Thoughts from the weekend

I'm afraid that we had a disappointing trip to Thirsk but, bearing in mind that there was one race there in which two horses broke down, I don't think that we have too many reasons to feel sorry for ourselves, with Polly safely back home and galivanting around the field as I write. With the ground being firm two days in advance of the meeting, the racecourse had naturally watered the track, which meant that the surprisingly large amount of rain which arrived in advance of racing on Saturday resulted in the ground being very loose, particularly on the bends. In such a situation it is inevitable that a few horses are going to end up with a few things amiss, and that some won't have the confidence in their footing to put their best hoof forward; and I suspect that Polly will prove to have fallen into both camps, as she wasn't blowing at all after the race and will, I am sure, be found to have a few minor things wrong in her back and quarters when Carol looks at her tomorrow. So the trip was a bit of an anti-climax, but the filly lives to fight another day, which she surely will do.

The race in which two horses broke down was the mile-and-a-half maiden, which was interesting for a variety of reasons. The field was a very mixed bunch - well, that's actually being kind, because most of the runners looked very ordinary indeed. The odds-on favourite was Warringah, a son of Galileo trained by Michael Stoute who had given his much better-fancied, and subsequently Dante-winning, stablemate Tartan Bearer a fright at Leicester last month on his only previous outing. He was an odd horse, really, as he looked like Ex Con: just a lovely big, fat (although not nearly as fat as Ex Con) backward potential National Hunt horse. He couldn't possibly win the race, could he? But then again none of his rivals looked as if they could do so either. Mick Channon ran a full-sister to the lovely multiple winning stayer Misternando, who looked ordinary enough but very fit, Howard Johnson ran a grey debutant by High Chaparral, a lovely horse who still looked fairly backward, Henry Cecil ran his Helissio, who looked alright I suppose, but who isn't nearly as nice as our one, and Eoghan O'Neill ran a nice big - but still backward - Danehill Dancer (another Ex Con!). And Mark Johnston ran a horse who was impossible to judge, as he sported a large sweat-sheet during the preliminaries. As it turned out, Warringah, ridden by Callan not as well as he had been by JD Smith at Leicester(ie Callan made less use of him, which I don't think was ideal for such a horse, particularly at Thirsk), ran as we have learned to expect from a still-a-long-way-from-fully-fit horse second up after a surprisingly good run first up (ie disappointingly) to finish fourth behind Mark Johnston's winner, Mick Channon's filly and Howard Johnson's debutant. Henry Cecil's filly and Eoghan's colt came just behind them, with the really odd assortment of other horses - one of whom looked like a bay version of Flint (the cob Emma borrowed for the summer three years ago) and ran accordingly - coming home at intervals behind them. (Mark Johnston actually ran two in the race, the other finishing tailed off last - of those who finished, another horse having been pulled up lame midway around the first bend - and evidently broke down in the process; but I hadn't even registered in advance that he had two runners, just assuming each time this huge sheet walked past me that it was the same sheet each time). Anyway, and I'll get to the point now, why on earth is this allowed? Regular readers of this blog will know of the fact that I don't think horses should be allowed to wear anything other than the tack in which they are going to race in the parade ring: it makes a complete mockery of the point of having a parade ring if the only the horses' heads, necks, legs and tails are visible as the horses walk around it. Granted that there is an argument for covering the horses' saddles in the rain to make things less uncomfortable for the jockeys, but otherwise paddock clothing serves no purpose - and any trainer who tells you otherwise is either lying or stupid. Of course there are trainers who see racing as a game of poker in which the cards should, as a matter of course, be played as close to the chest as possible, and invariably making the horses' condition as hard for on-lookers to assess in advance, which appears to be the policy of Mark and of Saeed bin Suroor, is a natural extension of this. One can't knock the trainers for this, because the rules permit it - but my point is that the rules shouldn't. I know that, in one sense, it doesn't really matter - at Thirsk on Saturday, for instance, there was a huge crowd, of which only a small proportion of the race-goers went to look at the horses in the parade ring, and this is pretty much the way it usually is - but you could say the same about so many things which are of minimal significance to the majority but which are clearly worth worrying about in the mind of anyone who takes minor details seriously.

Which takes us neatly on to the matter of Big Brown, although I'd suggest that the problem here isn't a minor detail. What a lovely horse he is - and what a terrible shame it is that, while we ought to be rejoicing absolutely in his victories, our pleasure is sullied by the whole steroids issue. Of course one need not condemn his trainer for openly announcing that on the 15th day of every month the horse receives a shot of the same steroid which helped Ben Johnson to win at the Olympics (and caused millions of people worldwide to become completely disenchanted with the sport of athletics in the process) because the rules of racing in America permit this steroid to be given to horses - and, if a trainer is serious about trying to get his charges to race as well as possible, surely it is his duty to take all legal measures to help them to do so? Unlikeable though Rick Dutrow appears to be, we shouldn't condemn him by claming that it is his fault that he perceives it as his duty to train his entire string on steroids. It isn't his fault; it is the fault of the administrators of American racing who are letting down the whole sport, not only within their own country but all around the world, by their sin of omission in continuing to do nothing about rewriting their rule-books in line with what would be seen as contemporary professional standards in any other sport.

To happier matters, one race I really enjoyed watching on Saturday was the opener, a two-year-old fillies' maiden. This again had a mixed bag - and it really was a mixed bag this time because, in addition to the majority of very unimpressive horses who ran as badly as they looked in advance that they were likely to do, there were at least four very nice horses in the field. First and second are clearly on the brink of good careers (injuries permitting): Haigh Hall, a daughter of Kyllachy trained by Tim Easterby, and Excellent Show, a daughter of Exceed And Excel trained by Bryan Smart. And the third, Sparta Rebel, a daughter of Spartacus trained by Mark Wallace, is also a nice filly. But what was really pleasing was the debut of the fourth, Black Salix, trained by one of our favourite trainers, Pam Sly, and racing for the same connections and in the same colours as did Speciosa. It would be a colossal leap of faith to say that Black Salix, a daughter of More Than Ready, is going to emulate Speciosa's achievements (notwithstanding that she probably ran better first up than Speciosa did) but I was delighted to note that she is a lovely filly who showed bags of promise in finishing a good fourth behind three nice horses who looked significantly more forward than she is. Big Brown might be the latest to dent one's faith in any belief about the sun shining on the righteous, but Speciosa did plenty to restore such faith, and fingers crossed this filly will do so too.

And further bolstering of that belief would be provided by a good run from Joolzy (Spaceage Juliet) when she aims for her second metropolitan win on Wednesday at Sandown (Vic). I haven't checked out the times so don't know if it will fall within our 3am to 6am At The Races Australian racing slot, or whether we shall have to listen to the TAB radio on the internet. But, however we follow the race, we shall no doubt hear a few cheers from members of the Empire (pictured) drowning out the commentary in the final stages if she is fighting out the finish. And just before I sign off, I can't resist the temptation to pass on this description of the group which one of the Empire members, holding court in a mood of remarkable expansiveness, recently came out with: "Okay, we're a pugnacious lot of savages. Let's say the Empire has a selective approach to right and wrong. We're religious - but not so religious we aren't secular. And if some crazy policeman ever tried to enforce the criminal code among us, half of us would be in gaol, and the other half would be standing in the street with Kalashnikovs, getting us out. We're a bunch of unruly punters who love M.Rodd, drink, fight, boast, steal, monitor weather patterns, fluke the odd trifecta, wage blood-feuds and can't be organised into groups of more than one. Want some more? Alliances and politics, forget them. You can make us any promise you like, break it, and we'll believe you again tomorrow. We've got a diaspora no one's heard of and suffering you can't get on television, even with a special aerial. We don't like bullies, and we don't have hereditary peerages, and we hadn't produced a despot in a thousand years until SM (David Dumas) came along. Here's to Joolzy."