Freedom Farm Stud

Foals at Foot

2009-07-02T14:43:00.013+01:00

The foaling season is well and truly behind us. Work continues however improving the environment for our horses. At present we have 7 mares resident on the farm. This year they produced 3 colts and 4 fillies between them.

Pictured above is Stella Marine with her chestnut colt born on the 4th February 09, by Medicean.

Stella Marine was purchased by Freedom Farm at Newmarket's December Sales and this is her first foal.

Hares in Abundance

2009-06-30T14:28:00.004+01:00

Sadly we are now past the longest day. However, these long warm Summer evenings have their own magic and seem to have bought out our resident hares population. James swears they are bigger than ever this year!

If any one is interested in joining James to see the hares on an evening stroll around the farm please contact him on 01440-783789

Zowington Flies Home at Folkstone

2009-06-26T14:06:00.000+01:00

Congratulations to Mr. Owen Pointing and connections on Zowington's win in the 4.15 at Folkstone.

How nice it was that he was ridden by a Mr. William Carson, who is in fact the grandson of the great Willie Carson.

Zowington was bred at Freedom Farm out of Mr. Pointing's mare Carmela Owen.

Bill Turner

2009-05-30T07:25:00.004+01:00

Some years ago, Bill Turner trained one of Vague Shot's sons and I seem to remember he won a few races with the horse.

But that pales into insignificance when compared to his latest training feat that has just been recorded in the Racing Post.

He's broken and ridden a zebra!

Good to see that he rides it without a hard hat! He's also 61! So he's still got a lot of life yet!

Interesting that as I write, that this story has only appeared so far in the Racing Post. I would have thought it was the sort of tale, that most newspapers would find worth printing.

Jobs for Latvian Girls

2009-02-18T08:23:00.002Z

I have recently been contacted by several girls from Latvia, as they have been offered jobs on this stud. At present we have no job vacancies and if we did, they would be shown on this site.

This is all deceit and possibly fraud.

I have reported these fake job offers to the police.

So please, if you are offered a job on this stud, then check with us first. It is unlikely, it will be a real job unless it is offered by James, Michael or Lyndsey.

A Frosty Day at Freedom Farm

2008-12-12T10:15:00.003Z

It was cold last night. I tried to play real tennis at Cambridge and virtually froze.

This is the end of the new buildings. Note the sky.

Vague Shot looks almost miserable. But he was friendly to me, when I stroked him.

Also at his age, he knows how to keep warm and makes sure his rug doesn't move. Incidentally, he still doesn't grow a decent coat in the winter.

This is the new offices from the same position as on The Stud.

Note Vague Shot's stable at the right.

Stella Marine

2008-12-03T09:30:00.001Z

Times may be hard with the credit crunch hitting many, but it didn't appear that way at the December Sales at Newmarket yesterday. Quite a few broodmares changed hands for over 100,000 guineas, with one, Princesse Dansante, being purchased by Sheikh Mohammed's Darley operation for well over a million.

We had hoped to purchase Tenderly, but she was out of our league at over half-a-million guineas. But as Michael and I joked, at least he has taste!

Around lunchtime, we were in the ring again hoping to buy a mare called Stella Marine, who is a full sister to the Group winning mare, Stella Blue. Judging by the prices earlier, we felt we would be unlucky, but we got the four-year-old filly we wanted at a price we could afford.

Christmas Card 2008

2008-12-03T08:51:00.004Z

This picture by Prunella Hawke was used for the 2008 Stud Christmas Card.

Little Carmela

2008-11-18T18:47:00.002Z

Congratulations to Little Carmela, a filly bred on the stud for Owen Pointing, that won nicely at Kempton yesterday.

Poor Stuart Williams, the trainer, is in bed with chicken-pox.

Water Pipes

2008-09-29T12:19:00.003+01:00

I've now put in lots and lots of new blue water pipes on the stud.

I've also used various different makes of connector to link it all up. The best I've found so far seem to be the Philmac ones, that I get from Ridgeons in Newmarket.

Their great advantage is that they connect to the pipe much easier than the other makes I've tried and this makes connection in difficult places down holes so much quicker and more reliable.

Bold Bunny

2008-08-31T17:56:00.002+01:00

Bold Bunny is a horse that Celia bred from her mare Bold and Beautiful. Records show that she was not the best of racehorses, but if you look at the family, they have certainly produced their fair share of winners. And not all at the lowest level!

I would also claim that she wasn't the luckiest of racehorses and deserved better than her two third places. But what owner wouldn't say that?

She was actually called Bold Bunny, because her mother was Bold and Beautiful and her foster mother was nicknamed Bunny. Bold and Beautiful died soon after Bold Bunny was born.

On Thursday though her Needwood Blade colt was bought at auction by Shadwell Estate for 58,000 guineas, after being sold in December as a foal for 40,000. So it does seem that she produces the good looking horses which appear in her family.

Chinese and Eights

2008-08-08T09:48:00.001+01:00

The Olympics will open at 8:08 on the 8th of the 8th, 2008.

Perhaps they will be lucky as eight is the Chinese lucky number!

Twenty years ago, Celia had a horse called Golden Panda, who she had named after a Chinese friend’s restaurant in Ipswich. On the 8th of the 8th, 1988, Golden Panda ran in a handicap at Nottingham. Given a superb ride by Steve Cauthen, she won easily at odds of twelve to one.

Some Chinese restaurateurs couldn’t hold back and there were rumours of bookmakers losing large sums of money. Whether these were true or not, I do not know, but we did get lots of free meals!

Celia's Day

2008-07-27T08:37:00.000+01:00

On Saturday, all of Celia's friends and family sponsored a race in her name at Newmarket.

We all met at the stud for drinks and to show everybody what we have done to create one of the first low-energy and efficient studs in the country.

Vague Shot also showed off to everybody as he always does.

The race was won by Medicea Sidera, ridden by George Baker and trained by E Vaughan.

Weatherbys

2008-07-25T16:00:00.000+01:00

Weatherbys get a lot of stick from racehorse owners and trainers, but as I don't handle all of that side I can't comment.

But I've just been dealing with them over the page for the race in Celia's name on the 26th of July. The page went backwards and forwards several times and I can't fault their design or their patience.

Good for them!

Hares

2008-07-21T17:45:00.003+01:00

These two pictures were taken of hares in the fields at the back of the house. I actually photographed them from an open bedroom window.

Wonderful Light

2008-07-21T11:29:00.002+01:00

These pictures of the stud were taken on Tuesday night, as the sun was setting in the west.

Ascot Racecourse

2008-07-12T19:13:00.000+01:00

These two pictures show the new buildings at Ascot racecourse. Surely they must be one of the best designs for a sporting venue. I thought Wembley was pretty good, but Ascot is better.

We were there on the 11th of July, because a race had been sponsored for Liverpool University Veterinary Hospital at Leahurst.

A good day was had by all, with thanks especially to Paul Roy, who provided the hospitality in his box.

Bury St. Edmunds Photographic Society

2008-06-27T11:03:00.004+01:00

The stud had a visit from the Bury St. Edmunds Photographic Society last night.

We always welcome visitors to the stud.

Mares and Foals

2008-04-28T11:58:00.001+01:00

Sunday morning had a sensible amount of sunshine and here is some video footage of the mares and foals in the fields by the house and offices.

Playdate - 2

2008-04-11T22:44:00.002+01:00

She did better yesterday in that she won at Tipperary. That is very pleasing for us, as she won as an early two-year-old.

We also have the yearling colt by Whipper out of Far Post and her colt foal by Alhaarth.

Playdate

2008-04-07T08:57:00.003+01:00

Playdate, the Kyllachy two-year-old filly out of our mare Far Post, was second at Dundalk yesterday. She is trained by Kevin Prendergast in Ireland.

This was the first time out, so let's hope that is promising.

Freedom Farm in the East Anglian

2008-02-25T15:17:00.000Z

The East Anglian Daily Times has just published a nice article on what Celia and I have been trying to achieve at Freedom Farm.

Click to view the article!

New Trees

2008-02-10T09:22:00.000Z

Planting trees is something we should all do.

This is one of the circles in the new paddocks that has been planted with a selection of native trees.

If you plant trees there is an extensive and very complicated Grant scheme that subsidises the trees. It is a waste of time unless you are planting thousands and have the mind of a bureaucrat.

It would be far better to give the grower a subsidy on every tree they sold, probably dependant on size. That would be easy to police as you'd only need to deal with registered tree growers and the public or the plants would probably get larger trees for the same money. Bigger trees are more likely to survive as they are easier to care for and less resistant to attack by deer.

But that sort of scheme would cut the number of civil service jobs used to administer the over-complicated current scheme.

The Simple IP Camera

2008-02-10T08:14:00.000Z

It looks like being another glorious February day here today and the picture shows the view from a new camera on the drive.

The picture is displayed in the Daisy Presentation Browser, which is a simple program, that can be used to print and display web pages in a clean format without the baggage of Internet Explorer. For example, if you want to print a web page without the top and bottom headers to frame for your office wall, then this is the program.

The picture below shows the camera and the aerial that links the office network to the house.

This camera and the aerial were purchased from Solwise.

The camera uses a Sony camera tube, is IP65-compliant and is installed by just plugging one cable into the network and the other into a 13-amp socket. When it is first installed it sets itself up on your network with a default IP-address of 192.168.0.20. You just log in to this from your browser and adjust the settings of the camera accordingly.

It takes you longer to screw them to the wall, than to get them to work properly.

If you want to setup a camera at a remote location, all you need is to pair the camera with a wireless AP/bridge and arrange a suitable aerial that links to your main network. It is very easy to setup a range of about fifty to a hundred metres.

Watch, Cook and Eat

2008-02-08T14:26:00.000Z

One of the great advantages of using IP cameras instead of CCTV is that you can watch the pictures on any computer.

Here, I'm using a laptop, whilst I'm cooking my supper.

I prefer the second picture, as all the hard work has been done.

The software on the laptop is currently showing up to four cameras. If required it can show up to sixteen.