Busy not blogging

I was going quite well on this blog, but now I've gone ages since posting. We've had a couple of runners since I was last on, but they haven't produced anything to write home about. Watching Kadouchski's run at Great Leighs wasn't much fun because it was a terribly rough race. He copped a bad knock going into the first bend which sent him shooting out to the side, and thereafter it was plain that he wasn't happy. He finished tailed off last (and it should be noted that his rating hasn't changed, which was a correct piece of handicapping because he clearly didn't give his true running - although the Racing Post Spotlight team seem to think that not giving his true running is his true running, if that makes sense; time will tell whether that's correct, but I see no reason to believe that he shouldn't be capable of being consistent). That was pretty dispiriting because I hate to see horses having such a rough time in a race. But no lives were lost, and the sun still rose the next morning; and didn't it rise, because that was in the middle of the brief period of indian summer/golden autumn which gave us the nowadays rare pleasure of enjoying our climate. And when the sun's shining it's easy to see the bright side of things.

Brief was the other runner and his race, too, wasn't much fun to watch. After a 'coming together' soon after the start he found himself settled farther back in the field than we'd planned, which I never really like at Bath, a very turning track, and I particularly didn't want with Brief at Bath, as he doesn't really like turning tracks, so would be unlikely to be able to make up much ground on lengthy sections of the circuit. Which is what happened, but even with things not going right for him at all Brief still ran home very gamely to finish just behind the place-getters. He's a lovely horse who's had another rewarding campaign. He may or may not be about to head into hibernation; if he does so he'll be entering winter quarters on a marginally flat note, but no worse than that.

I wasn't at Bath when Brief ran because I was in north Yorkshire. Emma and I watched the race in the betting shop in Leyburn as we prepared to spend the first of two evening stables in Mark Johnston's yard. This was our annual trip to Middleham to allow Emma to undertake one of her assignments, which is to take photographs of some of the Darley-owned horses around the country. Although this was a working assignment for her and not for me, in practice it's far more satisfactory for her if I (or someone) goes too, because it wouldn't be feasible for her to get all the horses photographed in two sessions without an assistant to do all the lesser, but necessary, other jobs, such as writing descriptions of the horses in their turn: it's no use coming home with portraits of dozens of horses if you have no way of telling which is which. So it suits her if I go too, and it certainly suits me, as Middleham is one of the nicest places in Britain, and spending 24+ hours there is very good for the soul. What's particularly nice is that not only is the place so pleasant, but the people are too; and it's always lovely to see such an interesting collection of horses. I was very pleased to be able to give Falmouth Stakes heroine Nahoodh a pat, as well as brave Gimcrack winner and National Stakes runner-up Shaweel, and the exciting Refuse To Bend colt Liberation (a mightily impressive winner at Ascot last Saturday, but subsequently less promising in the inaugural Tattersalls Million at Newmarket this afternoon).

Two bonuses which popped up during our trip were a chance encounter in the pub in which we stayed, the White Swan, and the opportunity to watch some of Bryan Smart's horses galloping. While we'd been in Mark Johnston's second yard, Warwick House, on the first evening of the trip we'd been discussing the yard's history, in particular the fact that three Grand National winners had been trained there by Neville Crump. By a happy coincidence, we found that the six people dining in the White Swan that evening included not just ourselves, but also Neville Crump's former jockey Colin Hawkins, rider of such lovely steeplechasers of the late '70s and early '80s as Even Melody and Narvik, who doesn't look any different now to how he did when he was riding. I introduced myself to him once we'd had our dinner and it was great to be able to enjoy a few Neville Crump reminiscences. Bonus number two came the next morning. We drove the hour or so over to Thirsk so that Emma could interview Vicky Smart about her re-trained racehorse Differential, and photograph them, for a Horse And Hound article. Differential broke the track record for seven-furlongs at Catterick in his racing days, and he is doing similarly well in his new career as, I think, a show-horse and jumping horse. While this discussion was taking place, Bryan very kindly asked me whether I'd like to join him in watching a bunch of his horses galloping, which offer I was delighted to accept. That was really interesting, and yet another good part of a typically enjoyable visit to Yorkshire.

Another piece of hospitality which I've been lucky enough to receive this week was enjoying lunch at Newmarket races courtesy of Tattersalls. Tattersalls were sponsoring races that day, as they have done so again today, and they took the glass-fronted room adjacent to the horse-walk along which the horses walk between the parade ring and the course. They laid on a buffet lunch in this, and it was really nice to be one of their guests. This produced an incident which was both pleasing and frustrating. As the horses filed out past the window for the opening two-year-old maiden race, one horse in particular caught my eye, a debutant by High Chaparral who was carrying Khalid Abdullah's second colours. As the horses jumped out of the stalls, I said to Emma, "Keep an eye on the High Chaparral colt in Khalid Abdullah's second colours: he's very, very nice". For much of the race he looked to be enjoying a satisfactory and unpressured debut as he mooched along at the back of the field before starting to work home nicely into mid-field - but he just kept coming, weaving his way between his rivals in eye-catching style before sprinting out of the pack to catch the favourite close home to win, going away, in hugely impressive style by three-quarters of a length. That was really pleasing to watch, although it would have been even more pleasing if I'd had the presence of mind to have a bet, bearing in mind that his SP was 22/1. He is called Redwood and his dam, evidently, is by Woodman from Jolypha, Dancing Brave's full-sister who, in 1992, won the Prix de Diane and finished third to A P Indy in the Breeders' Cup Classic. He's currently my horse to bear in mind for next year's Derby, even though just now you'd have to say that Rip Van Winkle is perhaps the most obvious winner of that race.

So those are some of the reasons why I've been doing things other than blogging recently. So just to bring us fully up to date, I should add that we might have an answer to Problemwalrus' query about the '70s Alresford handler: Stewart Leadley-Brown has volunteered that the late Peter Calver was training there at Hockley House Stud at the time, prior to relocating to Ripon. Neither Stewart nor I can remember Peter Calver (and can anyone let us know the correct pronunciation, please: I've always made the 'L' silent, as in someone who helps a cow to give birth, but I've heard others pronounce it the same way as the former trainer Jack Calvert, only without the 'T') having horses with Arabic names, so perhaps this isn't the trainer whom the Walrus was trying to remember. I also recall Lindsay Bower training there in the '80s, but I suspect that she isn't the answer (either). And on another blog subject - the permissibility of scratching horses after declaration time - Cameron Plant has given me several illustrations of the way in which the authorities in Australia are more understanding of connections trying to place their horses in races in which they feel they can run well than their counterparts are here. Furthermore, I couldn't help but notice that last Saturday's card at Randwick included Duporth being declared in two Group races on the same programme, with his trainer Anthony Cummings deciding in the morning which one he'd contest. Nobody found that strange, nor the fact that the previous Saturday had seen our mare (ie she's raced by her trainer Michael Tidmarsh and by me) Somewhere Safer racing at the Gold Coast in a race in which the likely favourite was scratched so that he could run at Doomben the same afternoon. Make of that what you will - but in the meantime that brings us nicely back to the perfect ending to this chapter: this morning I had the thrill of listening on the internet to the call of the last race at the Gold Coast, in which Somewhere Safer landed what sounded like an extremely solid victory. Michael has done ever so well with her and this was her fourth success, which is wonderful. I seem to have forgotten how to train a winner, so it was a particular pleasure to enjoy success as a part-owner. And for the future? Spaceage Juliet, in whom we have a microscopic interest, runs in the Benalla Cup tomorrow at her home track (live on ATR) - opposing the luckless Leica Falcon, who seems very much a light of former years but who ran a fine third or fourth in the Melbourne Cup three years ago after, I think, winning what used to be the Herbert Power Handicap at Caulfield - and then we have two horses entered from this stable during the week: Take Me There (Southwell) and Run From Nun (Great Leighs and Wolverhampton). Both are in good form but whether either will run is uncertain: Take Me There would require rain, while Run From Nun might well be twice eliminated (yet again).