The Graduation Post! - WOYWW 349

Ok I'm being naughty and linking this to Julia's WOYWW 349 but I knew many of you would love to see this as well. So it's not my desk more like Keagan's of late!!

Okay so you may have noticed I've been missing this last week. Well things have been a little hectic round here and then I wasn't feeling that great so had to rest so that I would be ok to go and see Keagan graduate from The British Racing School!

Yes 14 weeks have passed and he has reached the finish line of this particualr race (see what I did there?!!) But in truth this is really only the beginning of his racing career. Now we have to sort the final details of his work placement (Thursday. Fingers Crossed) and then get him settled (he's going to have to move to live in situ if everything goes to plan). He has to work hard to prove himself and then hopefully he will be returning to the Racing school to do his Jockey Licence course.

Anyway Monday was an amazing day. I took lots of photos as you can imagine. So here are some of them - 

So at first we were taken to see them in the yard - Keagan chose to ride Run On Sterling who he describes as a big baby who spooks easily & therefore is a challenge to ride. Yep my boy didn't take the easy option! Anyone who knows us will know Keagan is not a little lad, he's 5ft 9/10 so you can see just how large this horse is as Keagan doesn't look that big on board!

They took the horses off to warm up while we were taken to the bottom of the straight gallops to wait for them. They rode right by us before going in on the round to circle to wait for their turns to ride up the gallops in twos.

I took this lovely pic at the end once the ride had finished. I don't have any photos of the gallop ride as I was filming it on my phone instead (I will try and cut a short clip to share at some point). It was amazing -  we rode alongside in the minibus which started with the first rider and then dropped back to the second. This allowed us to see both riders during the fastest part of their ride. The riders allow a good gap between them. 

Once finished we went indoors for the presentation.

 Double Grand National winning Jockey Leighton Aspell was there to present the certificates. It wasn't anything grand and it went too fast to take a clear photo but I did manage to take this of Keagan and Leighton after the presentation had finished. Neither of them are that short, both a good 5ft 9-10. It's the flat jockeys who are tiny!

 Here is Keagan and his room mate Matty. These two will be friends for life now. We all got on and I'm staying in touch with Matty and his mum on FB.

So there you go a super day and I know all us parents and families were very proud. 

Yesterday involved washing. Lots of washing! 

Take care Zo x