July week

I hope that we will have a runner tomorrow, as the plan is to head off to Chepstow with Ethics Girl (pictured at Goodwood in May). It'll be July Cup Day and part of my thoughts will be on the July Course, rooting for Scenic Blast and Takeover Target (I'll be cheering for them both equally fervently, so I've listed them alphabetically so there shall be no favouritism) but the 9.10 at Chepstow will be our July Cup, and that's where I'll be. Let's hope for no cock-ups - and as Alan Munro is engaged, we should at least be guaranteed a ten-out-of-ten ride. We had a runner on Monday, although we actually should have had two. I scratched Stardust Memories as I wasn't totally happy with her when I rode her the previous morning - and thank God I did so, because Carol duly found a few things amiss with her on Tuesday morning. These are easily fixed and are no big deal, but I was just so glad that I hadn't run her because it would have been to nobody's benefit for her to have run. Least of all hers. So that left us with Douchkette running. She ran satisfactorily and behaved well, so that was very pleasing. It was not, granted, a debut to have one checking the entry book to see whether entries for the Yorkshire Oaks had closed; but she wasn't disgraced, tried her best and seemed to enjoy the sport. So, fingers crossed she'll make the grade at whatever turns out to be her level.It was very nice to have George Baker on board her, because George is a jockey I very much like. He's ridden for us since he was a lightweight claiming apprentice and has invariably provided a very satisfactory and professional service. Not that it's now easy to remember that he was once a lightweight apprentice, as he's about the same size as me (but considerably more accomplished at keeping himself trim), and it's interesting to compare this photograph of him making Douchkette look quite small with the one in the previous chapter, in which Clare Lindop makes the filly look massive!

July Week is always a busy one, and one of the ways of filling the time again came courtesy of an invitation to the Darley Stallion Parade at Dalham Hall Stud I was delighted to be there today, to enjoy a really good lunch after inspecting some of the world's classiest stallions, including of course last year's Derby winner New Approach (the chestnut pictured below) and another stallion whom I particularly admire, the 2003 2,000 Guineas winner Refuse To Bend (the bay pictured above). After enjoying the Sheikh's hospitality, I was very pleased to see Godolphin have three winners today, two at Newmarket and one at Folkestone - the investment of money and enthusiasm which Sheikh Mohammed has put into racing means that one would have to have something seriously wrong with one's brain if one begrudged him success.

As you'll have worked out, now that I've finally and belatedly taught myself how to download photographs, I've gone mad doing so. I took a couple of crackers this morning - well, they aren't good photographs, but the subjects are pretty special. The first one could be entitled 'David and Goliath'.I took this at around 6.15 this morning as I was making my way home on my first horse of the morning, Anis Etoile. I was very pleased to find myself coming home behind Takeover Target, one day before his July Cup bid. In addition to wishing Jay Ford and Joe Janiak good luck (it's Joe's son in the photograph, but Joe was waiting at the end of the Heath for his charge), I was also very pleased to take a (very bad) shot which had him in the (sort of) foreground and some of the massed Godolphin blue ranks in the background. The following lot we bumped into Dan Morton on Scenic Blast so I was able to salute him too, and then on the way home we passed Luca's string, which presented a perfect photo-opportunity: three Aussie jockeys side by side, Kathy O'Hara, Michelle Payne and Brad Rawiller. Douchkette was kind enough to stand stillish while I took a few photos (I have to take several to give myself any chance of having one usable shot) and the hoops were kind enough to keep smiling.

Tomorrow sees the culmination of Richard Dunwoody's 1,000 hours of walking. He's done ever so well, because he's so full of the joys of spring despite his punishing schedule. I had the great pleasure of walking another couple of miles with him this afternoon: I had cycled up to the Bedford Lodge to drop a cheque off, only to be invited to join the next trek which would be setting off a bit later on. It was a very jolly gathering, including Declan Murphy, Jim Crowley, Seamus Durack, Jamie Railton, the former decent apprentice (and now Godolphin employee) James Bosley and Richard's mother, plus some of the team of proper walkers including 1956 Melbourne Olympics contender Eric Hall, and it was a pleasure to take part again. I'm sure that Richard and his support team will be happy enough to see the back of the ordeal, but its termination will be rather sad from everyone else's point of view, because he has brought great joy and enthusiasm to the town. For that alone we can thank and salute him, over and above the colossal sum which he will have raised for the four charities. So my wish-list for tomorrow largely centres around Ethics Girl winning at Chepstow, Scenic Blast and Takeover Target filling the quinella in either order in the July Cup, and Richard enjoying his final mile up the July Course. He certainly deserves to.

Heart-warming stuff

Today has so far run like clockwork. When planning how to fit everything in, it seemed that all the timings would be spot-on - which is usually the catalyst for nothing running to schedule - but happily all seems to have fallen into place nicely. I started planning this morning when I cycled up the Bury Road to the Bedford Lodge Hotel yesterday afternoon. I'd realised that Richard Dunwoody was within his final week of his 1,000-mile mile-each-hour charity walk, and thus that if I let time continue to slip away then I would miss the opportunity to enjoy making a gesture of support. Anyway, as I cycled up the road yesterday, I had the pleasure of a wonderful and totally unexpected sight: I found myself alongside J P McNamara, the very good and very nice former jockey who at one stage looked set for a life of immobility, striding boldly up the road, accompanied by the admirable northern-based dual-purpose hoop Michael Naughton. This brought me great joy. J P was, it transpired, doing an 8am to 8pm stint in Richard's routine, not quite keeping pace with Richard's sub-15-minute miles but averaging a very healthy 20 minutes. I don't think of a better way of describing how pleased I was to see him than by saying that I can't tell you how pleased I was to see him. Anyway, it was a real pleasure to spend an hour in his company between shifts - during which hour I made arrangements to join Richard this morning - before heading back down the road on my bicycle alongside J P and Michael as they set off on their next leg.

Nothing really can be as heart-warming as that chance encounter, but our couple of miles with Richard this morning came pretty close. I had booked myself in for the 4 o'clock mile and the 5 o'clock mile - which didn't involve quite the early start which that implies as it basically meant walking between 4.40 and 5.15, as the miles are at the end of one hour and the start of the next - and was thus able to head up to the Bedford Lodge after taking in the ATR coverage of the 4.10 (BST) race at Randwick, in which The Embassy, part-owned by Lawrence Wadey, was running. It was a party of three which headed up the Bury Road, because Emma came too, as did our house-guest, dual South Australian champion and dual Derby-winning jockey Clare Lindop (pictured with Richard).
The walk couldn't have been more enjoyable. It had been impressed on me that Richard tries to remain dozy during his night walks to help him go back to sleep in his breaks, so I duly promised - and meant it - that I wouldn't do anything to intrude into his trance. Well, I was forced to break the promise, because Richard couldn't have been more friendly or chatty: the only way we could have stuck to my under-taking would have been by ignoring him! It has been noticeable as we've passed him each day over the past few weeks that Richard has been getting more and more chirpy throughout his ordeal - which is the exact opposite of what one might have expected - almost as if he started dreading it, but has increasingly found that it far easier to enjoy than he'd feared. Anyway, this morning was pure joy, as the conversation covered even more ground than our feet. I had admired Richard's commitment even before this morning, but that admiration has now been redoubled, as he defied sleep deprivation and the tedium of routine to show jollity and friendliness far beyond the call of duty.


Anyway, after our walk we dropped Clare off at Sir Michael Stoute's yard, where she was to ride two lots, and headed home in time for - perfect timing again - the ATR coverage of the 5.38 (BST) from Flemington, in which Diamondsindinside, part-owned by my Winning Post colleague Joel Marshall, ran a very good third. On yet another perfect summer's morning, I then had time to take Ethics Girl out on her own to the Al Bahathri before the normal 6.45 start-time of what is the usual first lot, when I rode Risky Cry and took this photograph
(of Aisling and Emma on Cape Roberto and Panto, on top of Long Hill after cantering up it) which sums up the beauty of the morning, as does the one above in which Ethics surveys the entrance to Railway Land where she is about to work.

We were then spoiled in the stable with the voluntary help which we received today, with plenty of riders in to swell the string and Steve McCormick lending a hand with the other tasks. All help was gratefully received, none more so than Clare, on her return from Freemason Lodge, partnering Douchkette in the final stalls session which she and Stardust Memories were to have prior to their debuts at Windsor on Monday. As this photo (of her on the darker Douchkette and Martha on Stardust setting off to walk home after the session) shows,
both horses behaved in a totally unflustered manner, and I think that we can be confident that we are sending them out as well schooled as they could be. The two Aussie sheilas who have been helping us out - Michelle Payne on previous mornings and Clare today - have been inspirational, as two more professional, positive or likeable people you'd struggle to meet. It is no surprise that each has made such a success of her chosen profession, and it is great to see them both now making a great success of their working holidays. Clare has obviously been more prolific on British racecourses to date, but I am delighted to see that Stardust will now be one of four rides for Michelle (who had her first ride in the UK yesterday, for Jane Chapple-Hyam at Doncaster) at Windsor on Monday, the others being for Jane, Luca and Stuart Williams. Let's hope that they all run well.

Absolute Heaven

It's ages since we last had a runner, but we nearly had one this week. The plan had been to run Anis at Uttoxeter on Sunday, but after much wailing, gnashing of teeth and general agonising I took the decision not to run her. She didn't seem completely comfortable at exercise; and while it was hard to put a finger on what the problem was - which made one suspect that it couldn't be anything too serious - I just decided that running would not be the correct course of action. Which was a shame as it was a race in which she, as an unbeaten course and distance winner (as recalled by this photograph),
would have had in theory a great chance, and as several of her part-owners had arranged to go. Anyway, I'm really glad that I decided not to run her, because I am sure that we were spared a disappointment: Carol visited her on Tuesday and found her back to be out. The problem is fixed and she'll be right as rain with a day or two's rest, but as sure as eggs are eggs she would have under-performed on Sunday; and very like she'd have enjoyed the day even less than her connections would have done. We're ever so lucky to be able to avail ourselves of what Leslie Harrison once described as "the genius of Carol Whitwood". I know I've said this (probably several times) previously, but there's no harm in repeating oneself occasionally. In fact, all our recent winners (recent meaning within the last year, not week!) such as Anis, To Be Or Not To Be, Extreme Conviction, Take Me There and Kadouchski, have been horses who would not have been able to do much at all without her help.

Having thus been runner-less for a few weeks, we ought to have three runners next week, which is exciting. Douchkette and Stardust Memories are due to contest the same fillies' mile maiden at Windsor on Monday, while Ethics Girl ought to go to Chepstow eight days from now. Although this blog is most definitely not a tipping service, I don't think that I'd be letting too many cats out of the bag were I to say that Ethics Girl will probably have the best chance of the three; but as she is likely to be one of the favourites and the other two will probably start around the 66/1 mark, you could probably have worked that one out for yourself. However, one never knows what is around the corner, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens. In fact, I have a feeling that there is being a plot cooked up for this Windsor maiden. It has been a week of the most heavenly weather - very hot and sunny, but never quite reaching the stage of being unpleasantly hot - and yesterday I spotted Douchkette (who is the darker of the pair)
and Stardust having a word in each other's ear. I know that when Aidan O'Brien sends out a multiple entry in a race, his way of planning the team tactics is to get in a huddle in the middle of the parade ring with his octet (or however many) of hoops and work out how to cook things up; however, my method of arranging the team tactics is to put all the horses in the field together and let them sort it out themselves. (Aidan might like to consider this idea). Anyway, you will see in this photograph that these two lovely fillies seem to be coming up with a plan. I suppose that we shall have to wait until Monday to discover what it is!

As I have said, this week's weather has been really, really special. We spend so many weeks over the winter dreaming of weather like this, so we must savour it while we can. As a reminder of less pleasant times, I now attach another photograph of a view of the same field taken approximately twenty weeks ago. This one was most definitely taken from behind glass, as Alamshar and I
stared gloomily out of the window in the middle of the afternoon, thanking our lucky stars that we were indoors rather than outside. I think that you will agree that as captions for these two photographs we could borrow the titles of the lovely pair of prints which Lisa Sandys-Lumsdaine painted in the '70s of a string of horses heading up to the gallops in contrasting weathers: 'Absolute Heaven' and 'Absolute Hell'.

A vile motto

It's been a week since Royal Ascot ended but, as Problemwalrus has correctly pointed out, no review of the meeting would be complete without the doffing of one's hat towards the mighty 12-year-old Caracciola, who usurped Brown Jack as the Royal Meeting's oldest winner. Good on 'im - and good on those whose campaign kept the Queen Alexandra afloat, thus making special results such as this possible. That happy victory, though, wasn't actually the final nice result of the day, because at the evening meeting at Haydock Clare Lindop recorded her first British winner, posting a win and a second from two rides for Jeremy Gask. She's over in the UK on a working holiday for a small amount of weeks, staying mainly with Jeremy and his family, which is a natural tie-up as Clare's boss Leon Macdonald was Jeremy's mentor. I've never met Clare (but hope to rectify that before too long) but even so was delighted to cheer her home, as she is extremely popular in her native land. What made the result even easier to enjoy, incidentally, was that this was the first winner to salute in the colours of the very decent and very shrewd ex-Timeform man Simon Rowlands. Clare is the only female jockey to have been champion in a mainland state in Australia (South Australia - the only other girl to have won a riders' premiership there is Beverley Buckingham, in Tasmania) and is the regular rider of one of my favourite horses, Rebel Raider, on whom she has won this season's VRC Derby and SAJC Derby, as well as of Augusta Proud, on whom she won last year's Magic Millions. She was rapt to have won the race, thus fulfilling an ambition to ride a winner in her mother's homeland, and fingers crossed she can ride a few more before she goes home - in fact, she already has added to the total, having had a winner and a second for Jeremy at Doncaster yesterday, the winner being Medicean Man, who got home by half-a-length from Leverage, representing the Luca Cumani/Ryan Moore combination, which is always a hard one to beat.


Clare is not, of course, the only Aussie hoop in the country just now. I don't think my favourite jockey Steven Arnold has ridden out in Newmarket at all - he was here for the pre-Ascot press day but didn't ride Scenic Blast, then went to France for a few days before returning to the UK to ride that horse in the King's Stand, and is currently back in Melbourne - but Jay Ford is now here and has taken over (from Dominic Gibson) the daily riding duties on his best mount Takeover Target. We've also got Michelle Payne (pictured at Caulfield earlier this year, on board the Richard Sims-part-owned and -part-bred, and Colin Little-trained, Kalatruce) here for three weeks, riding out for Luca Cumani. She was in Europe for a working holiday last summer but, although spending a short amount of time here with her sister and brother-in-law Cathy and Kerrin McEvoy (when she rode out for James Fanshawe), was mostly in Ireland with Aidan O'Brien, for whom she had one ride in a Listed fillies' race in which he had several runners. She also had a ride at Deauville for either the brother or father (I forget which) of Olivier Doleuze. She's a great jockey as she demonstrated earlier this year when posting the rare feat of riding five winners on the card one day at Yarra Glen, and also when winning at Caulfield in February on Bart Cummings' notoriously quirky Galileo gelding God's Hand; and as she is bred to be, as seven of her elder siblings are or have been good jockeys (and that total includes one great one, Patrick). Anyway, I was delighted today to have an early start when taking advantage of her availability to get her in here before she went to Luca's at 6.15: we only just failed to beat Clive Brittain's first lot up the Al Bahathri when taking Stardust Memories and Douchkette one step nearer their debuts in a pleasing work-out.

If that gallop was pleasing, it pales into insignificance behind one which I had the pleasure of watching yesterday, when Takeover Target and Scenic Blast matched strides up the July Course yesterday at 7.30, under Jay Ford and Danny Morton respectively. When I heard that this was to take place, it was an easy decision to make a start to the day a bit earlier than usual, thus leaving the way clear to take an hour off at 7.10 to head up there to savour this very special moment. On balance - not least because he must have been conceding around 10kg - one would have to say that Scenic Blast did marginally more to promote his July Cup credentials, but Takeover Target looked, moved and worked really well, and he should not be discounted from that race at all.

I've seen quite a few races on the July Course over the years, but I don't think I've ever seen horses pass the post there as quickly as these two did (after, obviously, having taken things more easily in the first half of the gallop than they would be able to do in a 5-furlong race) and it was a very special occasion - one which this photograph of the two horses heading off down to the start will help me to remember.

Those two horses are, naturally, extremely special - and made all the more special by the unremarkableness (if that is a word) of their backgrounds and the unassumingness (ditto) of their connections - but I hope that they won't mind my saying that not even they do enough to convince me to dispute Brough Scott's claim that his maternal grandfather's horse Warrior was the greatest horse ever. The specialness of Warrior, about whom Brough has written, was made abundantly clear to us on Thursday evening when Brough gave a lovely talk, in aid of the National Horseracing Museum, at the Racing School about him. In short, Brough's maternal grandfather Jack Sealy was a Boer War veteran and cabinet minister who, after having lost his post in 1914, joined the army in his mid-40s and, not wanted by the British army because of fears that he was too much of an individualist to fit in, was foisted onto the Canadian cavarly, with whom it appears he formed a formidable partnership, leading from the front. Warrior was his horse, and thus headed off to France and Belgium with General Sealy. Both were clearly heroes, and charmed ones too: at least twice General Sealy survived when his horse was shot dead from under him (by snipers who, one can assume, were actually aiming for the general rather than his mount), but the happy coincidence being that on each occasion he happened not to be on Warrior that day. In total, Warrior survived eleven incidents which ought to have killed him before eventually arriving back on the Isle of Wight on Christmas Day 1918 - and subsequently proved just how well he had survived the war by winning the Members' Race at the Isle of Wight point-to-point in 1920.

It's a pity that people like Jack Sealy aren't around any more - and in particular that people like Jack Sealy no longer run the country. Half-mad he might have been, but I think that things would probably function considerably better were he in charge today. In particular, I suspect that the national plague of Health & Safety Officers wouldn't be an issue under a Sealy regime. Before the talk, I had enjoyed a chat with the former Fitzroy House trainer and Someries Stud manager John Waugh, during which I had enjoyed reminding him that, of all the many things which he definitely would not enjoy about training nowadays, the ubiquity of red tape would come pretty near the top of the list. It was, therefore, very timely that Brough should then quote a sentence from one of his grandfather's books, the magnificently-named 'Fear, and be slain'. This particular pronouncement was that "'Safety first' is a vile motto". Which I think is as good a motto as any to head this chapter, and possibly for life itself.

Royal Ascot, part three

No review of Royal Ascot is complete without reference to the BBC coverage. It took me two or three decades to learn to appreciate the BBC's contribution to the meeting to its full extent, but the turning point came for me a couple of years ago when I read James Underwood's opinion that the BBC treats Royal Ascot as if it were "the white man's Notting Hill Carnival". Since reading that, I've really learned to enter into the whole off-the-wall spirit of the programmes, and to savour every piece of nonsense. And no aspect is more to be savoured than the contributions of the splendid James Sherwood. One can understand why female racegoers might quake when they see him plus camera crew approaching - there is an unconfirmed rumour that Gemma found herself a victim of his viper's tongue on Tuesday, but as I didn't see the entire programme I can neither confirm nor deny that - but, for everyone other than the people whom he is discussing, his words are a delight. Of the plethora of brahmae today, here are two of my favourites "Probably better for the Riviera than for Royal Ascot - but you'd probably cut quite a dash in the Silver Ring wearing it", and "the campest pirate on the high seas". Those two gems were both prompted by models on the cat-walk (every racecourse should have one), down which we had enjoyed the delightful sight of Willie Carson and Ronnie Corbett promenading together a couple of days previously. This is all just so good. Even seasoned racing professionals such as Claire Balding and Willie Carson rise to the occasion and realise that this show is about much more than mere racing: when telling us that Takeover Target (pictured above with his owner/trainer, plus Jose Corrales, with Scenic Blast and one of the American Royal Ascot raiders looking on) has been scratched from tomorrow's Golden Jubilee, rather than then tell us why - which was obviously the most important piece of information at that point - they instead moved straight onto a series of gags about Russell Crowe and the movie, thus ensuring that (one would hope) the entire TV audience got up from their seats in front of the television to turn on the internet to find out what had gone wrong. It's great: under normal circumstances I'd opt for the specialist racing coverage (ATR or Racing UK) over the generalised, but for Royal Ascot - no way!

I've just watched Ghanaati's excellent win in the Coronation Stakes under one of my favourite jockeys, Richard Hills. This was very special, not just for the fact that this is yet another Group One win for the very sporting Sheikh Hamdam by a home-bred descending from Height Of Fashion, but also because it is yet another good win which Barry Hills, a man whose professionalism and high standards are a lesson to us all, has trained this season despite his on-going major health worries. And on the subject of the excellent Hills stable, we must give further riding honours to one-time Barry Hills apprentice Darryll Holland, who had rides in five of the six races at Musselburgh last night and won on all five. They were all short prices, hence the five-time being "only" something like 63/1, but even so that's a typically very good effort by a very good jockey.