Like Hurricanes

I'd planned to post an entry to this blog on Sunday after 'Dolly', aka Somewhere Safer, the horse which I co-own with Michael and Sarah Tidmarsh in Deagon (see horse section of this website), saluted the judge at the Sunshine Coast at around 4am BST on Sunday morning. The headline was, inevitably, going to be 'Like A Hurricane', in acknowledgement of her nomenclature. Michael and Sarah were kind enough to allow me to name her and, as Michael and I are both dead-set Neil Young fans, one of his songs had to provide the inspiration; and as she is by a son of Summer Squall (Postponed) 'Like A Hurricane' had to be the one. And, as her dam is Security, what more appropriate phrase than 'Somewhere Safer'? She ran like a hurricane, and I'd had the best possible start to the day. However, I didn't get organised to write anything on Sunday, nor on Monday, and by now Jill has saluted the judge too, so 'Like Hurricanes' it has to be.

In retrospect, there was only one bet to have at the weekend: a double, Cockney Rebel into Somewhere Safer. The only shame was that Neil Young couldn't make it to the Sunshine Coast to cheer our girl home. (When I told Joff about Steve Harley's presence on the Rowley Mile, he suggested that he should see if Dave Faulkner of the Hoodoo Gurus, after whose songs Stoneage Romeo and Spaceage Juliet - again, see horse section of the site - are both named, would like to come to watch trackwork). Readers of recent chapters of this blog will have worked out that the four big winners (Cockney Rebel, Somewhere Safer, Finsceal Beo and Jill Dawson) were all extremely well received by me: I think they all featured in the most recent weekend preview posting. I couldn't have been more pleased that the two Guineas-winning trainers were Geoff Huffer and the admirable Jim Bolger. Geoff is the ultimate loveable rogue. Any success for his reincarnated stable is well-deserved, because he has organised it in such a laudable manner. When Geoff resumed training, he sought out all his former key employees, some of whom had seen their lives go downhill since the great days when Team Huffer operated out of Lagrange, got them all back together and it has worked so perfectly. Dave Wallis came back as head lad initially, and then Geoff tracked down Stuart Jackson, who had got out of racing and was driving the Jetlink bus. Mick Miller, who rode an Ayr Gold Cup winner for Geoff on First Movement in 1981 (beating his stable-mate Tina's Pet), had given up riding out and I think was working on a stud, so Geoff called him up as assitant. It's all too easy in what is basically a physically demanding job to favour youth over experience, but Geoff took the other viewpoint, realising that experienced men on whom you know you can rely are the key, and he, and they, are now reaping the due reward. He even asked Mark Rimmer, who rode the Cesarewitch winner for him in 1979, to come in and gallop Cockney Rebel a couple of weeks ago. There's nothing like feeling wanted, and that is just what Geoff has done to all the people who had served him well in the past; for this I salute him, and because of this I rejoice that he has had this well-deserved success. And so there they all were, plus Burns Hutchinson, who used to work in this yard for Hugh Collingridge when he used to ride the occasional very poor hurdler; and there was Jack Banks too in the winner's enclosure, Geoff's assistant trainer in the '80s whose health isn't so good nowadays. It was as nice a result as you could find.

As (in my eyes anyway) was Jill's success yesterday. It's lovely that 'Joe McCarthy And Friends' is continuing post Joe, and he was so in our minds yesterday. It was a truly special occasion: a sad occasion for sure, but a very, very happy one too. A large party gathered to cheer Jill home and she did her part in fine style. It wasn't the plan for her to lead, because I feared that she might be rather exuberant on her first start for nearly ten months and I didn't want her to burn herself out in the first half of the race. It turned out that I was right about her freshness, but wrong in fearing that it could prove her undoing. She jumped straight to the front and Kirsty, correctly, took the 'sit and suffer' option rather than instigating a battle with her mount in a doomed attempt to follow the instructions to sit in behind the leaders. So Jill just ran along joyously. When she turned into the straight and one thought she'd start to weaken, she just skipped clear and, although tiring in the final furlong, she was never thereafter going to be reeled in. What was, incidentally, very impressive was that the horse who made the best effort of trying to catch her was her old rival Murrumbidgee: they've finished first and second three times now (Jill leads 2-1), and you couldn't find two more consistent or genuine horses. Jill's made great physical progress since last year (predictably I forgot to take my camera to Warwick, which I realised with a jolt while admiring her in the parade ring and thinking that she looked so well that a photo on the blog - irrespective of how she ran - would be ideal), but Murrumbidgee has too, so I hope that his connections can get the reward for his consistency when next he runs. And when will Jill next run? I don't know. She can have an easy week and then we can start thinking about another run at the end of the month. She's seems to have taken the race very well, which is the main thing. Brief, too, is fine after yesterday. Things didn't work out yesterday, which wasn't a huge suprise. So often races at Windsor are leader-dominated, as yesterday but unlike the untypical one which he won there last July, and when that's the case, Brief can't win. But no handicapper can win every time, so we'll just try to keep him hail and hearty, and hope his turn will come again. He might run at Newmarket at the end of the month.

We've had a couple of welcome visits in the last few days. Brian Ahern, who used to have a share in Diamond Joshua, called into the stable on Saturday morning on his way to the races. It's always nice to see him here, and I hope we'll see him in July week, if not before. And then on Sunday I was delighted to receive a call out of the blue from Bill Riches, a vet and breeder from Berwick, south east of Melbourne. He and his wife Jenny visit England every couple of years or so (their daughter lives in London) and they were up this way for Guineas weekend. So they joined us for dinner on Sunday evening, which was great. In the same way that I'd started the day by receiving a text to tell me that I'd co-owned a winner at the Sunshine Coast, Bill had taken a call at seven that morning to tell him he'd co-bred the winner of that day's South Australian Oaks: Watches, by Encosta De Lago ex Wellington Dreamer, by El Qahira (a very good Sir Tristram stallion whom he stood prior to the horse's tragically premature demise). I'd been very pleased to bump into them at Flemington on Derby Day last November, so it was great to see them again so soon; we normally only meet once every few years. I've only been to their beautiful property once (in 1997), at which time they were standing two stallions: Runyon (who is now back in Europe, at Scarvagh) and Greig, a son of Somewhere Safer's maternal grandsire Grosvenor. Bill breeds a lot of horses in partnership with Ross Du Bourg, writer of the mighty tome 'The Australian and New Zealand Thoroughbred' which has been giving me so much pleasure and information, so I have asked him to convey to Ross my appreciation of the book.