Happy retirement Candescence
Quite simply, she is everything you would ever wish for in a racehorse and a lot more besides that too.
The Queen of Ursa Major Racing. A monarch of our great club who may never be surpassed in the hearts and minds of her owners.
Today, we have taken the decision to retire our beautiful Sunday Series winning sprinter Candescence.
Quite often in these statements the word “difficult” would appear before the word decision, and while tears have been shed in reaching this decision, a relatively small leg injury has made our choice to draw stumps on her racing days one we have taken with her best interests at heart, grateful that she has brought us such joy over more than two years.
Now she can enjoy her second career frolicking in the field and giving birth to superstars of the future.
Two wins in 13 starts does not even get close to telling the full story of how special Candescence was to all of us in Ursa Major Racing.
A 25/1 victor on debut as a two-year-old, her 12 subsequent starts saw her finish outside the top three on only three occasions - and one of those was when suffering a cut at York this summer.
A daughter of Bright Flash, she was sired by Irish 2,000 Guineas winner Power and spent her entire career in the capable and caring hands of Mark Walford at his Cornborough Manor base in Sheriff Hutton, Yorkshire.
Mark’s role in Candesence’s story can not be downplayed. He has trained her beautifully and with such love and attention.
Nathan Evans took the ride on her first start at Pontefract in June 2020. A ray of hope as we started to slowly emerge from the depths of the first Coronavirus lockdown.
Held behind closed doors, she was a deserved winner, never far off the pace and well in control at the line.
A win that has gone down in Ursa Major folklore, with more than one owner having large bets on to lift the gloom that life the previous three months had had on us all.
A trp to Musselburgh that September saw a game third, before she signed off from her two-year-old campaign doing something that warmed the hearts of all for the winter ahead - putting up a tremendous and unlucky performance at Wolverhampton to be beaten half a length and a neck in third.
Her three-year-old season was one of immense pride, but lacked the victory she so deserved.
Starting at Doncaster, where she was never settled after a last minute jockey change, she went on to record three seconds in a row - including a head defeat at Carlisle when she looked the winner all over.
A third and a sixth at Thirsk saw her year brought to a premature end with this undoubtedly talented filly not quite reaching her ceiling of potential.
But that’s when everything began to click. Crowned our favourite every horse in a poll of owners on social media platform Twitter, she was dropped to 6f on her seasonal reappearance at Wolverhampton, when at a starting price of 22/1, she looked the winner for every yard bar the line, when she was chinned by one - and another second at the same track three weeks later made us all dream just that little bit more.
Dropped again to 5f and upped to Class 3, the Ursa Family - including John Craggs who now also co-owned Candescence with us - ventured up to Hamilton Park on a Sunday afternoon for her biggest test yet - live on ITV.
We needn’t have been nervous. Candescence showed everything we knew she had. Raw speed, pure toughness and a massive will to win.
By a furlong out there was no other horse in it as she scooped the £18,000 first prize.
The celebrations were wild.
Dougie Costello, always so brilliant aboard her, was welcomed back to the loudest cheer ever heard on a racecourse on a Sunday.
As owners embraced, Mark was collared by ITV host and former jockey Leonna Mayor, explaining that our Queen deserved every second of the limelight.
She had finally showed the world how good we knew she was.
We were flooded with messages of congratulations and goodwill - proof that it wasn’t just us who held her so close to our hearts.
It was euphoria and deserved for every single person who believed and kept the faith in her.
Sadly for us and Candescence, she only had one subsequent start: a seventh place in a Class 2 at York where she returned with a badly cut leg.
We had hoped to get her out once or twice more this year after the ground had turned good to soft, but picking up this niggle means we will let her recuperate and live the best life possible.
When you run a syndicate you strive to find horses like Candescence. One who will put you on the map and win a big TV race.
It can sometimes be the difference between a decent year and a tremendous one.
But far more than that, Candescence retires as one of the most loved and admired horses we will ever have.
She let us all dream.
Thank you Candescence for everything. You gave us hope in the mornings back when sometimes it felt like there was little to go around.
You took us to places we always dreamed of.
Now enjoy the next chapter of your life. You deserve the best and I know whatever happens, you will get it.
You truly are The Queen.