Barney's Blog

It's festival time!

Evening everyone,

Bet you’re all looking forward to The Ebor Festival at York next week. You can keep your Royal Ascot, this is the best meeting of the year if you ask me.

A bit of a history lesson for you – records show that York first fully supported racing as far back as 1530 and, believe it or not, there’s evidence that racing took place on the frozen River Ouse in 1607.

Wouldn’t fancy that much – not without a pair of skates, anyway. Racing transferred to the present site – known as The Knavesmire – in 1730, and York has become one of the best racecourses in the world. No doubt about it.

The Ebor Festival is the highlight of the year at York and, if memory serves me correctly, it’s named after Eboracum, the Roman name for York. It starts with the Juddmonte International on Wednesday, and it looks like it’ll be a belter this year with the likes of Ghaiyyath, Magical and Kameko at the head of the market.

By the way, going back to 2009 - on the day the great Sea The Stars won the Juddmonte International - I won the Symphony Group Stakes, just getting the better of a horse called Hamish McGonagall (see below). My old mucker Phil Makin rode me that day – we always got on well, me and Phil.

I see that Jawwaal, trained here at Denton Hall, is down to run in the Symphony Group Stakes this year, so here’s hoping he can emulate my glorious victory of 11 years ago.

The Yorkshire Oaks on Thursday looks like being at the mercy of Aidan O’Brien’s dual classic winner Love. She looked special last time in The Oaks at Epsom.

The Nunthorpe Stakes is the highlight on Friday, with the mighty Battaash a hot favourite and hard to beat. That said, good luck to my stablemate Que Amoro – she’s a lovely lass and I hope she goes well.

As usual, The Ebor Handicap is wide open on Saturday and, all in all, it should be a cracking week.

ON a completely different subject, I read the other day that a circus in Germany is selling jars of lion poop. I think it’s what newspapers call “a scoop”.

The Krone Circus has been having a hard time because of this lockdown business, so it’s selling the lion manure. It strikes me that it can’t be easy for those big lions to poop into little jars, but I suppose they’ve been well-trained, what with being in a circus and all that.

Anyway, the circus masters claim that the lion poop is good for gardens because the scent from the king of the jungle stops pets and wild animals damaging plants.

What a load of crap. Every gardener in the world knows that it’s horse manure that makes the best fertilizer.

I was having a look at the Gardening Know How website and this is what it says: “Horse manure can give new plants a jump start, while providing essential nutrients for continual growth. It contains adequate amounts of organic matter and can be applied in various ways. It’s also slightly higher in nutritional value than cow manure.”

Slightly higher than cow manure? What a bloody cheek! I can tell you now that my own manure is significantly better quality than anything an old moo-er can produce! It also gets better with age – like a fine wine.

As you know, I like this blog to be educational, so I’ve done some further research on your behalf. What I can tell you is that horse manure is rich in nitrogen and has particularly high quantities of phosphorous and potassium. Therefore, it works best on non-flowering plants such as corn, potatoes, garlic and lettuce. It’s also great for your lawn but not so good for flowering and fruit plants like tomatoes and peppers.

So, there you go. Never mind lion poop, stick to good old horse manure – we’ve got lots of it round here.

Until next time, lots of love,