen!! Oh Oh.. and a spot of work for Racing Welfare too, (new YouTube Vid coming soon!)

Till next time..

HorseyHottie out :-) xoxo

HorseyHotties do Antwerp international!!

This is my first blog for @horseyhottie and as she couldn’t come to watch the Goddard girls Bon voyage across the channel to compete for Great Britain at Lummen and Antwerp international shows she wanted the full download……..something that I am very good at! Much to @foxinthecots disgust! Opps windy pops just likes to pop up and say hi from time to time.

Lummen international is situated down a quite lane in Belgium’s countryside, where bicycles are the common transport, this week over 250 horseboxes descended. The flags were flying with over 18 nationality’s competing. @Miriam_Goddard had a great show with a 2^nd and 3^rd riding 'My Molly Malone', only being beaten by the reining Belgium national champion! I on the other hand, hit those bloody fences everyday, more superglue is needed the night before I think!

With over 1500 horses competing at the show, the only warm up arena if your not jumping in a class is around a giant pond that has fish the size of sharks in! A lot of people nearly needed there swim suits as over 100 horses worked around this pond!

Saturday night we headed to the show bar, which normally is heaving with everyone having a few quite drinks before the last day of the competition! However this bar was practically empty……we bumped into a friend who was heading to the local pub where the party is……we walk in to find all the top riders doing a Coyote ugly style dance on the bar!

After someone had attempted to break into the horse lorry one night after the show, @Miriam_Goddard and I decided that we needed to have a plan set up encase this happen again…….you don’t tend to carry to many burglar traps when going to a show so we settled for sleeping with a frying pan and sauce pan next to us so we could strike if someone came in!!

We then trucked onto Antwerp where we were joined by @foxinthecots & @cbutterfill. This show has a beautiful picturesque setting beside the port in the city centre. The ring is surrounded by hospitality dining, sponsors bar, ringside bar and grandstand on the other two side. The competition was very strong with everyone in Ferrari mode……. @Miriam_Goddard and 'My Molly Malone' were on top form to secure a 5^th in the speed leg and 10^th in the grand prix.

On the Friday night the feature class was the Six bar challenge were Robert Smith and Michael Whitaker tied to win, by clearing 2.15cm! Robert then went for the world record of 2.17cm for an extra £25,000 if he achieve it….he failed!

Once the jumping finished the fun began……each night there was a different band, from Boogie wonderland to a top DJ singer in Belgium…..who I can’t remember the name of but they must have been pretty famous as I have never seen the Belgium’s get so excited for a short guy with a blonde curtain style haircut!!!!

After a very successful 10 days it was time to come home, A trip that should take about 6.5 hours……..after being stuck in the Antwerp marathon traffic for 2 hours which was actually quite fun cheering all the lead runners on…….. They all perked up when we drove past! Back on the road after 10 minutes we heard a massive bang.......we have a blow out on the back inside tyre stuck on the side of the Motorway around Antwerp! 5 hours later with 2 new back tyres on, we were back on the road. On the 12.30pm ferry were we bump into the British vaulting team who had also been competing abroad. We arrive back at 'The Bronte Stud' Hampshire, at 4.15am, after a 1.30hr sleep we were back to reality on the train to work!

Hope you enjoyed @theelfontour.... till next time!!

CheltFest Guest Blog by the one.. the only FoxintheCots!

Being somewhat of a Twitter Novice, I am still rather surprised that my twitter drivel (or 'Twivel' as I like to call the bullshit that flows from my mouth) has been so widely received. So after much nagging from @horseyhottie and @nhtrainer, I am finally here attempting my first ever blog - Cheltenham Festival - what can I say? I LOVES it; the excitement, the build up, the outfit dilemmas (!) the parTAYs and of course meeting up with good mates to enjoy what is by far the best week of the year – even better than Christmas! Outfit planning started months ahead. For many punters choosing the beasts to back is top priority, however, me and the HorseyHottie ladies were deciding on tweeds, skirts and of course which muff to wear! @horseyhottie has started talking a good game now she is one of the Racing Welfare crew but we HH ladies know she put's more effort into her outfit than studying the form! Like I said planning started months in advance with trips to London for fittings at Katherine Hooker (always coinciding with a cheeky night out with the London ladies!). For me Cheltenham attire is about wrapping up warm, donning the tweed and a cracking pair of boots, HELLO, it’s not Ascot! Who wants to see girls huddling together to keep warm in summery dresses and strappy heels!

Unfortunately, I was still recovering from some killer superbug that knocked me sideways so this year’s festival was a little on the quieter side for me – or perhaps I’m just getting old! Nonetheless I was determined to go at least 3 days and made an executive decision that Wednesday would be my rest day – on the sofa with duvet and hot toddies on tap. Had to be on form for when the ladies arrived for the last two days.

The highlight of the week was seeing our friend @WTKJockey riding 'Time For Rupert' home after a cracking race and a great battle with Big Bucks in the World Hurdle. Up there with watching the Gold Cup, me and 'The Elf' (who is yet to learn of the wonders of Twitter – but I’m working on it) nearly peed our pants shouting and screaming for him. Amazing Will – well done! Next time I’ll bring some large pink and purple pompoms to help cheer you on! Wait I think The Elf has some big pompoms of her own already built in! ;-)

Had a random experience whilst walking on to the lawn to watch a race. Strutting my tweeded butt I suddenly heard a yell….. “FoxintheCots”….. Oh god I thought as my heart sank worried that I had said something to offend someone on that bloody app Twitter. But no, thankfully @jpfestival had recognised me – not sure how- maybe it was the big ginger fro?? This prompted a spontaneous Twitter ‘Meet and Greet’ aka 'TweetUp' on the Gold Cup day when @jpfestival, @horseyhottie, @FoxintheCots and @cbutterfill!! Unfortunately, @jpfestival luck did not rub off on us and our big gambling syndicate (£10 a head to join!) was way way down! However, the last race finally won us enough for a nice bottle of bubbles in the Arkle Bar. I’m sure Twitter went into overload and cries of "Tweet Tweet" were heard – did we see any racing at all!?

It was great watching the Gold Cup from a balcony of a friend’s box – down the way from the Royal box – (well we are practically royalty!) just fantastic!! A great view of the course and of course @paddypower’s PADDYWOOD sign just fab! What an exciting race, absolutely brilliant and well done to @jpfestival for backing the winner months in advance at 25/1 ,maybe I should take more notice of those tips than picking out tweeds!!!

Till next time,

FoxintheCots out..