Freedom to Dream has his first ever race at Galway on Saturday
Voice from the blog audience: Whoa! Slow down there, Paul. Who is Freedom to Dream and whatever happened to L’Autre Cheval?
Hmmm, First of all, good memory! It has been a while since the last blog. I have no excuse – well, actually I have about 50 excuses but none you would be interested in. Secondly, perhaps we had better back this particular bus up…….
We chose L’Autre Cheval and duly registered the name together with the excessive fee for the name change. Two weeks later, I received a call from Ber saying “ you won’t believe it but that name isn’t allowed and the reason is crazy” She went on to explain that, as he is a French AQPS bred horse, he is subject to their naming rules:
For A.Q.P.S. (Autre Que Pur Sang) horses, which includes trotters, anglo-arabs, as well as what we would call "half-breds", each year requires a horse’s name to begin with a designated letter of the alphabet. For example, foals of 2002 have names beginning with the letter "O", 2003 "P" and so on.
Apparently, this naming convention applies even on a name change so, with the letter for 2015 (when he was foaled) being F, any new name had to begin with F; which meant that L’Autre Cheval was out. I did have some choice, if entirely inappropriate, initial ideas but after a night on a plane came up with the brilliant idea of combining this website name with Bay of Freedom; that is how I came up with Freedom to Dream. Not only is the first letter F but, for additional insurance, the second letter is the same as in Friska de Thaix.
Can you back up again Paul?
What is it now?
So AQPS horses aren’t pure thoroughbreds? Is he allowed to race?
No they are not and yes he is. Here’s a link that will explain much more: AQPS explained
When you consider that horses like Sprinter Sacre, Buveur D’air and Neptune Collonges were AQPS horses, it certainly isn’t a detriment.
So, knowing this naming convention gives me great amusement as I look at entries and Saturday’s race includes the following six AQPS French bred horses, all born in 2015:
Fakiera
Fakir D'Alene
Farceur Du Large
Favori Logique
Flash
Freedom To Dream
A prize to anyone who can figure out which two horses have had a name change!!
So, let’s talk about Saturday’s race and what chance he might have. First of all, there are 24 entered but with two trainers accounting for 50% of the entries, I would be surprised to see more than 12-14 in the race (and it could be less than that). It does look like some decent horses have been entered but I will wait until the final declarations before commenting more fully.
Freedom to Dream has been going well at home. It took a while to get the weight off him but Peter seems happy enough now. He’s a big horse (around 16.3 hands) and has ‘future jumper’ written all over him. Kevin Sexton (angelic-looking decent jockey, poor judge of a horse) thinks he needs 3 miles now which doesn’t augur well for his chances in Saturday’s 2 mile race. He probably isn’t a Bumper (2 mile flat race) horse but Peter seems to like him and with the likely soft ground and tough uphill finish, he should run well.
He finished 3rd in a Tipperary Schooling Bumper a few weeks ago when the ground was yielding and he was doing his best work at the end.
The biggest question is: who will ride him? The top amateurs will probably be racing at the Point to Point meeting in the North; this includes Jamie Codd who rode him (and liked him) on the Curragh (training grounds). We would love to get Jamie but he is likely to go to the Point meeting and, in any event, may well be claimed by Gordon Elliott for one of his horses even if available. We did discuss one jockey who would be celebrating his first winner if Freedom to Dream were to win. This, obviously, is a little different to Mr Codd who has ridden 99 National Hunt winners and an incredible 938 Point to Point winners but it does go to show how incredibly open-minded we are! I will be seeing Peter later today so will know much more after that.
I am having drinks and dinner with Peter and Ber this evening as I ease myself into a weekend of drinking, eating, gambling and great company. John and Bernard fly in tomorrow lunchtime and we will enjoy the delights of Dundalk racecourse hospitality before driving across Ireland to Galway on Saturday morning for a couple of days.
Before that I have to speak to my boss who informed me over email that she wasn’t ‘very thrilled’ with a report I had written. For a brief moment, I did wonder if, perhaps, she was merely just ‘thrilled’ but, on reflection, I suspect she wasn’t impressed at all. In a similar vein, I am hoping to not being ‘terribly unhappy’ with Freedom to Dream’s performance on Saturday.
Check back later for updates and comments on the declared runners