Phoenix Of Dreams really is continuing to please us with his work at home, and we are really happy with the progress he’s shown us over the last few weeks.

We stepped his work up on the gallops last week and he showed us everything we’d like to see from a young horse at this stage, so I’d say we are getting very close to seeing him make his racecourse debut.

He’ll be doing some work in the stalls over the next fortnight in preparation for that first run so hopefully he’ll take that in his stride as he has everything else that we’ve asked of him. It can often be a bit daunting for young horses when they are getting used to the starting stalls, but we do plenty of work with them on it at home so when they finally get to the racecourse that starting process is something they are used to.

We should only be a couple of weeks off making an entry for him now, so once we are happy with his stalls work and we think he’s ready to go, we’ll start going through the programme book and see what suitable races there are coming up for him. Even though we are heading into the winter, there’ll be plenty of suitable opportunities on the all-weather for him, so its just a case of finding what we think is the best race to start him off in.

I’d finally like to wish all Coral Racing Club members a very happy 1st birthday this week, and the whole team here at Highfield Stables can’t wait to finally have our first runner for the club.

John Quinn, Coral Racing Club Trainer