Boomslang pictured on his way to victory at Downpatrick© Photo Healy Racing
A plan to surprise owner John Wade came to fruition when Rebecca Menzies pulled off a successful raid at Downpatrick last week.
The plot was hatched when Wade told Menzies he would be visiting Northern Ireland for several days and she should therefore avoid entering any of his horses in England while he was away.
As Wade is the owner of Howe Hills, the stable from which Menzies operates, and also owns several horses in the yard, the trainer decided to sponsor a race on the Downpatrick card in his honour and enter several horses.
The surprise was foiled slightly when Wade checked Friday's cards to make sure no horses had been entered in England in his absence, but the rest of the plan was a great success as two of the four runners won.
The first to oblige was Boomslang, who took the Denvir's Of Downpatrick Beginners Chase for Wade's close friend Maria D Myco, after which Edgewell followed suit to take the Rebecca Menzies Racing 40 Winners And Counting For John Wade Handicap Chase for his owner.
"John Wade is our landlord and he has quite a lot of horses in training with us. He'd planned months ago that he was going to go and meet his friends from Northern Ireland and a few of his friends from London were also coming to meet him," Menzies explained.
"He mentioned to me not to enter his horses while he was away, in England that is, but he didn't say anything about Ireland!
"We planned it all out and entered some horses, four of which were his and one of which was owned by his lifelong friend Maria D Myco, who was going along with him.
"It was all kept secret until two nights before, he was looking on his iPad because some of his other trainers had made entries at Hexham and he saw the name of the Downpatrick race.
"He spoiled his own surprise, but it was still good because we managed to get to two days before without him knowing and then the stars aligned with two winners.
"It was great, the ground ended up being perfect and the races cut up a bit, they had a hospitality box and we sponsored the last race.
"Speaking to him when he got back, he said it was a brilliant weekend. He mentioned when he won a Listed race at Ayr with one of his other horses, Return Ticket, he brought a lot of friends that day and a lot of them hadn't been racing before.
"He reckoned Ireland was as good as that day, it was a brilliant day for him and he was absolutely buzzing."
