Richard & Tiffany Morgan-Evans - Specialists in Racehorse Pre-training, Breaking, Sales Preparation and Rehabilitation
Richard: +44 (0)7990 930187 Tiffany: +44 (0)7825 085769
BREAKING
Breaking a horse in is the beginning of it's career so a fundamental stage of any horses life. Although we vary our regime to adapt to each individual horse the end goal is the same – To produce a horse that is relaxed and accepting of the rider and their aids and to be ready to be placed in a training environment.
We give our horses in for backing plenty of time. They all go long reining not only around the gallop but up and down banks and around the 102 acres of the stud. This is valuable time spent, horses learn to find their feet, steer and very importantly stand. They are all made to lead and be confident in going in front and have horses in front and behind them. They will then turn on 2 lines in the arena learning to keep balanced on a circle and develop nice mouths. We spend plenty of time leaning and sitting on them in the box before they are ridden away. They have to be accepting and happy with the riders weight and the riders movements before they are ready to come out of the box and be ridden away in a lunge pen. They will then be ridden in the arena learning to bend and be balanced turning figures of eight. They quickly progress onto the gallop where they learn to be happy upsides and with horses all around them in all paces.
We see over three hundred yearlings in for breaking every year, but each one is treated as an individual. Our facility, our staff and the system we use is set up to be able to break horses in a safe and educational environment. We take pride in the horses we have broken in and truly enjoy seeing horses ready to embark on their racing career.
PRE-TRAINING
Great Bradley Oak Stud has very much been set up towards pre training racehorses. We cater for any pre training need whether it is a horse post operation or injury that needs to be brought back into controlled walking then progress onto ridden work. Or horses already in ridden work that are backward types that need time to strengthen and mature but still in an educational environment.
We can continue any work regime with the use of the gallop so horses in full canter work needing to maintain a level of fitness can do so here - we are totally lead by our clients requirements.
We have carried out many endoscopes, our gallop is more than suitable for going on that bit quicker if required. All the facilities at Great Bradley Oak Stud are for private use enabling us to meet every horses fitness and work requirements.
We often use the arena to school backward and weak horses helping them to improve topline, balance and engagement from behind. We are lucky enough to have very experienced riders from high level eventing backgrounds that are very capable of doing flatwork with the horses that will benefit from it.
SPELLING
At Great Bradley Oak Stud we have an ideal location for resting racehorses. Although we are only minutes from Newmarket, it is a very quiet rural location allowing horses to switch off.
We have 102 acres of fenced paddocks ranging from smaller nursery paddocks to 9 acre fields. We also have 2 all weather bark pens enabling us to turn out all year what ever the weather.
Our spelling horses are kept on high quality non heating feeds to ensure they settle but also gain condition and shine. We generally see a massive improvement in horses out of training after their arrival at Great Bradley.
REHABILITATION
We offer a rehabilitation service to any racehorse that has sustained an injury, or requires pre and post Op care. We have very quiet surroundings so any horses that are on box rest are inclined to settle very well. All of our stables have full rubbered floors, some have rubbered walls providing a safe environment for horses on confinement.
We have a vet box that has full padded walls with a rubber matted floor and direct access to plug sockets. Making it ideal for any x rays, scans or medicating that vets may need to carry out on site.
When bringing horses back into light exercise such as hand walking, our yard is completely enclosed with gates on all entrances. We have the arena that provides a very safe level surface to walk horses on, also fully enclosed.
We always use veterinary rehabilitation programmes combined with our close monitoring of each individual horse to re-introduce them to conditioning exercise. Our elite facilities enable us to provide horses with an ideal setting to coming back into work in as safe an environment as possible.
We are have regular visits from Baker and Mc-Veigh, NEH and Rossdales; but are very open to using whichever vets our clients use or wish to use.
SALES PREPARATION
Careful management of each horse being prepared for the ring is of the utmost importance. We believe that preparing thoroughbred horses for sale is a combination of excellent care, nutrition and exercise, combined with ensuring that the horse is sent to the sales perfectly turned out, groomed to perfection and correctly shod.
Richard is in charge of the exercise regime of lunging and walking in hand to ensure a good walk in the sales ring.Tiffany’s background in eventing is particularly useful in the final stages of sales preparation, as she is very experienced in preparing horses to look their best for the ‘big events’. She also works very closely with nutritionists to decide the best feed for each individual horse as well as looking in detail at laboratory forage analysis to make sure horses are getting the correct amounts of protein.
QUARANTINE
We have a separate isolation yard where we can safely quarantine horses with high bio-security and a separate team of staff. We have our own private gallop for horses that need to remain in a work program so they are able to go out on exercise with no cross contamination from surrounding horses.
We are just 15 mins from Tattersalls sales complex and within easy reach of the M11 motorway for onward travel of the major London airports.