Thursday, October 26, 2006

Comings and goings

I see it's six days since I was last on here, but it seems a lot more than that. Since then we've had a couple of new readers: John McNamara and Claude Wathen-Berry. The former even claims to have enjoyed reading the blog! I'm enjoying the banter about favourite racing memories (although we could do with some back-up for the few correspondents who are kindly sharing their special memories) and John has thrown Noblesse's win in the Observer Gold Cup into the mix. I also remember his telling me once that Nijinsky was going round when he was first starting to follow the horses, and that that equine god was responsible for his addiction. If anyone can't understand why, just watch the wonderful film they made of him. The closing close-up slo-mo shots of him and Lester galloping across Newmarket Heath (no running rails on most of the Rowley Mile in those days) in the Champion Stakes are pure magic - and the fact that one knows he's about to be beaten doesn't spoil it at all. A wonderfully moving tribute to a great horse.

We had a wonderfully moving moment too this week (sublime to ...) when Lady Suffragette ran a wonderful race at Kempton. Brett has been a really lucky jockey for this stable - several winners from only a handful of rides - and he and dear little Lady nearly pulled it off. The filly is thriving under Aisling's loving handling and I hope that this run was only a precursor to better things. The Racing Post, for once (thanks to Geoff Leicester (sic)) summed it up well: "However, one had to feel some sympathy for Lady Suffragette, who was given a smashing ride and, having hit the front early in the straight, beat off all-comers, only to be swallowed up in the dying strides". It was really exciting.

We've also had several movements. Dear Joli has moved on today. He's gone to race in Kuwait and, while we spoke to his new trainer after the sale and he seems a sensible and professional horseman, one does worry for horses when they head away. However, it is wrong to believe that standards of care need be worse for not being in the UK, and no horse's future wellbeing is guaranteed wherever he goes.

About 90 minutes before Joli walked around Tattersalls' ring, Belle Annie was doing so. She's our newest recruit, subsequent to my signing the docket for 5,500 gns. Interesting pedigree. By Aptitude (by A P Indy ex Northern Dancer mare) from a Grade Three-winning Most Welcome mare, from a Great Nephew mare. She's a tall, quite backward, unraced two-year-old. Philip Mitchell bought her in US last year, has looked after her well and given her time to mature, but unfortunately for him her owner has bailed out. I felt a bit sad at being the potential beneficiary of Philip's misfortune as he's a real decent guy, but if I hadn't bought her someone else would have done: I checked with him before the sale that he wasn't going to be bidding, because if he had been going to try to buy her back to stay within his stable, then I wouldn't have bid. This rather taking filly will race for Dave Huelin and myself; we've enjoyed racing horses together in the past and have been lucky enough to see them all win at least once, so let's hope that she can keep things going. She'll be off to benefit from the green, green grass of horse heaven first, though.

Horse heaven is, of course, chez Kerry, whither Jill, Brief plus two yearling fillies (Diktat and Helissio) headed on Wednesday. It's a fair guess that those horses are pretty happy with life just now. The two yearlings are both broken and have had a few rides around, so they shouldn't forget how to conduct themselves during their holiday. They were both easy to break, which is a relief. Helissio only had a few rides, but I headed off down the horsewalk on her the morning before she left, and things went well. She's a lovely horse. We received a very kind postcard (the picture being the Charles Church painting of her Gold Cup-winning uncle Celeric) from her breeder Christopher Spence this morning, wishing us luck. I hope I will be able to give him positive bulletins about her progress in the years to come.

We've got Millyjean making her debut tomorrow. She ought to go down and back satisfactorily. I don't know who will be more green, she or her partner Michael Murphy, although I suspect it will be the latter. People who've been studying the lower tiers of racing for a while might remember Michael's father Mick, who was a jumps jockey in the north, mainly in Middleham, in the '70s. He rode as one of Neville Crump's jockekys for a while, and the Steve Nesbitt-trained Red Earl might have been his best mount. He also trained near Bury-St-Edmunds for a year or so about 15 years ago. He asked me if I could sort out a ride for Michael, who is a nice lad and used to ride out here occasionally when he was still at school and who is now apprenticed to Luca Cumani. Michael's got a lot to learn if he's going to become the horseman that his father is, but one's got to start somewhere, so hopefully an outing at Newmarket will help him along the way and he won't let us down.

It's been a long day and the next three promise to be busy as we prepare for blast-off. My brain is everywhere: trying to make myself completely au-fait with the Australian form so that we can appreciate it to the full when we're there, trying to concentrate on the great jumps racing here so that I can compile before departure a competition-winning 12-to-follow list, and most importantly trying to do the 10,001 things I must do before we leave. I'm bound to forget no end of things, so all I can do is hope that the things I do forget are only minor ones. (I mustn't forget to make the declarations for Sunday - so that they can be eliminated - in the morning, having forgotten to make them this arvo). One thing I don't need to do is to think up a horse for the list to win the Bula Hurdle - aaagh, War 'N' Place, that's just wrong - but what about the Mildmay/Cazalet disappearing act - oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, history doesn't matter. Just as well we'll be heading out to the country where this Saturday the big race is still the good old W.S.Cox Plate. Not the Winning Post Quaich (yet). I did have a large framed photo of my favourite Cox Plate winner Surfer's Paradise coming home ahead of Super Impose in 1991 on the wall of this room where I'm now typing, but it doesn't seem to be here any more. Where it was there now rests a framed snapshot of some vaguely familiar-looking sheilas 'having a mighty time' together. I wonder who could have made the switch. Answers on a postcard, please.

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