Friday, July 28, 2006

Eliminating swamp fever

It was a pleasure to be at Sandown yesterday. Perfect weather (while we were there it was anyway, although I presume the flash floods would have hit there soon after we'd left, impossible though that would have been to believe at the time) and the lovely racecourse at its uncrowded best, despite good racing. Brief ran another fine race, impressing again with both his performance and his attitude. He has become a real professional, tries his best and seems extremely happy doing so. At any level horses like that are hard to find. The winner of his race, I Have Dreamed, a lightly-raced four-year-old by Montjeu (typically for that breed, he is a magnificent and firey) from a Mr Prospector mare, looks as if he'll win again in a higher class, while the runner-up Obrigado is also a horse who, on type, could be competing in Group races. To finish third to that pair, at a top track, is no disgrace at all. The time backs this up, as it was the only race of the day run faster than standard, which wasn't bad on a card which contained a Listed race, as well as a maiden winner (Godolphin's War Chant colt Desert Authority) who looks as if he can step straight up to Stakes level. The runner-up in that race, Mulaazem, a King's Best colt ex 1,000 Guineas winner Harayir, also looks like a horse with a big future, which ought to be the case in a race in which the first two finished THIRTY-TWO LENGTHS clear of the third. I don 't, incidentally, know anything about Desert Authority's maternal grandsire Panoramic, so perhaps someone can enlighten me.

Less pleasing is the elimination situation, which is getting beyond the joke. One must bear in mind that July and August, with dry tracks and a massive amount of racing, are probably the easiest months of the year to get horses into races. Well, the score this week is seven declarations, five eliminations. That just isn't acceptable. The situation is actually, in effect, even worse than that: Rem Time doesn't count as an elimination, but she could be regarded as such. I had her in two races at Leicester on Tuesday, and only declared her for the less suitable when I saw that she'd probably get in that, but would have very little chance of getting into her more suitable option. So one can regard her as having been eliminated from the more suitable race - and, as she ran fifth of 18 in the race I didn't want her to contest, it is fair to be particularly rueful of her being unable to get in the other one. Dave Huelin has been the principal victim of the eliminator, as he has been here all week to watch My Obsession run at Wolverhampton today, but of course that horse didn't get in (missing out by one). At least Dave has had something to show for his trip over from Jersey, having (I hope) enjoyed the party on Sunday, and then having had two trips to the races, to watch Rem Time at Leicester and Brief at Sandown. It was rather fun at Sandown, because Brief had a good fan club, with My Obsession's and Jack Dawson's connections being there to add to the cheering. Predictably, Joe and Larry made everyone welcome to join the gang, and it was a lovely day.

For us, anyway, if not for Kieren Fallon's lawyers. I feared the worst when I looked at the front page of today's Racing Post, and was confronted by a large photo of Kieren gazing balefully at the camera alongside the headline "Three new cases of swamp fever". Fortunately, as with so many things in life, things turned out not to be as bad as they seemed, and it seems that he hasn't after all been confined to Naas hospital for the medics to run their legendary tests for swamp fever and kidney stones on him. All that has happened is that his lawyers went to court to claim that he requires £200,000 per year to make ends meet; if that's the best they can come up with, he should replace them, as saying something as stupid as that will do more harm than good.

Even if Kieren has contracted swamp fever, he needn't fear, because it can be survived, as Richard Sims proved a few years ago. Whether Dickie will survive his current battle - against his co-owners in the peripatetic galloper Monsam - remains to be seen. We haven't heard much from that quarter on this site recently, but if we are really lucky we might have some comment appearing shortly from one of his aliases. We can then get him and Kentucky Wildcat communicating, and that might just be the start of a beautiful friendship.

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