It will be a day of mixed emotions for us all here at Paul Midgley racing as yard stalwart Line of reason lines up for the last time in his long and successful career at Wolverhampton this afternoon under P J Mcdonald. At the grand age of 10, he has been a horse of a lifetime who represented us for the past 8 years all over the UK, Ire, France and spent 3 winters in Dubai for the world cup carnival. A winner of 12 races and £345.185 in prize money, he has certainly earned his retirement.
Bought back in 2013 by Andy Taylor, he won on his second start for us in the Mr wolf handicap sprint at Pontefract ridden by Kieran Fallon. Still, it was the following season in 2014 where he really started to progress, winning at Thirsk in June under Paul Mulrennan; he then went over to Ire later that month to the Curragh where he won the scurry (premier handicap) under Leigh Roche, that was an exceptional day! he then went to York the following month, ridden by Paul Mulrennan, and won again, making it 3 in a row.
Another special memory he made for us was winning a listed race at Cork, ridden by Paul Mulrennan; he bolted up that day winning by 2 ¼ lengths. In 2017 he won the Scottish sprint cup under Joe Fanning and then went out next time and won the Gosforth park cup at Newcastle ridden by Oisin Murphy, but what made that race even more unforgettable was he hit the front inside the last furlong and jumped the winning line.
Apart from his wins, he has represented us in some top-class races over the years and given us so many memorable days even in defeat, too many to mention. So at 4 pm today, we will be sad to see him run for the last time; it would be a fairytale ending to go out with a win, but if he doesn’t, he owes nobody anything and deserves to have a happy retirement.