Henry the Horse and the Funambulists

Equine passions will be running high this weekend and not just because it’s Valentines Day on Saturday (I don’t think they celebrate that sort of thing). Nor will it be due to the much anticipated release of the Fifty Shades film (the cinemas won’t let them in - despite the fact that it sounds like a biopic of Desert Orchid or One Man).

No... This weekend marks, in case you didn’t know, the official commencement of the Thoroughbred breeding season. 

All Thoroughbreds in the northern hemisphere become a year older on 1^st January and it is important, for a prosperous racing career, for a horse to avoid being foaled before the end of December: a horse which is 364 days younger than his peers is not going to fare very well in the Derby. The gestation period for a horse is typically about eleven months – hence the start of the equestrian dating game in mid-February. 

The gestation period for the BHA fixture list is similar in length and this week, believe it or not, marked the initiation of negotiations for the 2016 racing season. But the date is also significant for racegoers attending Cartmel Racecourse in 2015 – because it marks the deadline for booking highly-prized seasonal parking spaces. From Monday 16^th February, we will be making a small number of reserved parking spaces (adjacent to the finishing straight) available on a raceday-by-raceday basis. We will also start accepting bookings for the camp-site, enabling racegoers to stay overnight before and after each raceday. 

Last week we launched the 2015 season by offering 2,000 tickets at half price, divided equally between each of our eight fixtures. Unsurprisingly, tickets for the busiest days were the first to be snapped up, but we still have a few half-price tickets left for Wednesday 27^th May, Monday 20^th July and for the new 2-day meeting on Friday 26^th and Sunday 28^th June. 

And if you're juggling with the idea of attending our new meeting – you’ll be interested to know that the circus is coming! In addition to the traditional fairground entertainment, there’ll be a big-top packed full of performers. The exact line-up is still to be confirmed. There is sure to be a funambulist (if you don’t know, look it up – it’s a great word but not one that you can use very often) and we were really hoping to secure a human cannon-ball - but he got fired…  

As well as performances on both race-days, we are anticipating that tickets will be available for the circus on the day in-between – Saturday 29^th July, when the funfair will also be open to members of the public. 

As The Beatles once sang: “The Hendersons will dance and sing as Mr Kite flies through the ring – don’t be late. Messrs K and H assure the public their production will be second to none… And of course Henry the horse dances the waltz.” 

Henry is obviously a horse on the look out for a mate and will probably be out on the town this weekend. In June he’s more likely to be on the track than in the big-top, as the circus will consist of human performers only. If he does make an appearance at Cartmel, I hope he can run as fast as Rajdhani Express, who is fancied to spring a surprise at Ascot on Saturday.