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wag's nag

It's not everyday that you find yourself having a share in a thoroughbred racehorse, purchased for £126,000, but Waggy has!. Here is the story of Wag's Nag and how it happened: -

"It's a normal Wednesday evening and I'm relaxing in my lounge playing a bit of on-line poker. when the little pop up window says '10 minutes to the Win a Racehorse for $25' I thought I'd look into it and found that the tournament cost $25 to play and the top 3 in the tournament would win a share in an yet unknown horse that Ladbrokes were buying for this promotion, there would be 200 shares in all and tournaments would be run twice a week for the foreseeable future til all shares were won, the horse would then be trained for a season by top Racehorse trainer Jeremy Noseda and all the winnings and money from the sale of the horse in the Tattersalls sale at the end of October be shared out between the shareholders, not a bad idea so I thought I'd give it a go.

Ladbrokes were well known to be 2nd to none when putting on hospitality days and whenever the horse ran there would be corporate hospitality for a number of shareholders so even better if I could get one of those. The tournament started at 8 pm and there were 120-130 players so straight away realised that I wasn't the only person liking the idea. It was soon after midnight and were down to the last 5 players and I was 2nd in chips and playing well, after another prolonged period of play Ken Wheatley(aka Ken007) who just recently won a substantial amount of money by finishing on the final table of this years Ladbrokes Poker Million went of the tournament and we were down to the last 4, soon after the other 3 apart from me were all in the pot so as long as 1 of them went out I had my share, after a minute or so Simon Fuller (Ada moonraker) was out and myself, John Hughes (aka Mick.Jagger1) and Neil Banks (aka banksoir) had all won a share and I must admit was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

Ladbrokes searched for a suitable horse and found a nice looking filly out of a great stallion, a horse called Choisir who 2 years before was the champion sprinter of Europe a really top racehorse and a mare called Break of day who herself was an average filly when racing at distances of up to a mile and a quarter, so spending 120,000 guineas in the process we all became racehorse owners. Over the next 2-3 months there were many of the share tournaments and at the end of them I managed to win 4 shares so as there are 200 shares I actually own 2% of Laddies Poker 2, a grey filly and one the trainer says looks a very decent filly in the making.

Intitial reports of her were very favourable, she was growing nicely and when she had started her training she seemed to do whatever the trainer wanted her to and did it all very well. He then upped her training and the decision was taken to place her in her 1st race at the track closest to her stables, in Newmarket she wouldn't have far to travel so she wouldn't get too upset in the horsebox travelling for less than 10 minutes anything further could and normally does affect horses when they run for the 1st time at a track with all that goes with that, such as the pre race parade and so many people close by and making plenty of noise so all these kind of things can affect horses badly during the early part of their racing carrer, so everything was set, then things took a turn for the worse, I knew it was going too bloody well, she came back lame from a normal everyday gallop and was scanned by a vet, she had a couple of hot spots in her front legs, they couldn't be sure what was causing them but the news was bad and she needed about 3 mlnths stable rest that news was a complete bolt out of the blue, the trainer and people at Ladbrokes took it in their stride and said she'd be fine after the rest but try telling 76 shareholders that and as you can imagine it was a sombre meeting when we first heard.

Time went by and to be fair we were kept well informed with her recovery, and the plans for her, she would now be aimed for a summer season on the turf hopefully starting about May June time so we'd still get about 4 months racing out of her before she went to the auction at the end of October so things still weren't too bad, her full training was now in full swing and her 1st race was pencilled in for the first week in July again in Newmarket, news was that she had still managed to keep her early promise and that she would if everything went according to plan go very close to winning first time out, we the shareholders played a free tournament online amongst ourselves as would be the case every time she ran where the top 20 in the tournament would have top hospitality in a private vox at the track, a night in a top hotel close by with a poker tournament in the evening with very good cash prizes put up by Ladbrokes and all this wouldn't cost the shareholders a single penny. The unbelievably 3 days before the race she came off the gallops lame again, again she was scanned and this time the news was even worse, she had sustained a harline fracture in her front right leg, this time her recovery would take 4 molnths and it was now only HOPED that she would recover fully, but 4 months from the injury would take us into November and the auction is the end of October, our shares would be next to worthless if she went to auction without ever racing.

Ladbrokes then to their great credit took the decision to keep her for the shareholders for another season. They had very good reports from Jersey Noseda that she could become a very good horse so they were going to pay for another season of training fees which let me assure you are not cheap, they could have just ler her go give us all next to nothing as that's the chance you take with a racehorse they are such highly trained athletes that things sometimes go wrong and it seemed that on this occasion it was one of those unfortunate instances which happen everyday but hits home a bit harder when its your own.

She seemed to be well on the road to a fully recovery when were infomed that she would be aimed to start her racing career early, in the new year on the all weather tracks which have sprung up in this country over recent years, these tracks were first developed in the United States as tracks which would be used when the normal turf tracks were untraceable due to a wide variety of reasons, such as water logging or having the ground frozen for any reason, and so on and so on, so these types of tracks are now over here and as Laddies is a horse that doesn't really like running on a soft track where there has been a large amount of rain it seemed a good idea to run her on this kind of track for that reason, but to get to the kind of sucess that was forecast for her it would just be a stepping stone to a strong summer season on the turf tracks of England.

It finally came to pass that she was entered for her 1st race at Kempston, a 6 furlong maiden race where the favourite was a horse called Ocean Legend and the owner thought it would win easily, great all this time and she's not even going to win, but we were visited in our private box by our trainer and he was asked by many of us how he thought she'd do, he then told us that in his opinion if the parade, the people and the travelling didn't upset her he thought she would win he said he would be disappointed if she lost but added that we would know more when we met her Jockey a young Irish lad called Tom Queally, he had ridden her in her fast work at home and seemed to be really fond of the horse so Noseda thought he would be the best option to ride her in the race, we met him in the parade ring and he seemed a really decent lad, he told us all he was extremely confident and fully expected her to win comfortably.

The stalls flew open and she walked out of them a terrible start everyone just looked at each other startled, but to his credit Tom never panicked travelled at the back for a couple of furlongs and coming around the home bend she was travelling really easily in about 4th place, Tom ahd the filly beautifully positioned just off the lead then with a furlong and half to go swept past the leader and the favourite Ocean Legend and pulled clear of the field and when she went past the line was 6 lengths ahead of anything in the race, she won very very easily just as Jeremy and Tom had both thought she would, it was an amazing feeling standing in the winners enclosure as the whole crowd cheered as horse and jockey entered, when he got down the first words he said to the trainer was that he was sorry she won by so far but she was really that good he was struggling to hold her so it was a long time to wait but well worth it, it was then decided that she would be rested until the early summer to have a real good go at the summer racing everyone agreed.



She injured herself yet again in March time so that puer her off any serious training for a about a month and then we were told she would be rested until August she would hopefully get some sun on her back and then he aimed at some decent races later in the year, the first one of those came on the 15th August when she was entered into a 7 furlong handicap, back at Newmarket, everyone was there again in a joyful mood when Noseda visited us in our box again, he advised us that she was only in this race to get her fit for her next race in which he fully expected her to run very well, but she ran really well and was right up with the leaders until the final furlong when she just ran out of steam but still managed to finish 3rd, if she was only 80% fit like he told us and still beat most of them someof us was starting to dream that we had a very serious horse horse on our hands we couldn't wait for her to run again and thankfully, we didn't have to wait that long, Noseda told us he would try and find a race which gave her every possible chance to win we thought we would go for a small handicap race somewhere but he had very different ideas, she was entered into a 6 furlong handicap at Ascot of all places, one of the premier tracks in the world let alone this country every horse that raced there was there to try their best to win, she would have to be right on form to have any chance of winning, 18 runners took their places at the start, we were told before the race that she was expected to be right there at the business end of the race so we could do nothing but sit tight and hope she was as good as everyone thought she could be, well we would soon find out.


The gates opened and yet again as in both her other races she missed her break but didn't take too long to race just off the pace you can't really afford to give horses of this calibre any kind of a start, as they were approaching the halfway stage of the race, and Tom looked to be supremely confidently on her, he gently manoeuvred her into a lovely position, with about a furlong and half to go he pushed her up to challenge the leaders she flew past them as if they were standing still went 2 lengths clear and it stayed that way until Tom eased her down in the final yards so she only won by one and half lengths, this race was worth just over 13k to the winner we now all know that she very good indeed. She appeared again in a high level Newmarket grade1 listed race on Friday 17th October, finishing 6th, running well but not really handling the Newmarket slope.

It's been a fantastic experience, it has been great to be the owner of such a decent racehorse and to enter the winners enclosure with her. Thanks to Ladbrokes for making it happen.