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Racehorse Profile
Ebchester, or "Chester" to his friends, has quite a story to tell even before he sets foot on the racecourse.
Trainer Susan Corbett explains: "We had purchased a lovely horse at the sales called Red Dart. We were impressed with Red Dart and so I went to visit the breeder." The breeder was based in the village of Ebchester in County Durham - which is where the gelding has acquired his name from.
The trainer continued: "They had this unbroken four-year-old there who I fell in love with straight away. He was a lovely looking horse, a lovely colour, a really lovely personality, but he was scared of his own shadow at the time!" He moved to Susan's base in Otterburn in the autumn of 2024 and at that point the process of seeing if Chester would forge a career as a racehorse began. He does have a particularly fashionable pedigree, but there is always the dream that we could be a 'rags to riches' story with him.
Chester does have a beguiling personality. It wasn't long before he was a popular member of the team in Otterburn and winning over the affections of Susan's team at the Yard. It was a long process though. He was completely unbroken and a little bit timid at first. However, Susan has a great team at Otterburn and their patience has been unwavering as Chester progressed through 2025. He was broken, his confidence grew and he did a lot of growing up.
By the spring of this year he was ready to start full training. Susan told us:
He has come on a lot this spring. He seems to work well and we have been gradually building him up on the gallops. He started some faster more intense work in March and at the end of that month we started schooling him to see if he could jump. The early signs have been very encouraging and we will continue to school him and get him ready to be racing in the near future.
Chester will probably have a couple of races in the spring to start his education on the track. Depending on what the opportunities are, he may try his hand in Bumpers (National Hunt Flat races) and might graduate to hurdles. These runs will begin to give Susan an insight into where the future may lie for this gelding.
If everything goes to plan, his first races will provide Chester with valuable experience and allow the team at Otterburn to learn and build upon them. He will then have a short break during the summer before going back into full training in the autumn ahead of his winter campaign.
We are looking forward to seeing him racing at courses in Yorkshire, the north of England and Scotland.
Form & Race Plans
Ebchester will have had some races in spring 2026, that will serve as a learning curve for the gelding. He will get some turn out time during the summer before going back into full training ahead of the 2026/2027 season.
He will race in Novice Hurdles to start with and depending on his progress through those races may turn his attention to Handicap Hurdles at the appropriate time. At the time of writing he is very much an unknown quantity and so the plans for him have to remain flexible as much will depend on his early progress.
We hope that Ebchester will prove himself a useful performer and we would be pleased to see him graduate to Handicap company through the 2026/2027 National Hunt season.
Ebchester 2026 Guarantee
We expect to get 4-6 runs and possibly more from a Novice Hurdler per share period/season, however, you should expect periods of no racing as a result of recuperation from injury or training setbacks. This share period starts properly at the start of the winter season on October 1st 2026 and runs through the winter season until April 30th 2027. We we will be reporting on the horse before the share period starts should we have anything of importance to share with shareholders.
During the season the horse may be rested or have time away from the track to recover and it is quite normal for a horse to have periods of 3-6 weeks of rest between races.
We provide guarantees with all our racehorses. If this horse has a season-ending injury and has not already RACED TWICE during the share period, we will replace him with an alternative horse for the remainder of the season. Replacement horses may not be of the same quality, are provided with no further guarantees, and no alternative choice can be provided. Prize-money cannot be paid on any replacements, but all other benefits such as yard visits and race day badges are available.
As a shareholder you MUST ACCEPT that we cannot guarantee your horse's performance, a specific volume of runs (beyond our minimum guarantee), or that runs will be evenly spaced throughout the share period. This is the chance you take when owning any racehorse and participating in this ownership experience. If you will be disappointed with only 2-3 runs from your racehorse during the season, then please DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN THIS OR ANY OTHER RACEHORSE, as you could be disappointed.
We believe in being crystal clear with our shareholders - any participation in racehorse ownership is a risk, and we are UNABLE TO PROVIDE REFUNDS because of share periods which finish early due to injury or retirement - as training, vets, and livery fees for the horse still remain whether they are racing or not. Also, part of your lease payment covers the period of their pre-season training.
This risk is the chance all shareholders take, as we do ourselves when participating in the ownership of a racehorse.