NEWS 

Far Rockaway made a pleasing debut last night at Chelmsford City in the Extra totesport.com Fillies' Novice Stakes (class 4) over 7f. She took the preliminaries very well and moved to post nicely. Although slowly away, she ran green, running in snatches on and off the bridle. The penny began to drop turning in where Far Rockaway made up ground going forward to finish a pleasing 5th. She was given a lovely ride by Tom Marquand letting her take time to find her feet, Far Rockaway will benefit greatly from Tom's handling. Having spoken to William Haggas after the race we feel it would be nice try and win at 2, providing Mr. Gosden lets us with his vast amount of very well bred 2yo's running at this time of year. We expect to see her back out in 2-3 weeks so continue to check the website for up dates on Far Rockaway and our other exciting prospects.

It seems a poignant day to announce that Three Weeks (Tapit x Midnight Thoughts) will be trained by Doug Watson in Dubai, after such an amazing performance at Meydan by the trainer. 6 winners from six runners with 5 of them ridden by Pat Dobbs and 1 winner ridden by Dane O'Neil. It was on the advice of Dave O'Meara a few weeks ago that we take the horse out there to be trained by Doug Watson as he is very surface dependent, also the decent prize money was a factor. It is clear that Three Weeks is a better horse round the likes of Southwell and being rated 90 (a High of 93) there just aren't the races for him in the UK. The plan is to run him on the dirt and see how far he can go, maybe even obtain some Black Type for our foundation mare Midnight Thoughts. Three Weeks is the first horse to be trained abroad for AppleTree Stud so it is very exciting prospect and hopefully a few trips to Dubai will be on the cards.

Far Rockaway runs tomorrow night at Chelmsford in the Extra Places At totesport.com Fillies' Novice Stakes (Plus 10) Class 4, over 7f, 5.55pm. It will be great to see her on a race course for the first time as she has been a difficult filly to judge. She has always moved well but there has been very little of her. Because of this we always thought she would take time to come to hand. Far Rockaway has shown vast improvement over the last move or so and is a credit to William Haggas getting her out to run as a 2yo. She is sure to improve for the run but being drawn 5 is in her favor although she will need some luck with the 16 runners. We'll have to let the markets provide a guide to what is expect as they rarely seem to get it wrong.

AppleTree Stud has added to our jumping string by purchasing Blacko(FR) Balko x Ascella. Alan King bought the 3yo gelding after seeing him finish a staying on 2nd at Lyon- Parrilly (soft) on the 08/10/19 and was very taken by the way Blacko jumped and Galloped to the line. AppleTree Stud then had the call to go and view the horse from Alan and we liked what we saw. He is quite a rangy individual with enough size and scope to give us plenty of fun this season and hopefully for the foreseeable future. Blacko will be aimed at Juvenile hurdles this side of Christmas but is qualified for national hunt novices. In time he could make up in to a nice novice chaser but that is down the road and he will be given to time to mature and strengthen. We will be guided by the horse And Alan.

A fantastic result was achieved in the early hours of this morning by Il Paradiso in the Lexus Melbourne cup. Held up at the rear of the field in the early stages he made smooth headway from 2 furlongs out to challenge between horses going to the line. Unfortunately he got squeezed nearing the Finnish and it could be said he was a little unlucky not to go even closer. However, this is an amazing Group 1 update for AppleTree Stud after purchasing his half sister from Keeneland in September (Lemon Drop Kid x Famous Filly). She is a wonderful broodmare prospect but lets hope she is a race horse first. she is currently under the care of Jamie Magee Equine after arriving from the states last Friday and will be trained by the most exciting young trainer in Britain at present, Archie Watson for her racing career.

All eyes from AppleTree Stud will be on Il Paradiso in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The significance being Federico Barberini purchased his half sister by The Lemon Drop Kid at Keeneland September sale. Il Paradiso is not unfancied at 10/1 and has come in for some support over the weekend, his form has improved since upped to staying trips with 5th in the St Ledger and he is now fitted with first time blinkers. All of us here at AppleTree will be keeping everything crossed in the hope of a nice pedigree update, especially after the half sister Love Beach By Bernardini gained black type in the U.S.A in September. The page could look very interesting this time tomorrow.