WE are here almost three months now. It feels like only last week we landed in Bluegrass airport, but on reflection we’ve been quite busy.

The breeding season is in full swing here and all 12 of us are into our fifth week of rotations at different thoroughbred establishments around Lexington.

The rotations are a huge component of our US phase, and they cover all of the most intrinsic areas of the business, concentrating on the foaling and breeding side of things given the time of year. We have seven different rotations over a 12-week period.

We spend 11 nights foaling at WinStar Farm. Having completed my time at WinStar with my fellow trainee Corbin Blumberg, we were lucky enough to have had 15 foals in 11 days. A genuinely unparalleled experience, especially given the calibre of mare boarding at the farm.

BROODMARE

We spend five weeks learning about broodmare management and breeding on one of two very well-known Kentucky stud farms, Denali Stud and Brookdale Farm. We’re quite lucky to get the chance be given five weeks to become settled into life on the stud farm we are assigned to. Nothing allows you to learn faster than getting stuck in and seeing what it’s all about.

We then move on to learning about all things yearling related at Godolphin’s Dubai Millennium farm for one week. Another week is spent in the Darley Stallion barn at Jonabell where we get to watch some of North Americas most successful stallions doing what they do best.

Johnny Burke takes us under his wing for one week at Keeneland’s training track. He is Godolphin’s in-house trainer who handles all horses on a layup or in need of some rehabilitation.

OFFICE

We then hang up our boots and overalls for a week and spend a day in each of the different departments of Godolphin’s Jonabell office, learning about everything from stallion booking, nomination sales, brand and stallion marketing, and so much more behind the scenes organising.

And finally, the new addition to our adventures around Lexington this year is the week we spend at the retraining and rehoming facility, New Vocations.

Not only do we get to broaden our understand of how this charity is managed from a business point of view, but we get to look after two of the New Vocations residents for the week, grooming and riding them, helping the charity reach its aim of preparing these horses for their new lives at a slower pace.

GUEST LECTURES

Our afternoons are still filled with different guest lectures and stud farm tours.

We have discussed a wide variety of topics with world renowned experts on equine nutrition, corrective surgical procedures for developmental orthopaedic disease, the use of acupuncture to treat the anoestrus mare, stride analysis, and equine law.

The Godolphin Flying Start programme really touches every base of the thoroughbred industry. We have visited some of the most prestigious horse farms in the US, getting the chance to get up close and personal with their world famous stallions.

We have done so much already here in the US, but our schedules remain jam-packed, full of more tours and lectures that will see us out to the end of May, when we embark on our individual externships all across the US.

Potentially we might get the opportunity to experience the booming thoroughbred industry in Japan.

We have the return of the Keeneland Breeze-up Sale to look forward to in early April, where we will shadow a bloodstock agent or trainer. We also do a two-week course in mid-May at the Kentucky Horseshoeing school, which I for one am very excited about.

As the weather begins to improve here in Kentucky, seeing hints of spring around the corner, life on the Flying Start continues to deliver one incredible experience after the next,with no signs of it slowing down.

To keep up to date with what the team are up to, go to Twitter @flyingstartnews.