Thorndale Daily Routine

5.45 am

Mat Nicholls my Assistant arrives and he and my head lass Charly Bond feed all the horses. They walk into every stable, check the water and manger*, feel the horses legs and straighten their rugs. They then feed them a bowl of Dodson and Horrell racehorse cubes.

*If horses haven't drank their water or eaten all their feed overnight, Mat would immediately take their temperature to check they are ok.

6.15 am

All the other staff arrive for work and immediately start mucking out their four allotted horses (each lad looks after four horses). They then go into the tack room where there is a board with their name on and alongside it the name of the horses they are due to ride that day. This is a list that Kim and Mat put together when they decide what exercise the horses will be doing that day. The lads then tack up their first horse.

7.15 am

First lot pulls out, they walk and trot around the loose school/ménege for about ten minutes. They will then be sent off on their pre-determined exercise. Each lot takes just under an hour. After each lot, the horses are returned to their stables or turned out in the field for a couple of hours (weather permitting). A total of four lots go out and after that the lads sweep the yard and go home for lunch at about 12.15pm when Charly then goes around the yard and feeds all the horses a bowl of racehorse nuts for their lunch.

3.30 pm

The lads return having had lunch and an hour’s snooze! Evening stables comprises of bringing horses in from the fields, putting horses onto the horse walker, mucking out and grooming the horses and cleaning tack.

Kim and Mat go around every horse and check their legs and general wellbeing. This is especially important after work mornings and schooling mornings.

5.30 pm

The lads finish and go home (or to the pub!) and Charly will feed the horses another two and a half bowls of racehorse cubes and have a final look round before heading home at about 6.30pm.

10.00 pm

Charly will have a quick wander round to make sure every horse is happy, and might feed an extra scoop of feed to the odd horse.

Then Bed!