Pick of the week

I feel rather bad that, when I gave Ted Durcan (and Sulamani) a laurel for the St. Leger victory of Mastery, I failed to hail a few other heroes from Saturday. There were two Stakes races at Goodwood - a Group Three 10-furlong race and a Listed sprint - and the trainers and jockeys of both winners deserve a real pat on the back. Stef Liddiard's handling of Mac Love, who landed his third Group Three win of the season, is as deserving of an award as John Oxx's handling of Sea The Stars has been (and that's not to belittle Oxx's achievements, rather to point out that Stef does truly deserve 10 out of 10 for what she has done with this old horse) while Micky Fenton deserves a pat on the back for his role in the horse's renaissance. And the sprint was won by a superb performance, in track record time, by Tamagin, who thus highlighted the skills of Jeff Pearce and Stephen Donohoe. And if neither John Oxx nor Stef Liddiard wins Trainer of the Year, that award would have to go to John Ryan, who had yet another winner at Goodwood on Sunday, and then has had another one since then. He has now had considerably more wins this year than he has had horses in the stable, and his handful of horses, of course, includes three who have won Stakes races (two at Group level, one at Listed) this year. And that is just superb.


I'm afraid that I can't nominate myself for Trainer of the Year however hard I try, but we're still here and we're still trying. And what is exciting is that a handful of two-year-olds are starting to look as if they are nearly ready to run, if not necessarily win. Ted Durcan was kind enough to lend a hand this morning, as this photograph of him on Batgirl on Warren Hill - with Rhythm Stick, who was incidentally bred at the same stud (Pantycoed), and Aisling more or less obscured - shows. Batgirl is under a bit of pressure now because two of the fillies who were formerly her rivals for our affections have already won. When we bought her at Newmarket last autumn, she obviously wasn't the only yearling on the short-list which Tony Fordham and I had compiled. She turned out to be the one who came here and I am very pleased with her, but I am obviously keeping an interested eye on the other members of the short-list, and the two who stick most closely in my mind as the two others most admired have both already won. An bright bay Orpen filly was bought by Paul Cole and she won second up at Newbury in the summer. She hasn't run since then (unless I haven't noticed her doing so - and the fact that I don't appear able to remember her name suggests that that is possible), so the one I have been able to enjoy watching more recently has been the Michael Bell-trained grey Doyen filly Wild Rose, who ran three weeks ago at Chepstow on her debut like a horse who would win second up, which she duly did yesterday at 13/2, which was very pleasing. Over to you, Batgirl!

One other thing which I have very much enjoyed doing this week was finishing reading the novel 'Punter's Turf', by Peter Klein. Richard Sims very kindly sent me a signed copy of this book, which is described as being written by 'Australia's Dick Francis'. That's a big call; but, while Peter can't yet match Dick Francis' productivity, he has already proved that he can concoct and tell a great racing tale. He was a strapper with Tommy Smith in the Kingston Town days and is now in a senior position in the racing section of the AAP press agency, but is now most conspicuous as the author of three books: 'A Strapper's Tale' which is some recollections of his time working in stables, plus two novels, the second of which I have just read. It is a very good story well told, with tremendous racing scenes in it. For British readers it might be hard to pick up a copy, but I'd be amazed if anyone who enjoys racing would fail to enjoy this book.

It was an interesting coincidence that I read some of this book on the journey to the wedding of Emma Candy (now Erskin Crum), because Emma was formerly assistant trainer to Gai Waterhouse, whose endorsement appears on the cover of the book: "Peter is a skilfull writer and knows his subject well - I know because he and I worked together for my Dad, Tommy Smith, in the late seventies and early eighties, where he was T.J.'s "travelling head lad". Punter's Turf is an authentic account of the racing world. Well done!". I rather enjoyed reading this comment, because Gai is surely the only trainer in Australia who would use the title 'travelling head lad'.
Mind you, I perhaps ought to amend that to one of only two trainers in Australia who would do so, because I suspect that Sean Acton, private trainer to the anglophilic owner/breeder Richard Sims (pictured eating a kilo of Greek sausage in Mornington in a very unenglish way), might have it written into his contract that he has to employ a travelling head lad, and refer to him thus. Mind you, it is about six years since Sean last had a runner, so he possibly doesn't have much call for travelling head lads nowadays.