Stars

Outside of our own little corner of it, the biggest news in the European racing world (if that's not too paradoxical) has been the news that Sea The Stars (pictured, pre-Derby) is to stand at the Aga Khan's Giltown Stud. His mating with Zarkava is one to savour, even more than was that great mare's first mating this year with Dalakhani. However, before we fall over ourselves too much in the excitement over Sea The Stars' stud career, it is worth reflecting that, when our forefathers invented racing, the idea wasn't that the best sound horses would finish their careers aged three. I very much endorse Brough Scott's article in the Racing Post, in which he argued that the weight-for-age scale, which was initially devised to promote competition between the various age-groups, now serves to discourage it because, in an era in which the best horses can earn far more with significantly less (financial) risk at stud than on the course, it provides a very good reason for connections of successful three-year-olds to draw stumps on their charges' careers before they reach maturity. It also enables the fools who peddle the idea that a great three-year-old "has nothing more to prove" to keep spouting this nonsense: if nothing else, such horses have yet to prove that they are sound enough to race for three (or more) seasons without going amiss (and that has to be an important trait), and they have also yet to prove that they are capable of winning weight-for-age races with top-weight, rather than with bottom-weight.

Anyway, I think that it is sad that racing, at a time when we are all scratching our heads about how to make our sport more appealing, hasn't moved on from the stage which it reached in the 1970s whereby the stars cease racing has as soon as they have proved themselves stars. It is too much to rely on the sportsmanship of the horses' owners, because people like the Pakenhams, who sadly received scant reward for their sporting decision to keep Sir Percy in training, aren't ubiquitous. Like Brough, I really think that this is a subject which, if we are serious about trying to boost racing's appeal, should be tackled. Unfortunately there is minimal interest among the press on the subject, but just to show that Brough isn't swimming against the tide on his own I here reproduce the first part of my Winning Post column this week, which was written before the announcement about where Sea The Stars would be standing and before Brough's Racing Post article was published:-

"With the 2009 European Flat racing season nearing its conclusion, a reflection that Sea The Stars has been the undisputed star of the year is, of course, tempered by regret of the fact that he has run his last race: despite being sound and still clearly an outstanding racing prospect, he will be covering mares in 2010 rather than racing. This, of course, is a fact of modern-day racing life, when a stallion can earn far more in the breeding shed than on the racecourse, without running the risk of injury or devaluation by loss of form. Very few people are rich enough to act as if money is no object when the stakes are really high, and keeping a champion such as Sea The Stars in training as a four-year-old would cost his owners an eight-figure sum (in loss of earnings, rather than actual money lost) were he to stay in training and lose his form: rich though the Tsui family might be, they clearly are not rich enough to ignore that risk.

However, within a week of the announcement to retire Sea The Stars it has become clear just what a bad decision, from racing’s point of view, such a decision is. Europe’s champion of 2008, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe-winning filly Zarkava, was retired to stud immediately after her Arc victory because she supposedly had “nothing more to prove” – and the fallacy in that theory has already been demonstrated: she is now no longer viewed as an all-time great, because few observers believe that she would have proved able to beat Sea The Stars had she remained in training to run against him. It is now a similar scenario with Sea The Stars: following last Saturday’s Racing Post Trophy at Doncaster, it is now clear that the current batch of juveniles contains a colt who, assuming that he remains uninjured, is likely to prove that he would have been a very worthy rival for Sea The Stars were the latter still in a position to have rivals.

The name of this colt is St Nicholas Abbey, and his victory last Saturday in Britain’s final Group One race of the year was as good a performance by a two-year-old as one could ever wish to see. This horse was highlighted in this column four weeks ago after his hugely impressive victory in Ireland in the Group Two Beresford Stakes (a race which Sea The Stars had won last year) and the praise heaped on him in that report has now to be redoubled. His performance on Saturday was outstanding. In advance, the Racing Post Trophy, up the straight mile at Doncaster, was billed as containing the best collection of two-year-olds mustered for any race in Europe this season. Even so, Johnny Murtagh rode St Nicholas Abbey with maximum confidence. He still had the horse in last position under a hold 400m from home – and when he asked his mount to go forward, the response was electrifying. St Nicholas Abbey weaved his way between rivals effortlessly before Murtagh briefly began to push him at the furlong pole. He shot clear and hit the line full of running 3.75 lengths in front of the runner-up Elusive Pimpernel. As Elusive Pimpernel had gone into the race unbeaten and had broken the juvenile track record at York when winning the Group Three Acomb Stakes on his most recent run – and as the third-placed Al Zir, reputed to be Godolphin’s best two-year-old, had also gone into the race unbeaten – the form is clearly rock-solid. And as St Nicholas Abbey made these good horses look third-rate, the son of Montjeu can be regarded as being as exciting a prospect as were any of the champions which Aidan O’Brien has already trained. He is now generally the 3/1 favourite for next year’s Derby, which is an exciting thought. The only sad thing is that he and Sea The Stars, despite being born in the same country and only a year apart, will never race against each other, which really does make one wonder whether European racing has, to use an Irish phrase, “lost the run of itself”."

So that's that. Any comments, anyone? Moving closer to home, during the past week we have seen two horses run their last race from this stable. To Be Or Not To Be ran creditably at Newbury last Saturday and then she went through Tattersalls' sales-ring two days later, fetching 20,000 gns to the bid of the former Hamilton Road trainer Mohammed Mubarak, who is going to export her to Qatar. This was a very good price for her, and it is a great reward for her owner Wayne Thomas and his partner Cathy Dunkerley, who can take the credit for buying her cheaply and then plotting her successful career. Sadly, Cape Roberto, who ran at Yarmouth on Tuesday, does not provide a similar success story. He'd done nothing when trained by Jamie Poulton and, although we've given it our best shot and although his home-work wasn't hopeless, it became clear when he had his first run for us at Yarmouth on Tuesday that he was likely to do nothing from here either.
He's a lovely horse who, it seems, just isn't cut out to be a successful racehorse. He does, though, have plenty of other fortes - one could take him hunting tomorrow and have a great day on him - as he is a straightforward, willing and hardy horse who already knows how to jump (as this photograph of him and Aisling shows), so I hope that we can find him a position as someone's horse. I can put my hand on my heart and say that, however takes him on, will find him thoroughly satisfactory unless their aim is to win races, so if you know anyone who would like a nice horse, please point them in this direction.


Such is the cycle of life within a training stable that, as we bid farewell to some (although we haven't waved Cape Roberto off yet - he could be here for a while!) we welcome new recruits. The two yearlings (fillies by Tobougg and Bertolini) who arrived from Tattersalls October Yearling Sale are the most obvious of the young prospects just now, and they seem to have settled in well.
Neither has been ridden yet, but both have settled into a routine of long-reining very smoothly, as these two photographs, taken yesterday, show. The Tobougg is the filly with white on all four legs, while the Bertolini has white on only her hind legs. Yesterday was another lovely day, and it is a shame that I managed to get the camera out at about the only time when it wasn't sunny. Today is also very warm - warm enough still for riding in only a T-shirt and shorts, which is truly remarkable for 30th October - which makes things very pleasant. We've got Anthony here plus my father, so that's nice. Anthony had the honour of meeting and shaking the hand of a (retired) Derby-winning jockey (Willie Ryan) outside the newsagent this morning -
which was remarkable as, by one of those coincidences which keep popping up, when we got home and opened our Racing Post, we saw a photograph of Willie winning his Derby on Benny The Dip, thanks to the sad news that the runner-up that day, Silver Patriarch, has passed away. Then this afternoon Anthony has been lucky enough to meet another very distinguished former jockey: Jimmy Uttley, rider of the winners of three Champion Hurdles (on Persian War) and of three Triumph Hurdles
(on Persian War, England's Glory and Boxer). We went round to visit Colin and Eileen Casey (both pictured in this paragraph with him), which is pretty much a given on any of Anthony's visits because they're honorary family, and the icing on the cake was that (the pictured) Jimmy, their neighbour, called in while we were there. And three generations of Berrys were really pleased to meet him (well, perhaps Berry minimus was less starstruck than were Berrys major and minor!).

Another jumps rider whom I've been delighted to see this week has been Ray O'Brien, an Irish jockey who rides in France. He's just in town for a couple of days, and I was really pleased yesterday that he paid Exeter Road a visit to call in here and in Jonathan Jay's stable.
I got to know Ray (pictured) fairly well when he was in Newmarket for a couple of years, working for the now-Warwick Farm-based Mark Wallace, and I always like to scan the Auteuil results in the Racing Post to see how he's faring. He's still doing well over there and rode a Listed hurdles winner, but the most interesting aspect of his recent career is that he's now started riding against his son. He has a son called Ray, who apparently rides as Raymond L. O'Brien, who has started riding over jumps, apprenticed to the successful trainer F. Cottin, and there have already been a couple of occasions when father and son have ridden in the same race. It's reasonably easy to see that that might happen not infrequently on the Flat where jockeys tend to ride well into their 40s or beyond, but over jumps I would guess it happens less frequently as not many jumps jockeys have careers long enough to ride against their sons. In Melbourne I recall Keith Rawiller, father of Nash and Brad, riding well into his 40s and I'm sure that I remember him and Nash both riding a winner on the same card at Sandown when Nash was an apprentice, but of course Nash was riding on the Flat so they wouldn't have ridden in the same races. On the Flat here I presume Paul and Charles Eddery will have ridden against each other, but over jumps? It must happen occasionally with amateurs, who tend sometimes to ride for longer (not having so many rides as professionals they might have a bit less wear and tear), but can we think of another father and son team competing against each other as professionals over jumps? Joe "The Iron Man" Guest rode for a long time and his son James became a jockey with Fred Winter, so they might have done - but even then I can't be sure that they would have done. Any suggestions, anyone?

Memory lane again - with the ubiquitous Hutchinsons

Anyone who failed to enjoy the ATR coverage of So You Think's hugely impressive victory in the Cox Plate yesterday, and the typically memorable Bart Cummings interview afterwards, has only himself or herself to blame, because I spend enough time on this blog banging on about this wonderful coverage which ATR beams into our houses in the early hours of each morning. And (I say with an almost straight face) it might get even better when Dave Compton and I enjoy our usual up-all-night Cup Day presentation, starting 10pm a week tomorrow. I think the plan is for us to have a warm-up on the international show at 12.45 (daytime, not night time) this coming Tuesday, and I'm really looking forward to being involved in both programmes.

It was great to see High Chaparral, a lovely horse, come up with the Cox Plate winner, just as it had been great to see two other sons of Sadler's Wells (Scenic and Montjeu) provide the Caulfield Cup quinella (again courtesy of the ageless 81-year-old Bart Cummings - and only he could say, about So You Think's owner, "It's nice for him to have had this winner, because he's getting on a bit") seven days previously. And another winning pedigree which I enjoyed on Cox Plate Day was the fact that the Moonee Valley Cup winner The Sportsman is a son of the NZ-based stallion Kilimanjaro, who is a son of Sadler's Wells and Darshaan's Group One-winning Top Ville half-sister Darara (and is thus a half-brother to Dar Re Mi). I'm always pleased to see Kilimanjaro sire a good horse because I happened to be in Tattersalls Sales ring when he was sold as a yearling however many years ago it was, and I still consider him to be just about the best-looking yearling I've ever seen.
He was a decent horse when trained by Michael Stoute, if not quite top-class, and I enjoyed today re-freshing my memories of him with my friend Liam Casey (pictured recently riding his horse Diamond Dancer, who lives in this stable) who formerly worked for Michael Stoute for many years and who used to ride the horse as a yearling. Anyway, most recent chapters of this blog have involved a trip or two down memory lane, so that's the first (but not the last) for this episode.

I'm cross with myself because, after the treat of the Cox Plate card, I didn't watch any racing from Sale today, which was silly as the last race was at 6.08 and I was wandering around the house at the time, albeit very much in Sunday morning mode, which meant that turning on the television would have seemed too much like hard work. And it turned out that I was very cross with myself for not having watched the race, because (and here's the second trip down memory lane) it saw Peter Hutchinson ride a rare winner on a 40/1 shot.
Yes, that is the same Peter Hutchinson (seen earlier this year sitting opposite one of his brother's less satisfactory former employees) who spent much of his boyhood in England because of his father, the champion South Australian rider Ron, being stable jockey to John Dunlop for many years, and who served his apprenticeship in Epsom (with Geoff Lewis I think, although that could be wrong) and whose elder brother Ray (the vet who at various times trained both in Epsom and in Fitzroy Stables, Newmarket) was England's champion amateur rider for several years.
I really take my hat off to Peter because he is persevering with a come-back which must at times seem barely worthwhile. He was formerly a leading jockey, having been champion jockey in Adelaide two or three times before moving to Melbourne, and with his wins including the 1992 AJC Oaks on the (pictured, ridden by her regular trackwork rider Sean Acton) My Brilliant Star (the only Classic winner whom I have had the pleasure of riding at exercise - but there's still time to change that, I say more in hope than expectation) and the same year's Caulfield Cup on Fraar for David Hayes. He also, of course, 'enjoyed' one of his less fine hours in that year's Cox Plate, when he brought down half the field.
(Well, that's not entirely fair: his mount fell when he clipped heels in an incident which is invisible on the film of the race as it takes place in the one second in which the horses are shielded from view by what I think is a water tower, but unfortunately the horses brought down included the hot favourite Naturalism, whose departure left the way clear for his heroic stablemate Super Impose - pictured in retirement a year later - to win one of the most exciting races you'd ever see).
However, over the years Peter suffered a lot of injuries and, after what I think was a bad neck injury, he finally gave away race-riding on medical advice seemingly for good. However, last year, after a break of at least five years, he resumed riding trackwork (which he is seen here doing so at Caulfield earlier this year, and also, below, alongside a young David Taggart at the same, but scarcely recognisable compared to how it is today, track 18 years previously) and, after getting his weight right back down again which must have been easier said than done, resumed race-riding.
He doesn't get many rides now, and those which he does get tend to be outsiders in the country, but he's sticking at it, for which I heartily salute him. I'm always very pleased to note any winner which he rides - and I'd have loved to have watched today's race; and, of course, to hear any post-race interview, because any interview with the ever-entertaining Hutchy is guaranteed to be nearly as funny as one with Bart.

Highlight of the weekend here, of course, has been the outstanding win of St Nicholas Abbey in the Racing Post Trophy. This has stirred up a few thoughts in my brain, but I'll save them for the next chapter, and instead content myself with the past during this one. On which subject, I was surprised to see Mount Athos, third to Sir Ivor and Connaught in the 1968 Derby (in which I suspect he might have been ridden by Ron Hutchinson, although I would be grateful if someone could either confirm or contradict this) running in a maiden race at Doncaster either yesterday or the previous day. This reminds me of another Classic contender whose name has been recycled. A couple of days after writing about Arthur Pitt on this blog, I happened to find myself with a 1982 Horses In Training in my hand, so I looked up his string. Sure enough old Freight Forwarder was there among his 27 horses, aged eight that year. But there was also one horse who should have sprung to mind even before him: Rocamadour, aged three that year and a very good colt whom I remember running very well just behind the place-getters in both the 2,000 Guineas and the Derby. How could one forget him - particularly as his name has been carried recently by a Mick Channon-trained colt who, likewise, ran with distinction in some of the top three-year-old races?

Of the weekend's runners other than St Nicholas Abbey, pride of place has to go (despite some great National Hunt action, headed by lovely old Monet's Garden) to Ask, particularly from this viewpoint. His record for the season now reads four runs, which have yielded three wins (the Yorkshire Cup, the Coronation Cup and, today, the Prix Royal-Oak) and a third place behind his stablemates Conduit and Tartan Bearer in the King George And Queen Elizabeth Stakes. That's a great record which reflects very well on both horse and trainer. But why I was so pleased to see him win today was that he had really caught my eye two or three weeks ago. Only a few days after I'd had my close encounter with Harbinger (who ran well to be placed in yesterday's St Simon Stakes at Newbury), I had a slightly less close encounter with Ask. We were walking back down the side of Warren Hill next to the Moulton Road when Kevin Bradshaw appeared on a horse on his own. Kevin - who of course is best remembered for winning an apprentice race at Ascot on the Mill Reef horse Marooned, who subsequently won the Sydney Cup and then became a good stallion in WA, although I think of him primarily as one of the two regular jockeys, along with the former Ray Hutchinson employee Ray McGhin, of Grey Panel's prolific winning dam Minnie's Mystery - has worked for Michael Stoute all his career, bar a few years after he'd finished his apprenticeship to be a jockey for Richard Whittaker. He's now one of Michael Stoute's main work-riders, but also performs assistant duties, and as such can sometimes been seen riding a hack to supervise the string.
As he was on his own and appeared to be heading out on the grass into the middle of the Heath, I presumed that he was on hack duty - except that the horse he was riding looked like a really high-class galloper rather than a four-legged grandstand. So I called to Kevin, "That horse looks rather good to be a hack", which Kevin (pictured recently riding on his own - but not on Ask) seemed to find very funny. And the reason for his amusement became clear when he revealed the horse's identity: Ask, as you'd probably guessed. That made it clear to me just what a lovely horse Ask is, in both physique (I think the TV pundits would say 'physicality') and demeanour, so I'm really pleased that he's won 'the French St Leger' today.

First day of spring!

You'd think that today was the first day of spring! It's great. Autumn was really here with cold winds and grey skies, but on Wednesday it warmed up - but with the rising temperatures came rain, and it pretty much rained all day. But the past two days have been great: the skies have cleared but the temperature hasn't (yet) dropped, and today really was just like a perfect spring day.
It was just so nice, and I think the blue of the sky above Henry Cecil's flag (flying over Warren Place this week in recognition of Twice Over's win in last Saturday's Champion Stakes) sums it up well. Mind you, Mark Tompkins seemed to think that I'd over-reacted to the idyllic conditions by riding out in a T-shirt and shorts later in the morning, so got his step-daughter Clare to take a photograph which I think will probably be appearing on his excellent website www.raceworld.co.uk.
By the way, I'd meant to alert anyone who might be interested to that site a couple of weeks ago, because Clare took the most lovely photographs on Side Hill (seen here mid-morning today, under a clear blue sky and through the ears of Ethics Girl) one golden morning (9th October, I think it was). One of these currently adorns the home-page, and there are always plenty of great shots in the 'Daily News' section onto which one can click. There are even some lovely films sometimes, including the one reached by this link http://www.raceworld.co.uk/09.10.08Sunrise.wmv of that ghostly Side Hill sunrise. It's safe to assume that anyone reading this would also get pleasure from perusing Mark's site, and I can thoroughly recommend it.

But, although we're on the eve of a rite of spring down under (the Cox Plate), today here is actually an autumn landmark for us, because it's the first meeting of the autumn at our local track Fakenham. (Well, Huntingdon is actually closer, but as it's west of here and on the A1 and the A14, it's so accessible that in reality it's everybody's track, whereas Fakenham is peculiarly and specially East Anglian.
So Fakenham's first meeting of the autumn is always a landmark for people in this area who enjoy National Hunt racing. We might have been going because I entered Christy Ring (seen here crossing the Fordham Road under Con Ryan a couple of weeks ago, when the leaves on the lime trees in the grounds of the Catholic school were only just beginning to turn) in the bumper which Take Me There won a couple of years ago, but he's ended up not running, so I'll just have to make sure I catch a few races on ATR.


One would often find a few jumps jockeys calling in to Newmarket en route to Fakenham, so it was no surprise to find the town awash with jumps hoops this morning - although curiously I see that none is actually engaged at Fakenham. The first whom I saw was Tony McCoy, whom Aisling and I passed first lot as we were riding off the Heath at around 7.20. He was riding out for Chris Wall, trotting around the Severals on a bay horse, which wasn't the most obvious sight you'd expect to see.
My guess would be that there is a horse trained by Chris which McCoy's patron J. P. McManus is contemplating buying, and Tony was having a ride on him to find out what he felt like. An hour or so later we saw two more jumps hoops, because Hugh and I met William Kennedy up at the Links so that William could put the finishing touches to Ex Con in advance of his intended hurdles debut eight days hence.
Before we met him, William had been schooling for James Fanshawe, but the real stroke of luck was that we found Paul Moloney up there too, having just schooled a couple of horses for Barney Curley. Happily Paul was kind enough to lend a hand so that we had two jumps riders so that Ex Con could jump in company, so he ended up having a ride on him too with William on Cape Roberto after William had jumped Ex Con on his own.
Hence this series of photographs of the two horses and riders (William in the black jacket, Paul in the red) which I think are rather nice. There were a couple of other nice touches. One was that I bumped into another (ex) jumps hoop, because Mick O'Shea, a Lincolnshire-based jumps hoop of the '70s who subsequently became one of Luca's head lads and who is now a security guard at Dalham Hall Stud, appeared to take his border terriers for a walk.
While another was that the session precipitated a meeting between Barney Curley and William: when Barney found that William was there, he took the opportunity to introduce himself, never previously having met him but knowing his parents well and also having used William's eldest brother Vivian
(who shared his name with their father, the former T. P. Burns apprentice and jockey) before his tragic and fatal fall at Huntingdon on August Bank Holiday 1988. Being a friend of the family, Barney was clearly pleased finally to meet William, and the meeting was a pleasure to see because William was clearly pleased also to meet such a well-respected identity. (And how can one possibly sum up the multi-facetted Barney Curley legend in just one word?)

A few people whom I've met recently

This chapter ought to be lavishly illustrated, because yesterday I had the pleasure of watching Yogi Breisner give Gemma and Ex Con a jumping lesson in the barn at the Racing School, and I had Emma's good camera in my hands.
However, being the idiot, I ignored Emma's advice that I should use the flash because (a) I'd forgotten her instructions about how to use it and (b) I wasn't too worried because, although she'd told me that I'd need a flash because of being in a barn, I reckoned that she hadn't realised how good the light was in the barn, because to my eyes the light was good. However, you'll be able to tell from the couple of photographs which I'm putting up that I was very wrong.
Still, you might just be able to discern Ex Con, Gemma and Yogi Breisner. Mind you, even if you can't see what was going on, I could, and I'm pleased about that: it was almost as much a lesson for me as it was for Gemma and Ex Con, because it was so instructive and interesting watching the jumping guru explaining things so that they made sense and looked straightforward. I'm really glad that the session took place, and I'm really glad that I witnessed it. I can now approach Ex Con's impending hurdles debut even more confident than I was previously that his jumping won't let him down.

That session was actually the second good piece of equine instruction we'd had yesterday, because Aisling and I had struck lucky first lot.
We'd just cantered around Bury Hill AW, she on Rhythm Stick and I on Frankieandcharlie (who very soon shall be called something else) and, as we walked down the hill with a gloriously pink sunrise (as seen from the stalls) behind us, I suggested that we might as well walk over to the stalls and walk our mounts through them a few times. We did this and, although there had been nobody in sight initially, the reknowned stalls guru Steve "Yarmy" Dyble appeared out of nowhere, with one of Michael Jarvis' lads in tow, and asked if we'd like to be shut in. This was too good an offer to refuse, because both geldings are due to run shortly and, although they'd stood in the stalls umpteen times previously, Rhthym Stick had had only had one previous session of being shut in and then coming out, and Frankie had had none. Anyway, that all went really well, and the timing was perfect because we'd just headed away three of Michael Jarvis' horses appeared, so we had been able to avail ourselves of Yarmy's kindness without getting in the way of the job he was there to do.

Having ended the preceding chapter with an update on Colin Williams, I thought that it might be worthwhile to throw in a few other names who have appeared on my radar recently and of whom some might be interested to hear. As you'll have gathered, I spent plenty of time over the past couple of weeks at Tattersalls Sales. You'll find plenty of people who'll use the sales as a social club, but I'm not one of them: I wouldn't want to be there unless I had a horse to buy or sell, and if one does have a horse to buy or sell, then standing around talking is hardly conducive to making sure one concentrates on doing one's job well. However, one always ends up bumping into some interesting people, and the October Sales duly proved to be no exception in this respect.
One of the early days of the sale had seen the Racing Post announce that Guy Harwood's former second jockey Tony Clark, best remembered for making all the running on the stable's second string Ile De Chypre to post a shock win in the International Stakes at York 20-odd years ago, is to become assistant trainer and, presumably, chief work rider in Liz Nelson's Whitcombe Stable in Dorset, where Jo Crowley is the trainer. I was pleased to read this because Clarky, who has been the rep for McArdle all-weather gallops, was too good a horseman to be lost to the practical side of things - and I was pleased to bump into him (pictured here with Liz Nelson in the sales arena) and hear all about this project. It sounds as if the stable is going to receive quite an injection of fresh equine blood, and I wish him and it well in this project.

Another figure from the past whom I was pleased to see was the former Epsom trainer Arthur Pitt, with whom I was not previously acquainted. I best remember Arthur for training the good hurdler Freight Forwarder, although I also remember him primarily as a Flat trainer; and it was good to meet him and pass the time of day with him on a couple of occasions at the sales. I had also had the pleasure earlier this autumn of meeting another former trainer: Jeremy Hindley, who now lives in South Africa but who returns to his homeland regularly. This meeting came about in rather surprising circumstances. Our motley string was trotting up the walking ground beside the Moulton Road one morning a few weeks ago when Michael Stoute drove past, pulled up onto the side of the road, got out and shouted, "Here's another old Aysgarthian for you". What he meant wasn't instantly obvious, but all became clear shortly afterwards when Jeremy Hindley got out of the car. My old prep school Aysgarth has produced five (at least - there could be more) trainers in relatively recent years, and unfortunately I rather let the side down by being massively less successful than the other four, all of whom have trained Classic winners: Jeremy Hindley (Protection Racket, Irish St Leger), William Haggas (Shaamit, Derby), the late Alec Stewart (Opale, Irish St Leger) and Charles Milbank (Policeman, Prix du Jockey-Club). Anyway, Jeremy was already training very successfully by the time that I was at Aysgarth, and there was a chair in the sixth form class-room with his and his brother's names on it, so I always made sure that I sat on it, to give myself inspiration; so he, in my mind anyway, played a fairly prominent role in my formative years, so it was really nice to meet him at last.

And finally, before I wander off onto ever more irrelevant circles, I must just mention another trainer whom I was delighted to meet recently. When Batgirl ran at York on the day of Dale Gibson's last ride, I was very pleased to find myself chatting to one of the trainers who was putting Dale up on his last day: Peter Salmon, who has started training near Wetherby. To cut a semi-long story short, Peter seems a really nice guy as well as an experienced and sensible horseman, and I wish him well; like so many of us, all he needs is that hard-to-find good horse to walk through the stable gate and he'll be right.

Autumnal ramblings

I sort of gave a tip in my last blog, only I didn't realise it at the time. In previewing the Caulfield Cup, I happened to put up a photograph of what would become the winning jockey, because of course Brad Rawiller, seen alongside Michelle Payne in Luca's string, found himself on what proved to be the best of Bart Cummings' trio, giving last year's Melbourne Cup winner Viewed a perfect ride to get home ahead of his stablemate Roman Emperor. I'm really glad: not only was it great to see Bart take home another Cup and to see a Melbourne Cup winner go on to further glory, but it was great also to see Brad win yet another big race (his 2009 haul already, of course, included the Golden Slipper) because he is as professional and diligent a hoop as you'd find. He struggles so hard with his weight that that alone makes him deserving of any success which comes his way.

Another tip which I gave, only not on this site, was that Twice Over would win the Champion Stakes. I have voiced that opinion umpteen times over the past four months or so - so naturally I found it rather a mixed pleasure, shortly after we arrived at Wolverhampton, to watch the television coverage of that lovely horse bounding up the last ten furlongs of the Rowley Mile (if that isn't too paradoxical) to take that race at 14/1, with not a penny of my money on his back. Ah well, it's nice to be proved right, even if on this occasion slightly frustrating.
The trip to Wolverhampton was good too, even if we didn't bring home a winner. Lovely little Ethics Girl is such a trouper. She just makes me so proud every time she runs, because she invariably runs well and honestly. She's so straightforward and a classic illustration of my theory, as expounded in a recent Racing Post, that a sound horse is a good horse. And, for obvious reasons, it's much easier for a sound horse to be a genuine horse than for an unsound one to be similarly resolute.
She is naturally quite feisty and impatient, but she's really learning to take things in her stride. On Saturday she was ever so calm in the parade ring, cantering down to post (pictured) and walking around behind the barriers (also pictured, on the big screen which shone out well against the rapidly-darkening 5.50 pm gloomy autumnal skyline); while in the race she settled beautifully before running gamely to the line (pictured, with the winner out of shot on the far rail and the runner-up on this side of her), unable only to outrun two well-bred, progressive and probably well-handicapped colts (lightly-raced sons of Refuse To Bend and Montjeu, trained respectively by Mark Johnston and Jeremy Noseda).
So once again she did her connections and her stable, and herself, very proud. Credit also to her jockey Rab Havlin, who rode her very well both in the race and beforehand. The filly is by nature impatient, and standing in the stalls isn't her preferred activity. As she often does, she reared (albeit in a composed manner) in her gate while the others were being loaded, and it was a pleasure to see Rab calmly lean forward as she went up in the air and gently take hold of her ear to encourage her down, and then just calmly and kindly pat her on the neck. One could almost hear him saying, "There, there old girl - don't fuss". It was only a minor detail and could easily have passed unnoticed, but I happened to catch sight of it on the screen, and it's an episode worth pointing out, even if only to give the jockey the praise which he deserves.


The sullen skies at Wolverhampton are things to which we are going to have to become accustomed now because the gloriously golden early autumn days are becoming a thing of the past now. Still, each season has its merits, and we still have one of autumn's greatest beauties: the changing leaves. If the cold winds which seem to be arriving keep up, the leaves will all be gone in another fortnight, but right now they are very picturesque.
The belt of young trees alongside Moulton Road at the top of Long Hill provides a lovely sight at this time of year when the sun is on it, as these two photographs - one with James Fanshawe's string filing past it, one with Agent Almeida taking a closer look - taken a week or two ago on a sunny day prove. The first leaves to turn, this year as last, have been those on the horse chestnuts. Last year it looked as if these trees might be suffering from some disease, or even dying, as they lost their leaves very early, but thankfully they still seem to be clinging on to life, even if once again autumn arrived earlier for them than for other deciduous trees.
This picture of the tree by Green Lodge on the Severals was taken at least a month ago, and already its leaves were bronze while all around it were still green. Eagle-eyed readers, incidentally, might be able to identify the rider (well, that's not really true as you'd need more than eagle eyes) on the horse at the front of Mark Tompkins' string in the photograph: the former jockey and former trainer Colin Williams, best remembered for winning the inaugural Vernon's Sprint Cup at Haydock in 1966 on Sir Peter O'Sullevan's Be Friendly - and he's in good company there, of course, because the other jockey to win that race on Be Friendly (the following year) was Scobie Breasley. Anyway, Colin's still going strong 43 years later and still riding extremely well and confidently, and I hope that this sighting of him might be of interest to some.

FOUR HUNDRED TO ONE !

No sooner had I written (in the last chapter) that there are very few people whom I respect as much as Dale Gibson than I saw one of them: Jack Berry was at Nottingham yesterday. Jack's books have all been very entertaining so I'm sure that his latest one will be very good. I'd had a bad conscience for weeks, because he'd written to hundreds of people asking them to buy a copy of the book, and I'd done nothing with my letter other than leave it in my box of 'to be answered at some point in the future' letters. I really had been thinking recently that I must shortly order some copies, but I don't need to do so now because Jack was at Nottingham, selling copies out of the boot of his car. In addition to having been a superb trainer, one of the world's nice guys and a very good author, Jack is, of course, one of racing's greatest fund-raisers, and all the proceeds from sales of his books go to the Injured Jockeys' Fund. I don't know how it works (I wouldn't have put it past Jack to have paid for the printing himself) but basically all the income goes to the IJF and Jack makes nothing: if one pays by cheque, the cheque is payable to the IJF. So that's further reason to buy the book, over and above the fact that it appears to be choc-full of typically entertaining tales. (It also contains, apparently, a few spelling mistakes, as Jack rather apologetically told me; apparently these have been caused by the printers, and this has a ring of truth to it because in a quick perusal I have noticed that Jack's brother's name is mis-spelt, and I'm sure that that wouldn't have been Jack's error). Anyway, I was delighted to come home from Nottingham bearing five signed copies, one of which will be my bedside reading imminently. (Incidentally, if anyone wants to buy a copy, the book is called 'Better Late Than Never', Jack's address is Well Close House, Hunton, Bedale, North Yorkshire, DL8 1QW, and its price is 15 pounds to the IJF, which includes postage and packing).

So that was nice, and Stardust Memories' run was reasonably pleasing too. Although I didn't expect her to be placed, I had to have a bet because one wise/rash (delete as applicable) bookmaker had put her up at FOUR HUNDRED TO ONE. I had to have 5 EW at that to punish him for his disdain, but predictably I never looked like collecting a bumper pay-out: I've only once backed a winner at a three-figure price (Largesse paid 128 pounds on the Tote when he won his first handicap, even though his SP was only 33/1) and it was plain after they'd gone a few strides yesterday that this wasn't going to be the second. She did, though, as I had hoped, perform much more competitively than on her debut, so that was nice. If she keeps going this way she'll definitely be OK, and she certainly put in and had a proper race, which was good to see.
She was helped in this respect by a very positive ride from Tom McLaughlin (pictured on her in the parade ring) who stepped into the breach caused by injuries (I don't know what they are, so fingers crossed they aren't too serious) sustained by Steve Drowne in a fall at Kempton the previous evening. She's come out of the race well, so we'll aim to give her one more run in three or four weeks, and then that might do her for the year: she'll surely come back a stronger and better horse after a spell.

The other interesting aspect to yesterday was that, with the northbound section of the A1 closed because of a bad accident, I selected an alternative route which, although obviously quicker than going on a closed road, definitely fell into the 'scenic' category: although adding only 10 miles onto our journey, it added about 50 minutes onto the time the trip would usually take, but that was no problem because we got the races with two hours still to go before our race, and having enjoyed some lovely Leicestershire countryside along the Oakham - Melton Mowbray road, a part of the countryside I'd never previously seen. I hope the trip to Wolverhampton will be more straightforward tomorrow. We've had one change to the plan already because it seems that Steve will still be out of action, but it looks as if Rab Havlin will ride, and he'll be a good substitute. So let's hope for the best.

I can't close this brief chapter without mentioning that the two lovely fillies who came from Tattersalls aren't the only yearlings to have arrived here this week, because a Horse France truck deposited my little creation Grey Panel here yesterday morning.
Proud parent though I am, I can't claim him to be as physically impressive as the two fillies, but he's got a good head and has a good upbringing at Haras de la Cauviniere. And, besides, neither of his parents (Largesse and Minnie's Mystery) were flawlessly conformed (particularly his mother, whom he very much resembles) and they both won a stack of races and competed solidly for several consecutive seasons. So we shall, as ever, continue to travel hopefully.

Nor can I close without saluting several of Newmarket's senior horsemen, about whom you might have read in Emma's column in this week's Horse And Hound. Our neighbour Dave Morris currently has the assistance of John "Jinks, of Pebbles fame" Harkness in exercising his horses.
Their combined age is 120 (they are 61 and 59 respectively) which isn't ideal when dangerous situations occur; however, with age comes experience, and Dave's cool head was able to avert disaster when his rein broke on the Al Bahathri last week. Dave trains a chestnut mare (pictured with Jinks in the yard a couple of weeks ago) for the Duke Of Bedford, formerly Lord Andrew Howland. (I don't know her name, but I believe that she is due to make her debut in a bumper at Cheltenham this weekend). The duke came to watch her gallop last week, in which exercise Jinks, as usual, rode her, with Dave on Cragganmore Creek. All went well until they were past the stand on which the duke was standing, but as Dave started to pull up one of his reins broke. Happily all lived to tell the tale - and there have been plenty more tales coming out of the Czech Republic, where some of our former jockeys rode in a charity race on the Velka Pardubice card to raise money for the paralysed German jumps hoop Peter Gehm.
The pictured Andrew Hickman, who went along for the jolly but didn't ride (although he said that he might have sought a mount had he realised that the jockeys didn't have to weigh out), alerted us to this brahmafest, and I had further feedback from it when bumping into 'The Last of the Cavaliers' (triple Champion Hurdle winning hoop Steve Smith-Eccles) in Waitrose today. Steve has been retired from race-riding for 15 years, so wouldn't have been best pleased to find that the horse allotted to him for this come-back had only recently been broken in (as he said, "And I'm not exaggerating - when I was riding round the parade ring I went to pat him on the neck, and he even shied away from that"). Granville Davies, whom I recall as a jumps jockey in the west country in the '70s (I'm sure that he used to be the jockey of Milton Bradley's prolific firm ground winning steeplechaser Grey Dolphin) was also in the race, as was Chris Maude (although younger than the others, he's still been retired for quite a few years now, and nowadays is a valet). Anyway, it was clearly a mighty occasion, and I salute them for their courage and sportsmanship for riding in what The Eck described as "a six-furlong flat race - it was terrifying"! Let's hope that it inspires that formerly intrepid corinthian Richard Sims out of the moth-balls and back into the pigskin!

That generation of jockeys, of course, is generally reckoned to have been far dodgier than the present-day paragons, witness the fact that we are always told that the correct answer is 'Yes' to the Racing Post's stock question, "Is racing cleaner now than it was 20 years ago?". However, this theory has suffered a major jolt with the publication of Paul Nicholls' book. In the excerpt in yesterday's Racing Post, Paul came out with the stunning revelation that he was once asked to stop a horse. ONCE. And he rode for more than a decade. Of course he refused to do so and rode on his high horse back into the winner's enclosure to tell the trainer that he'd never ride for him again. By a happy coincidence, the trainer concerned is now dead so we can't hear his side of the story, which is rather a shame as it might have made for some good and long-running banter. But anyway, isn't it astonishing that a middle-of-the-road jockey could have had so many rides and only once be asked to stop a horse? That surely couldn't happen nowadays, could it? Mind you, I think Paul's experiences were probably unrepresentative even in that apparently purer era, as the reaction of one of Newmarket's "characters" David Dineley (champion apprentice of, I think, 1976) suggests: when I went to buy my Racing Post this morning I found David in the news-agent's, scratching his head in bemusement at Paul's recollections. I ought later in the day to have taken the opportunity to ask The Eck for his thoughts on the matter - that would have been a brahma!

Sales - busy, but good (I hope)

I'd been quite good about obeying the 'little and often' dictum (well, the second part of it, at least), but I'm afraid this time I've gone too long between chapters. "I've just been very busy" is the usual poor excuse, and I'll wheel it out this time too.


Last week was unproductively busy as I wasted quite a lot of it at Tattersalls October Sale. Well, I didn't waste it because time spent at a sale is never wasted, but it didn't take too long before I realised that I'd be getting my eye in rather than signing any dockets. The strength of Book One (ie last week) was mind-blowing, with a higher aggregate and more six-figure sales than last year. Which is truly remarkable. Not all the horses, though, fetched surprisingly large sums: quite the reverse, in fact, in the case of the extremely attractive and good-walking full-sister (pictured at the top of this paragraph) to last year's 1,000 Guineas heroine Natagora
(pictured returning to the winner's enclosure after that great triumph), who realised 'only' 80,000 gns, and also of the seemingly very nice (I only saw her from a distance) filly by Storm Cat ex the Cheveley Park Stakes winner Airwave. I watched her go through the ring while seated next to Mrs Candy, whose husband Henry of course trained Airwave to her greatest victory, and she correctly predicted that interest in the filly might be a lot less than I, for one, was anticipating - and she was right, as the filly was led out unsold at 88,000 gns.
What was very nice, though, was that the Natagora filly (who, although looking nothing like her sister, will, I predict, be very successful) was bought by our friend Sylvain Vidal, on behalf of the owners of this year's Prix du Jockey-Club winner Le Havre. Sylvain, as regular readers may recall, is the proprietor of Haras de la Cauviniere in Normandy, home of my mare Minnie's Mystery and her offspring, and he recently welcomed Le Havre there as the first stallion which he has stood - although far from the first he has handled, because he was Kingmambo's stallion-man in Kentucky for a time earlier in his career. Anyway, I was delighted that he was the purchaser of what I believe to be a bargain - but then, as the biggest fan of Natagora (pictured here looking less like a 1,000 Guineas winner), I might be biased!


Last week ended with our having a trip to York for Batgirl's debut. She didn't appear to show very much, but I wouldn't be too concerned about that. She's a lovely filly, but quite big, and big two-year-olds often don't show their true colours until a bit later on. She was also a bit green, but not in the sense of being silly: she behaved impeccably throughout (other than taking an awfully long time to be loaded back onto the horse-box to come home, which was rather irritating at the time), as this photograph of her and Taigdh O'Shea in the parade ring suggests. Other than the pleasure of giving a nice horse her debut and seeing her conduct herself very well, two other aspects of the day stick in my mind. Firstly was that that day was the occasion of Dale Gibson's retirement, and I was delighted to be there to salute him and shake his hand. Dale (pictured in the parade ring before our race, in which he had his penultimate ride, on Meetings Man) has been, of course, the model jockey for more than two decades now.
He has been a byword for professionalism, integrity, common sense and decency and, while there are plenty of jockeys whom I respect, I can truthfully say that there has never been one whom I have respected more than Dale - in fact, I'd be hard pressed to name any human whom I respect more than him. I particularly enjoyed two things he said last weekend. Firstly, when asked to review his career, he said that, "I gave it 100%, 100% of the time"; he can say that truthfully, and how many others could ever say the same thing? (I know that I couldn't). Secondly, Dale reflected on his final day thus: "I feel honoured and flattered by the way York have looked after me - it's as though I'm a superstar, which I certainly am not". That latter statement may or may not be true, but if stardom was measured by respect earned, that's exactly what he'd be. I'm only sorry that the tally of winners which he rode doesn't include any trained by me: the nearest we can to putting him on one was when he rode Il Principe into second place at Hamilton Park in August 1997, beaten by the Jonjo O'Neill-trained Globe Runner who was, coincidentally, ridden by the jockey who had his first ride in the same race as Dale had his: Tony Culhane.

My other memory of the day at York actually ties in with one of those things which Dale said, because we were also treated extremely well by York.
Tony Fordham, Batgirl's owner, had contacted the course in advance to ask a few of the questions which an owner might ask in advance of his first day's racing with a runner, and the response was astonishing: William Derby, the clerk of the course, bent over backwards to make the party welcome, even providing the use of a box in the original County Stand, and I'd just like to put on record how very much appreciated his hospitality was. The box gave a great view over the course, and it was from its balcony that I took this photograph of Dale cantering to post for his last ride, on Upton Seas.


We now have two more race-days to look forward to, with Stardust Memories due to head to Nottingham tomorow and Ethics Girl set to run at Wolverhampton on Saturday evening. The excellent Steve Drowne is set to ride both, so let's hope for two good runs. I'm expecting Stardust to run a much bolder race than on her debut, and I'd be disappointed if Ethics wasn't very competitive: as this photograph taken a few days ago indicates, she is still in very, very rude health and form!

I'm looking forward to those two outings, but in a very busy week it already feels as if we've had a couple of winners, because we've welcomed a couple of yearlings here which I hope and believe are cracking prospects.
Jason Hathorn has put together a couple of syndicates and these two fillies are for them. It's a worrying responsibility spending other people's money at the sales (particularly if, as I outlined in Sunday's Racing Post, one is then going to train the yearlings, so that if they fail to cut the mustard one is responsible for the disappointment whichever way one looks at it) but this time I genuinely feel that these two lovely fillies, who come from two good studs (Burton Agnes and Langton) give us at least a sporting chance of having a couple of decent horses running from the stable next summer and onwards. Emma has taken some lovely conformation shots of them, so I'll content myself with these head shots.
The first one we bought, the Tobougg filly from the Front Row family which has produced so many good winners (many of them trained by the late Ryan Jarvis and, more recently, his son William) is pictured at Tattersalls, while the second one, the Bertolini filly from a Last Tycoon half-sister to the lovely former John Dunlop inmate Right Wing, is shown moments after her arrival here; is she licking her lips in anticipation of what lies ahead, or was it just me doing that?


So that's lovely to have these two fillies here. No doubt I'll be writing plenty about them in the future, and I suspect that I might also write a bit about some of the yearlings which we saw but didn't buy. Two who stick very much in my mind are a couple of the Encosta De Lagos which I saw. The first one shown here is the half-sister to this year's Haydock Park Sprint Cup winner (and last year's Royal Ascot and Ayr Gold Cup winner) Regal Parade,
while the second is a lovely colt from the immediate family of the mighty Montjeu. I will be surprised if it turns out to be the case that neither makes her/his way to racing at a higher level. And on the subject of Encosta De Lago, I can't end without saying how much pleasure we took from the fact that Encosta's compatriot Michelle Payne, who was so helpful to us when she was in Newmarket in the summer, rode her first Group One winner when winning the Toorak Handicap on the Bart Cummings-trained Allez Wonder at Caulfield last Saturday.
As she (pictured here in the summer in Luca's string, alongside another antipodean visitor, Brad Rawiller) is due to ride the mare again this Saturday in the Caulfield Cup, could she be about to double that tally? We'll have to wait until the early hours of Saturday to find out - and find out we shall, courtesy of the excellent coverage which ATR gives us.