Crowning Star is a recent addition to the yard but proved his worth with this win.

One More Roman, a very game little horse still with shares available will run through the summer from Brighton to York!

Gay is never afraid to travel with her horses and has had much success doing so. The prize money in France is significantly better than the UK. Look out for more runners from Queen Alexandra Stables at Deauville and other French tracks in the next few months. The horses go by channel tunnel to Calais and then onto Deauville.

Uphold is owned by Mrs Juliet Ballamy, our Vet Tim Hawthorne and Gay Kelleway.

Elated by the win, and predicting better to come, Gay said. “He was probably a gallop short on his first run for me, but I thought this might be the day as the soft ground would be to his advantage – that’s why we came here. I believe he’s a better horse than most people think and capable of winning a decent handicap next season”.

Robert Winston was again in the saddle as L Frank Baum defied top weight taking a slight lead from 2 furlongs out and stayed well, asserting himself in the final 75yards to win the 18:00 Oddschecker.com Handicap race. Gay bought L Frank Baum for a syndicate of ten Australians with the intention of winning a Melbourne Cup, and although that dream has misfired, she believes there may be a Royal Ascot win in the gelding, who defied top weight in Bath’s 2m1f handicap.
“I think the boys were losing a little faith in him, but I think he can win a Queen Alexandra Stakes and he’ll make a cracking hurdler too because he loves the soft”

In all there are about twenty main characters which will evolve as the book develops, Gay wants the extracts to show the characters and their role in the story, albeit this month’s article is really an overview without giving too much away about the plot. Clearly you will need to read the entire book to get the twist at the end, what I can say is, the book will capture your attention from beginning to end and the twist comes as a total shock at the end.

The characters all play their part in the plot, which is totally focused around racing and those involved in it. The story begins in Argentina, where the famous jockey, is taking a holiday as a guest of an exceedingly wealthy racehorse owner, who enjoyed unparalleled success during the British racing calendar. The owner has his own Polo team, which is considered one of the finniest in the world and he pays for teams to fly over and play.

The eminent jockey is asked to guest in the team, after the game which they win convincingly, a party is held in honour of the jockey and the visiting team at which the jockey meets and falls in love with one of the waitresses at the party.

He extends his stay, to spend more time with her, trying desperately to get her to travel back with him to England and start a new life in racing.

Clearly the jockey was considered a player in England with many female friends, but the waitress in Argentina stole his heart and he refused to leave her.

Inevitably they returned together and married, the story starts in the fifties and next month an extract will appear, detailing the wedding and the best man, who the story is told by and how he sees everything, whilst at the same time not making judgements or advising the characters along the way.

Gay wants the extracts to demonstrate, love, passion, greed, jealousy, wealth poverty, betrayal, consequence and much more and that strange things happen in life which we cannot affect. It promises to be a must read from now on.

Life as a racehorse trainer has both physical and mental demands like no other profession. Take an average day for Gay, the alarm during the summer months goes at 4:30am, this will change as the winter sets in and the days become shorter, which on the face of it sounds great, however, she has to work even harder in order to complete her routine tasks.

After a quick shower, Gay will start her day, come rain or shine at around 5:45am, with the intention that the first string will leave her yard by 6am and undoubtedly she will be on the lead horse to the gallops.

She will then ride a further two lots and supervise the four lot, whilst doing declarations for forth coming races, talking to owners and arranging jockeys, transport, the vet and blacksmith.

After what most people would regard as a day’s work from 5:45am in the morning till lunch time, Gay will either head off racing or work in the office to evening stables, at which all the horses in the yard are fed and checked over, before her day if based at her yard comes to an end at 7pm

Interestingly, being a small yard by Newmarket standards with some 40 horses in her care, Gay often drives the horse box to the races, which is an event in itself, the difference being the drive could take her 3/4/5hrs to a specific track and then the return similar, which if she is attending a night meeting after an early start can be exhausting.

During the month past, her horses have been racing all over the country, but as she has always maintained the prize money for owners to chase in this country is particularly low.

Gay is far from afraid to take her chances all over the world and decided, to take a really nice juvenile JUDAS JO and an older horse LAYLINE to Sweden, as Gay said ‘The chances are you will pick up prize money and the hospitality is excellent.’

In the events the inevitable happened, JUDAS JO won a decent conditions race, netting the owner around £20,000 and LAYLINE just didn’t act on the surface. Now consider the logistics of arranging the trip, the horses travel to Germany by road, then go by boat to Sweden, the whole process takes about three or four days and obviously the same on the way back. Gay couldn’t afford the time, so her staff had to travel with the horse. Gay took a flight for the race and came back the next day.

In the pursuit of winners nothing is beyond her reach and she fears nothing. The week before Sweden, Gay was back in the plate, riding in the Legends race at Doncaster against a large contingent of former greats like Charlie Swan, George Duffield, Ray Cochrane, Thierry Gillet, John Reid, Steve Smith Eccles, Kevin Darley and others, but it was a woman who won the day, top American pilot Julie Krone-Gay finished sixth, which she was more than pleased with.

Gay and the yard are extremely pleased for new owner Gillie Lamprell as her two year old filly Judas Jo wins in great style on the Stockholm Cup card at Taby.

Gay made the trip to Sweden where Judas Jo mounted by Robert Winston proved too good for the 12 rivals.

Gay said: “I am delighted and she has won very easily.
“That’s worth the best part of £20,000 to the winner, which is why we have come here, rather than race off a mark she would not win off at home for £2,000. There was even a trainer’s prize which is a £2,000 furniture voucher!

“We have been looked after superbly by everyone at Taby,” added Kelleway.

“Although the filly’s owner could not be here, some of my other owners have come over just for the craic, even though they haven’t got a runner – that’s the wonderful spirit there is in my yard.

“Judas Jo will be a much better filly next year. We have always thought a lot of her, which is why we ran her at Royal Ascot but things did not go her way with the soft ground.”

“This is a great advert for a small yard, and we have had a great deal of fun in the process. I’d like to thank everyone at Taby for their great hospitality.”

There’s no doubt the word legend is cast about a little too often in the sporting world but it was the genuine article who took the second Leger Legends race as Julie Krone romped to victory on Invincible Hero.

Krone racked up 3,704 winners in a stunning career in the United States and turned down an offer to star in reality TV show Survivor in order to ride in this year’s race – and notch her 3,705th career win.

While the victory was not quite of the same magnitude as the feat for which she is best remembered – winning the 1993 Belmont on Colonial Affair, becoming the first and so far only woman to win a US Triple Crown race – Krone was thrilled with the victory and delighted to help raise money for the two causes associated with the race, the Injured Jockeys’ Fund rehabilitation centre in Malton and the Northern Racing College.

Gay rode Conducting into 6^th place in the race and said after, “The legend race was a great success, raised a lot of money for the charity and that’s what’s important!”

Leger Legends Race to be held at Doncaster. The Race has attracted some of the finest jockeys of the last half century, who between them have won nearly 20,000 races.