I had a wonderful day at Tony's yard last week. It is only a couple of hours on the motorway from here in Kendal so I drove down first thing ready for a 10am start.
The owners, Marten and I spent a lot of time talking with Tony and watching the horses work and then had an enjoyable lunch together.
My journey home was not as simple as the one there and took me over five hours so my plans of coming back to the office to do a couple of hours work did not happen.
Marten has been speaking with me this week about his new ideas for the Club so I have quite a lot of work to do over the next few days.
Steve who works on our website has decided a new photograph of me was required. This one was taken last Friday and here I am with Empress Leizu.
I hope you have a nice weekend.
PS - Below is the BHA's unique audio blogging service - which is available through their website. Some interesting interviews on here.
Friday 2 July 2010
Well this has been a tricky week with the weather staying hot and trying to plan runs for the horses.
To complete my week a fault with our Broadband provider means we have no internet in the office at the moment and probably won't get it back till the middle of next week. This means I have to do web updates from Marten's office or home and it also means I have limited access to my emails.
On the plus side I hope to be racing at Windsor on Monday but who knows?!?
Enjoy the weekend.
Friday 25 June 2010
This week I have finalised the dates for the stable visit and have been chasing the items I ordered for our welcome packs.
More entries have been made so hopefully there will be a run soon.
Today I watched one of our old horses, Northern Lad, run at Market Rasen - it is a shame he couldn't hold on just a little longer.
Have a good weekend in the heatwave!
Friday 18 June 2010
This week we have ordered all the items for our welcome packs for the owners of Mastership and Empress Leizu so as soon as they are delivered we can dispatch them.To be honest I feel like I haven't been racing for a long time!
A lot of my friends assume I go racing every week but the problem with working on the administration side of horse racing is that it is more than a full-time job. It takes up days, evenings and weekends which doesn't leave much time to schedule in a day to the races. Mainly as being in the Lake District we are not surrounded by local courses so end up travelling for hours at a time.
I am hoping we will have a runner soon and that I can plan a trip to see our owners.I am planning two stable visits at the moment so that will be a good opportunity to catch up with people.
I hope you have a good weekend and that Royal Ascot has been a good meeting for you.
Monday 14 June 2010
I am back in the office today after a weeks holiday and spending the week working on Dark Horse Racing. My first job is to go through what has happened while I have been off and speak with Marten to get updated with things. I am then going to complete the VAT returns for our partnerships and prepare welcome packs for our new owners.
Next week I am then researching new technology that we can utilise for our Club and starting to work on the marketing and costings. As soon as this is finalised we can start our marketing to our online clients with special discounts for signing up prior to the launch date.
I hope to start this offer in August.
Monday 24 May 2010
Today I am preparing the newsletter to send out as well as contracts for Dark Horse Racing Partnership Five. Marten sold all the shares in our latest acquisition over the weekend which is wonderful news.
If you are interested in learning a little about Racehorse Rehabilitaion please refer to my review on the Marten Julian website or click here.
Friday 21 May 2010
This weekend Marten and I are writing a newsletter for Dark Horse Racing detailing the plans for the Club what is involved and the structure. Although I have to say we will hold some things back as a surprise for when members subscribe! We would like feedback on our plans as The Dark Horse Racing Club has been built based on our clients requirements so who better to ask?
The sun is shining in the beautiful Lake District and I hope it is for you as well. Have a good weekend.
Monday 17 May 2010
I am pleased to see the video footage online and if we can get the shop finalised this week we will be up and running ready for club members!
Friday 14 May 2010
Well our video footage was finally finished this week and is being uploading tomorrow morning. That is a relief as I was starting to think it was going to be one problem after another. Marten and I are writing the DHR newsletter this weekend ready to email/send out on Monday.
Our Online Shop is also finished but I am waiting for our secure payment system to be finalised which is causing a delay but obviously vital it is right. I am so excited to start the club and can't wait to have our first runner in the club colours.
Saturday 8 May 2010
I am pleased to report that the problems with logging into the site are now fixed so fingers crossed we are nearly there. We have found a slight problem with updates, like this blog, in that quite often the text does not match and odd gaps may appear. This is being fixed over the weekend.
Our video footage has been prepared and is ready to load online and assuming all goes well this weekend should go live Monday afternoon.
Friday 30 April 2010
I was really looking forward to uploading video footage of my recent trip to a yard however after speaking with some of our owners it appears that our new site has not been working correctly. Although I can access the site fine from our office and have trialled it on four different systems some owners can't even log in! We ran some tests this week and there appears to be an error with Internet Explorer version 7 and our site. The problem is that I doubt anyone has exactly the same computer nowadays so there are a lot of variables to take into account. Steve has been working on the site all day today so until I know that things are working we can't upgrade the site and risk causing more problems. I have decided to put back the upgrades to the site till the middle or end of next week.
I am also sending out a newsletter next week with details of the Club's costs and inviting people to register for a reduced rate. People who register will receive a discount code to use when our online shop goes live. One of our old partnership horses runs this evening at Fontwell. It was be interesting to see how he gets along as he hasn't had a race since February 2009 in a run that attracted a lot of attention. We felt unlucky with Northern Lad and we hoped for a win on his last race in our colours but he came second.
I will be updating my blog next week and hopefully saying that our video section is now live! Enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend.
Rebecca
Friday 23 April
I may have forgotten to update my blog in a while for which I apologise. I update so many web pages as well as Facebook and Twitter that this new one slipped through the net. Things are progressing well as the shop is nearing completion. Marten, Steve and I were at a yard earlier in the week obtaining footage of the first Club horse. We are editing it next week in preparation for the marketing. I am very excited about loading footage onto the website. It was a lovely day at the yard which was helped by there being glorious sunshine. I watched the horses work and only hope that the video footage offers a feel of what it is like to be in a yard.
Tuesday 2 March
I have had to put my work on hold with regards to the the Club due to the forthcoming Cheltenham Festival. Marten's Cheltenham Bulletin Book is uploaded a week today. Since our marketing was late being dispatched it means the orders are late coming in!
Normal work will resume the middle of next week.
Rebecca
Last week:
It looks like the Club may launch sooner than planned. Marten and I are in talks this week with regards to the next few weeks. Today I am busy preparing the contract to send to people buying shares in Mastership. If you are interested please refer to our Virtual brochure page. I have been told today that our costs per month appear high because I include VAT. One of the rules when running a partnership states that I have to inform people of their financial commitment. I have to predict all costs for the partnership for the full term. I also have to assume that there will be no prize money. When I prepare our financials I show the Nett cost, VAT and then the total. The partnership is VAT registered and will claim back all VAT which is then credited to the bank account. At the end of the partnership all funds in the account are paid back to our owners. It's a very complicated costing to prepare but I would rather have a higher monthly cost and send owners a cheque at the end than risk getting it wrong for the sake of making it look cheaper per month.
