School’s out for summer

With 68 wins and a personal best for Joe, it’s finally turnout time at the Tizzard Yard – and the spring pressure-washing begins …

The 2024/25 Jumps season draws to a close at the end of April, and we’ll look back on it as a successful and hugely enjoyable one. With 68 winners and an 18 per cent strike rate, it marks a personal best for Joe since taking over the licence in 2022.
We managed to finish the season with a bang – our last three runners, at Taunton and Warwick, all won. A notable performance among these came from an exciting four-year-old called Bob Bishop who, on only his second career start, ran out an impressive winner of the bumper at Taunton. He is a close relative of one of the yard’s old superstars, Cue Card, and is named after the late Bob Bishop, who was married to Cue Card’s owner Jean Bishop.

Champion Freddie
Joe’s nephew Freddie Gingell was crowned the Champion Conditional Jockey this season: what a fantastic achievement at the age of 18. Only his boss, Paul Nicholls, has given Freddie more winners than us this season: we are proud to have played our part in his victory.

Holiday horses
The beginning of May is the time when the majority of our horses are turned out in the field for a well-earned summer break. A few go back to their owners, but most stay on site and they will come back in to training in the second week of July.
After a long season, it’s vital for the horses to relax out in the fields – to go back to simply ‘being horses’ and part of a herd. The nutrients from the spring grass play an important role in their growth and development, particularly the younger horses.
However, this does not mean that there is a shortage of human work to do around the place! There will be around ten horses staying in training for summer jump racing, and we may have the odd runner on the flat as well. On top of this we have the next batch of Colin’s homebreds to break in – this year four two-year-olds – and whatever store horses (three-year-olds) Joe buys at the sales, which we also break in at the yard.
Besides the young horses, there is also the annual spring clean to be getting on with: more than 100 stables need pressure washing and painting in preparation for the horses coming back in in July.
Staff also take their holiday during May and June – we operate on a skeleton staff basis for two months. It is a nice time of year without the intensity of mid-season, but busy nonetheless!