Adventures of a HorseyHottie.com

HorseyHotties.com sponsor female flat Jockey Laura Pike

2011-03-31T15:24:00.001-07:00

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!!

2011-01-16T03:51:00.000-08:00

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!!

2010-11-13T07:58:00.000-08:00

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

2010-09-19T03:44:00.000-07:00

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'

2010-06-29T15:10:00.000-07:00

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!!

2010-05-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-04-12T11:48:00.000-07:00

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..

New job.. new home!! (part2)

2010-03-25T12:37:00.000-07:00

And I'm back in the room...

Now where was I, ok yep, part two of the epic move from Rural Hollyoaks to Newmarket. I had a couple of weeks to get everything sorted before driving down to Racing HQ. The plan was to split the move, filling my car with as much a I could cram in, live out of the suitcase for two weeks, start at Racing Welfare before heading to Cheltenham for the Festival and doing a round trip back again with another car load!! Confused..?? It all made perfect sense!!

So the first trip down was going swimmingly, I'd hit the road in good time, done about an hour down the A41 and had just got on the M54, so only ten minutes from Birmingham and the dreaded traffic nightmare that is the M6. But you know what, I didn't mind the thought of a nose to tail slow crawl through Brummie country. The sun was shining, the tunes were banging.. life was good. Or so I thought!! I suddenly had an awful sinking feeling, you know the one that hits right in the pit of your stomach. Id forgotten something, and it was important.. as I shout out loud in my best cockney accent, "You're havin a laugh mate" I'd only gone and forgotten my entire work wardrobe!! Classic case of "DOH!!" in true Homer Simpson style, I cant bloody believe it!!!!

Now I've had that awful 'sinking feeling' on the odd occasion whilst eventing, going miles to a competition, leaving at the crack of dawn, triple checked the check list yet some how I've arrived without gloves/ breeches/ jacket and even my body protector!! Seriously... how does that happen??!! So I double back, add an additional two hours on to my journey, typical! I think that's what some would call Karma, the entire moving process had gone too well up until that point, so throwing a miniature spanner in the works wasn't that bad on the grand scheme of things.

The following day I was going to London for one of the my HorseyHottie pals birthday bash. It was all very exciting as I hadn't seen some of the girls since the Claire Lomas Fashion show, and was still rather hyped from moving!

Not content that I'd driven enough miles the day before, I decided to drive down from Newmarket to Clapham rather than taking the train. This decision was not smart and it certainly wasn't clever. On the sliding scale of Country/ Townie I'd put myself on a 60%/40% split, after driving through London it would be more along the lines of 50%/50%. It didn't help matters that I had left my old skool map in the HottieBox back up in Rural Hollyoaks, but not to worry, I'd borrowed a SatNav, so nothing could possibly go wrong and I'd arrive at my destination in good time, smack bang outside their front door! This is me were talking about, that never happens!!

Sure enough Little Miss SatNav voice-over lady sent me straight onto the north circular and right in to some seriously slow moving traffic. Now that, I could cope with, I'd still arrive, just a little bit late. But then.. DISASTER STRUCK!!!! Little Miss SatNav voice-over lady (that's such a mouthful, should of thought of a shorter name!) said those dreaded words "you have five minutes of battery life remaining" Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

This was now NOT COOL!! And I get on the blower to FoxintheCots who was also driving in from Cotswold Country. Sure enough she too was caught in the uber massive traffic tailback and she wasn't too far away!! PHEW!! So we managed to meet up and in classic HorseyHotties style began to find our way to Clapham in convoy. A couple of country gals driving through the streets of London.. We managed to maintain a running commentary for the remainder of the trip, and quickly realised that driving in London isn't that dissimilar from a days hunting!! Just replace 'hound' with 'bike'... "bike on the right", and when one wants to pull out to jump a fence.. or in London change lanes "don't indicate, just PULL OUT, PULL OUT!"

So after all of that we finally made it to Clapham, got ready in super fast time and hit the big smoke with the girls.. Party on!!

Now I'm hoping my next blog post will be a 'Cheltenham Festival' special, reviewed by none other than FoxintheCots, highlighting her entire week at the meeting, she hasn't given me the thumbs up yet so please pester her on Twitter.. Click Here NOW!!

Till next time.. HorseyHottie out xoxo

New job.. new home!! (part1)

2010-03-16T13:29:00.000-07:00

Well where do I start.. the last month has been full of exciting changes, namely I started a new job for the charity Racing Welfare. I initially heard about the position via Twitter, so all you tweet sceptics out their, get with the programme because you never know what exciting opportunities could be just around the corner.

I got my application off quick sharp as I only had a few days left to apply and I don't mind saying now that I must have filled in the application form 4-5 times before I was satisfied. In the mean time I had starting doing a bit of riding out for local Chester trainer Lisa Williamson whereby I had my first taste of jumping down a line of chase fences on a 'proper' racehorse at pace and with another upsides. Not like back in the day when the eventing still required we took our boys for a blast round in between roads and tracks, that was dam good fun! You know what I miss that, a real old skool 3day event with the works.

Anyway I'm babbling now.. so the second horse I jumped 'Ben' was a huge chestnut lad, must have been pushing well over 17hh. He'd only left the floor a couple of days earlier and that day it was up to me to put the big man down his first line of BIG jumps. So we've got a lead, come in at a reasonable pace and he jumps fab! Ben's got some serious scope and took every fence on including the ditch. Whoop! What a great feeling, so off we go back to the start and go again, and YEEHAAA!! This horse LOVES IT!! But then.... Aaaaaarrrrghhhh!! No he loves it too much, and as soon as I had landed after the last big ditch, the big man has bombed off with me, hooning it good style up to the end of the gallop.. it was raining that morning and with the sweat my reins were becoming more and more slippery, even with my normally uber grippy MacWet's I kept ending up back at the buckle end. Needless to say all was well as he pulled himself up. Phew! So I turn the big man round and go down the line again.. 'gulp'.. but all was cool and he jumped great. I was fortunate to ride a real mixture of horses at Lisa's which included a rather randy 2yr old colt who was a proper cheeky chestnut chappy called Chester, lets just say he liked the ladies... oh yeah!! The whole team at Lisa's were all extremely friendly and even though I was only there for three weeks before landing the Racing Welfare position I had a great time. One of the lads I had a good giggle with was from Pakistan and called Shahbaz, I ended up calling him Ricky, after the Latino singing sensation Ricky Martin. I don't know why but I couldn't get the song 'She Bangs She Bangs' out of my head!!! Totally random right??!!

.... to be continued.

Tweed and Muff...

2010-02-07T11:54:00.000-08:00

Firstly I shall apologise for the delay in this post, I've been waiting on some very special pictures that only just arrived!!.. I shall begin by taking you back to Saturday 30th of January whereby the HorseyHotties Possy were to reunite for a days racing at Cheltenham. My day had started early at 5am (I hadn't been up at that time since riding out at Clive Brittains), I was taking my 19yr old eventing school master down with me to Gloucestershire to start a new life as a 'happy hacker', I'm not a big fan of that phrase so lets call him a 'happy hacker with poke!'... (Punch) will most certainly give his new rider a lot of fun!

It was a freezing morning and a good run in the HottieBox (Lorry) would normally take about three hours to get from Rural Hollyoaks to Cotswold Country. So the old boy was loaded, ready to rock and roll, munching hay and was so excited about going on a road trip of his very own he'd already churned out a serious amount of 'Punchy Poo!' But it was all to no avail, the HottieBox had let me down and in the biting cold air she wouldn't start... Noooooooo! I couldn't quite believe it, so I find the jump leads, hooked up the car, pull my poor dad out of bed and after 20mins or so charging the battery.. YES we have lift off and I'm on the road!! Phew.. panic over! Now those of you who know me will remember that I seem to be jinxed with flat batteries.. back in 2007 I spent a very cold and wet night in a Glastonbury car park, saved by a farmer boy and his big tractor! But that's another story entirely!

I made good time and arrived around 9am, unloaded Punch, settled him in his new stable before heading over to join FoxintheCots and the HorseyHotties possy. Now this was when the fun started, all the girls were suited and booted for a day's racing and Samantha Drake from Drakes Bespoke Country Clothing had brought a selection of tweed coats and accessories for us to wear. So after a quick lady like discussion.. "I want that one" we were off to Cheltenham in 'tweet and muff'...

It really was a fab days racing, glorious sunshine, an action packed race card and lots of fun to be had by all.

This leads me on nicely to our RacingUK interview, and that's what I love about a days racing, you are guaranteed to have a dam good time and just might get on the tele!! RacingUK had a very good looking male HorseyHottie with TV camera and 'What a Punt' sign, located by the paddock all day. So just before the last race FoxintheCots, flagged by her two HorseyHottie 'wingwomen', told Mr RacingUK all about her best 'punt'. Punjabi in last years Champion Hurdle, picked for the pink silks.. Punjabi came home to give FoxintheCots enough pennies to purchase a matching Mulburry diary to go with her Mulburry purse.. She's just far too cool for school,so if you see the interview, PLEASE let me know it was HILARIOUS!! I on the other hand have had little to no success on the betting front other than when Red Marauder battled in the muddy slop at Aintree back in 2001 to win the Grand National, I can still remember being on the edge of my seat willing him over every fence praying that he wouldn't fall!! Think I ended up with 50quid in my back pocket and back then I probably spent it on my pony.. actually thinking back to Pony Club days, the Katie Price Equestrian collection didn't exist so all my boys over the years have been saved the humiliation of being 'Pimped in Pink'!! Whoopsy daisy just had a big bout of verbal diarrhoea again.. So back to Cheltenham, I'd put a request out on the tweets for tips and the phrase 'I am not amused' comes to mind, I shall save those so called 'tipsters' from naming and shaming, but not one tip was on the money!! Bad form guys.. very bad form. However any future 'top tips' will be praised with HorseyHotties love and promoted heavily so tweet me your festival tips now!! Think that's just about covered everything other than I shall wish everyone a very happy Valentines weekend, and for all us singletons GET ON LINE, HorseyHotties.com has seen a serge in talent over the last few weeks.. Go on.. have some fun!!

Oh Oh.. one last thing I must do a big HorseyHotties shout out to 'Maggie' and the Newmarket HorseyHotties Possy, I promised to put Maggie in the blog! Bye for now!!

Walk Walk Fashion Baby...

2010-01-23T06:13:00.000-08:00

Well where do I start! What a fabtastically fun evening of entertainment last Saturday's inaugural 'Riders Fashion Show' was, and a massive HorseyHotties 'Hi Five' with 'BomChicka WahWah' shout out to Claire Lomas, all the models and everyone involved in making the night a huge success!! I hear over £10,000 was raised for Spinal Research and the Get Claire Walking Campaign, absolutely brilliant.

The event was held at Newbury Racecourse and I was heading down from Rural Hollyoaks country, stopping off in the Cotswolds to meet up with half of our HorseyHotties possy, convening with non other than Cheltenham's one and only... 'FoxintheCots' (pictured) you can follow her on Twitter too! FoxintheCots.. racing enthusiast, socialite, model and all round 'good egg' had been doing a fashion shoot of her own earlier in the week for Drakes Bespoke Country Clothing who were to be showcasing some pieces on the night.

I'm not quite sure why, but there is something a little bit spiritual about a good old fashioned, girls on tour style road trip. FoxintheCots had pre mixed a party playlist, and roadtrip snacks meant that by the time we had reached our hotel in Newbury we were bouncing off the walls like four hyperactive toddlers who'd just consumed too many E numbers!! All of which made for some classic HorseyHotties banter!

The remainder of our HorseyHotties possy arrived shortly after us and by 7pm we were ready to jump in the taxi and hot foot it over to Newbury racecourse. By this point we had already consumed several bottles of fizzy bubbles or as one HorseyHottie called it.. we'd started early on the 'naughty water'!

Naughty? Us? Good god no!! I mean its only rude not to come to a party without goodies, and the girls had done good! We had a superb collection from glow bracelets, whoop whoop party horns, cocktail umbrellas, 3D specks and the Pièce de résistance being a toss up between the home brew Sloe Gin or the drinking specks.. no no.. it was a dead heat.. slurping home brew through the drinking specks!! However my personal favourite was watching the entire fashion show in 3D... AMAZING!!

As the models began to 'strut' their stuff we cheered and whooped! I have heard underground reports about a so called table of "rowdy ladies", I'm not being funny, but come on people.. lighten up.. there is nothing worse than a dead crowd!

The majority of this vocal accolade was directed at non other than individual bronze medallist from the Beijing Olympics and current European Eventing Champion Tina Cook as well as Channel4 Racing's Alice Plunkett. However the overall 'HorseyHotties Possy Award' and our number one favourite model of the night went to Louise Skelton! She absolutely ROCKED the runway and both myself and FoxintheCots are now huge fans and would like to make her our new BFF!

The auction followed, after which a large majority of us party goers hit the dance floor before pulling an all nighter in Newbury's 'Liquid' Nightclub. How we all made it back to the hotel I shall never know, so all I can say is what an amazing night, filled with FUN, FROLICS and FASHION.. oh.. and a spot of naughty water too!!

Thrills, spills and parties..

2010-01-15T14:30:00.000-08:00

The final chapter of my Newmarket adventure, and this post seems to have taken ages to write, call it writers block or perhaps more appropriately blogger's block. The point is the verbal diarrhoea hasn't been flowing until today and then suddenly out it comes... yes I've got my mojo back!

So my final day at Clive's and what did I wake up to at 4:30am but a blanket of crisp white snow.. WOW, how lucky was I to be riding out on a day like this, I was more than a little 'chippa'. The difficulty has been trying to think back to that first day when everything was white and it really did feel like Christmas had arrived, because lets face it we are in the middle of January now, the sodding snow is still here and a large proportion of us 'horsey' lot cant wait to see the back of it, the racing's been cancelled, the ménage is an ice rink and no chance are we risking hacking on the road... god I love us Brits! Just wait till the summer comes.. "its too hot, I cant ride, its too hot!"

Anyway I've gone off point.. see I told you the verbal diarrhoea was back.. with bells on!

It was a beautiful sunny day in Newmarket, rode out four lots, three of which stayed in the trotting pen, but the last lot I was riding my favourite (Pictured) of all the horses I'd had the pleasure of riding, yes 'pleasure'! Even those two toe rags that's dumped me on the deck.. final count was four falls, off two horses, in four weeks, at least I'm consistent, and to be fair two of my 360 degree spins would of made any Olympic gymnast proud, just got to work on those landings!

'Montaz' (pictured) could barely be more than 15hh, a right little madam in the stable but I fell in love with her straight away, she had the lightest frame with tiny little delicate legs that wouldn't of looked out of place in the show ring. Granted its not the best picture of her, she liked pulling faces in front of the camera..! We must of looked a right pair because here I am standing at 5'8" riding what looked like a kids show pony. VROOM VROOM... off we go and no, she ain't no kids pony!

I had the very best ride that morning, on a fab little filly that I could of quite happily taken home with me, it was a stunning winters morning in Newmarket and to end my riding out experience like that was quite simply.. perfect.

But it doesn't end there, No No. As soon as I had finished riding out I had packed an overnight bag and was on the train to London baby yeah! Its Christmas, horses, London, well that can only mean one thing 'Olympia Horse Show', shopping village and some serious show jumping! Whoop Whoop!

I was invited along by some friends from Andark who have a stand in the shopping village every year. Olympia is a magical venue and I would encourage anyone to visit. Now being a wee bit cheeky I managed to plant myself in the press seats! Back of the net, what a great spot to watch the action! It really was excellent to see the big boys and girls jumping some serious fences. After all that action, it was time to get on the fizzy bubbles, and as a temporary member of the Andark crew we headed over to the riders party at the Hilton. HorseyHottie rule number one.. never miss the party!

And that was that.. four weeks in Newmarket, a jolly to London town and plenty of thrills, spills and parties.. what more could a HorseyHottie have asked for!! Roll on 2010..

I should have been a surgeon...

2010-01-05T06:57:00.000-08:00

During my time at Clive Brittain's I was required to clip the yearlings as well as ride out. Now I've clipped awkward eventer's and stubborn hunters in the past, so baby race horses should be a breeze... right? Too right! All the fillies were fairly good, some were an absolute dream and only a couple of the colts tried to knee cap me!! Haha.. missed me bad boy!!

Now I don't know much about clipping technique, in fact the last time I looked at my 'Pony Club Manual', I was doing some riding road safety test when I was about 12. So after my jockey street cred was dented (falling off twice in one week didn't help) I was complimented on my clipping by none other than Des! Des is Clive's travelling head lad (in picture swimming one of the horses) who has bit of a reputation for being a tough task master, so when he described my clipping as.. "having hands of a surgeon", meant that I was grinning like a Cheshire cat... Whoop I've found my niche!

Actually lets think about this..

For anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of clipping before, don't try! Its not fun and its certainly not glamorous, in fact its pretty awful when you have horse hair everywhere. Up your nose, in your mouth, eyes, ears, it gets everywhere unless you dress up like your'e about to enter a Cleanroom with full on body suit, breathing apparatus, goggles and... oh, hang on... Pony Club Manual flash back.. 'always wear your riding hat'. Sound advice, it's obviously still in there somewhere! Ok, now you come to the fun bit.. Try and get anywhere near a horse whilst looking like an alien from outaspace with your beastly clippers blaring away. No chance son shine, it ain't happening and you're resined to the fact that you will end up with a gob full of horse hair just before breakfast.. nice!

That's when it dawns on me.. and I ask Des, "how many yearlings did you say need clipping?"... I'm not grinning any more..

Hello home of Racing.. HorseyHottie has come to play!!

2009-12-30T10:05:00.000-08:00

As is with life and working with horses, exciting opportunities can, and do happen. Which was exactly what lead me to spend four extremely fun weeks during December, in Newmarket, the hub of British horse racing!

My event horses where having their annual 'time out' and with the launch of HorseyHotties.com back in January I was determined to do some serious promotional work.

So before I could say goodbye to the green green grass or should I say.. brown brown mud of Rural Hollyoaks, I had packed my bags and was winging my way East along the A14 to Suffolk.

As luck would have it and a few introductions later I was riding out at none other than Clive Brittain's. Ok, here's where life got interesting! I may have 17yrs experience around horses (gosh that makes me sound old, I'm only 24), however none of which include any prior

experience of racing or racehorses, apart from a five minute shits and giggles session on a race horse simulator some years ago courtesy of British Eventing... Random! Moving on..

I pulled out my first horse at 5:30am, feeling like a complete racing muppet! I set off up the gallop (pictured) motoring faster than I have ever done in my entire life, perched on something described as a 'saddle', not being able to see more than a couple of feet in front of me in the dark, with my stirrups rather shorter than my cross country length, on a horse that I couldn't hold.. seriously I was like.. OH MY ####ing GOD!! No one mentioned I needed a ruddy headlight on my hat, and where's the handbrake!!

Hurrah! I thought, as he began to pull himself up I'd survived and you know what.. it was fun, in a semi out of control, horsey roller coaster, 'Alton Towers Rita Queen of Speed' kind of way!!

Well my mini adrenalin buzz was short lived when the next horse (pictured) put me on the deck, cheeky git, you can see the mischief in his face!... up down, left right, drop of the shoulder and bang I'm in the mud! "you cannot be serious" I hear you say, I know, my first day and any form of jockey street cred that I might have been able to wangle was dead and buried... Bollocks!

Did someone say Party?

At the end of the week I was fortunate enough to get an invite to trainer Simon Callaghan's leaving party, who has now moved his string of horses to California, (Lucky devil!). It was a really great evening and a wonderful opportunity to meet people that work in all aspects of the racing industry, not to mention plugging HorseyHotties! My ad cards went down a treat and I ended up dancing the night away with my new found disco diva buddies in Newmarket's main nightclub De Niro's, eventually crawling back to base camp in the early hours true HorseyHottie style!!