Our Paddy Power

One gets innured to disappointment while racing horses, so on the rare occasions when everything works out just as one feels one is entitled to hope, it is very, very pleasurable. Today was one such day. Although to the wider world the big race this past weekend was the Paddy Power Gold Cup, my mind over the past several weeks had been more taken up with looking forward to the Eastwell Selling Hurdle at Leicester, run today, two days later, than it had been to the, viewed subjectively, far superior sport at Prestbury Park. There have been numerous races over the past few weeks in which Kadouchski (right) could have run, but when I got the calendar out after his previous race on 25th September, far and away the most suitable one to my eyes was not until 17th November, so there didn't seem any point in running him in the interim. So often, though, the pleasure comes in the travelling hopefully rather than the arriving. On this time, though, the arrival far outweighed the journey as, for once, everything went as one had dreamed that it would and, benefitting from a typically sound ride from William Kennedy, Kadouchski hardly put a foot wrong throughout the two miles of the race, and won by a length. He is, of course, only selling plate standard, as the winning margin indicates, and I'd be a fool to convince myself otherwise, so financially it probably would have made more sense, when someone bid for him in the post-race auction, to let him go. But when did one's judgement about horses revolve around common sense? When a sound and genuine horse has just won for one's stable - and in one's own colours, because he had come into my ownership subsequent to his previous race - it's only natural to wish him not to leave, and happily the bidding didn't reach a level where it would have been a hard justify ensuring that the auctioneer ended the bidding with the welcome announcement "Bought in".

So that was really lovely, and William Kennedy (left) has, naturally, put himself into the list of National Hunt Icons. I received a congratulatory and reminiscing text message after the race from another Icon, Vince Smith, who, although he never made many headlines in his riding career, did excel himself by riding two winners over hurdles (both at longer SPs - 50/1 - than today's 28/1) in those same colours, so it was very nice that shortly afterwards the first race at Kempton was won by a filly whom he used to train prior to relinquishing his license and taking himself plus his string to Hugh Collingridge's stable. She started at 16/1, so we should have had a 'For Old Times' Sake' double - but it's easy to be wise after the event.

Other than electing William as an Icon, numerous names have been buzzing through my head as to who should be on the list. I'm feeling terribly embarrassed about having not nominated Icon Number One, so before anyone posts a reply to chide me for omitting Lord Oaksey, he goes straight the top. Brough Scott's obviously there too, plus Richard Pitman. And did I mention Ron Barry? Or Tony Dobbin? I'd also nominate Brian Storey and Russ Garrity as Icons, although admittedly they perhaps fall into the less obvious kind.

Jamie Moore could end up an Icon judging on his great winning ride at Cheltenham yesterday on Numide. Let's hope he can do equally well on Take Me There at Market Rasen on Thursday, whom I think we are likely to run: we'd been loathe to run him on very soft ground, but I think that the ongoing wet spell means that we've reached the stage where we've got to send him off and see what happens, rather than every week enter him up, agonise long and hard, and end up not running anywhere. If he doesn't run to form then we'll know not to do so again, because he seems very well, so it's an exploratory mission which I think is worth undertaking. Another exploratory mission will be Filemot running over as far as seven furlongs the previous evening, but that too is a justifiable experiment, so again we'll hope for the best.