Rose Loxton
JUST a few yards from Rose and Sam Loxton’s cottage are eight modest stables housing a handful of former top-class chasers, now turning a dab hand to the point-to-pointing and hunter chase game.
The majority are ex-Paul Nicholls horses, now reaping the benefit of a “freshen-up” courtesy of the couple’s more rustic set-up, situated on their dairy farm in the scenic Somerset countryside.
Rose gets her horses extremely fit for racing and when I see first-hand the rolling hills they have access to, I understand how. A short hack down the lane takes them to a field, which drops down into a steep valley. Three times up the valley is the usual routine for these horses and although Rose quips it is “no Nicholls’ Ditcheat hill”, it is impressive.
In a separate field, there is a line of well-built homemade chase fences (“Sam cut down a tree”), used to hone the jockeys and horses before raceday.
