Arc weekend from this perspective

We've had some very interesting and pleasant days recently, which have seen us with a series of very welcome guests. Last week Richard Jones and Kevan Leggatt, two members of the 6-man All Points West Partnership which owns Ex Con, found themselves in Newmarket with some colleagues on a work-related jamboree, so they visited the yard with some of their friends. It was good to see them on another lovely day and to take them out to watch Ex Con go through his paces with his usual work-mate Cape Roberto (pictured).
The icing on the cake to this visit was that Richard's colleague Duncan Wade, who used to ride out in Newmarket regularly for Susan Piggott, rode out a couple of lots. He was a very welcome addition to the string, as this photograph of him at the back of the group of four ascending the Long Hill Polytrack suggests, and I hope that we'll be able to welcome him back at some point in the future. That picture plus this other one of the quartet
(which is comprised of Hugh, Suze who is a very welcome addition to the string on the days on which she can fit in a visit from her home in Thriplow, and Hannah who visits us when she isn't at school and who on Fridays fits in one lot before spending her seconded-from-school day at the Racing School) give the clue that I was again enjoying spending the morning on my feet like a proper trainer: with all the voluntary help I only rode out one lot that morning, and a very pleasant morning it was too.

Another addition to the string for a couple of days was my old friend Elisabeth Oldengren, whom I got to know when we both worked for Luca 20+ years ago, when our colleagues included such luminaries as Donald McCain, John Kenneally and Richard Sims, who have respectively gone on to forge successful careers in the fields of (respectively) training, stud management and ad-selling. Elisabeth was at one stage Sweden's leading amateur rider and represented her country successfully in the ladies' equivalent of the FEGENTRI series. She packed up race-riding about ten years ago and is now a steward at Taby (where her duties include discipling Squeak on most of the rare occasions when he is let loose in a race). She was in town on a stewarding visit, being attached to the group of Newmarket stipendiary stewards (Terence Brennan, Geoff Foster and Robert Sidebottom) on both Middle Park Stakes/Cheveley Park Stakes Day and Cambridgeshire Day.
She found it really interesting and - in case any of the stewards happen to read this, which admittedly is unlikely - it's worth my mentioning how very much she appreciated how welcome she was made. Anyway, it was a pleasure to have her visit and to ride out with her again. I hope she enjoyed it too, which she should have done as I put her on a lovely horse: Frankieandcharlie, pictured here on the top of Long Hill, alongside Emma on Panto.


On one of the nights that Elisabeth was staying we made the house a real league of nations because we also had Rodney Scott from Sydney here. I went up to Newmarket races on Friday afternoon with Rod and really enjoyed the afternoon spent with him, because he is not only a really nice guy but also a proper and thoroughly knowledgeable racing man. He started off working for Kerry Jordan in the late '80s when Kerry was one of the leading trainers in Sydney (and when one of the other strappers was his fellow Aussie Ian Wilkes, who is now a successful trainer in Churchill Downs in Kentucky and who recently sent out Capt Candyman Can to win the Grade One King's Bishop Stakes at Belmont).
Rod too worked in America for a time and eventually set himself up as a bloodstock consultant. Sadly that, like training, is a hard game at which to earn a living and he now works outside the game, but his passion remains undimmed, and I found him a great companion. I'd met him previously when he had stayed with Kerry Jordan's friend Michael Tidmarsh for the 1996 July Cup (in which Anabaa beat a field which included Pivotal and Danehill Dancer, to whose trainer Mike was head lad at the time) and am delighted to have remade his acquaintance.
This time Rod's journey to Newmarket came via Botswana, where his brother works in the mining industry and where on safari he had taken some wonderful photographs of lions and a zebra. Rod's enjoyment of the big cats was plain; so plain that Alamshar (pictured with Rod at the top of this paragraph) picked up on it straightaway and made himself very much at home on Rod's lap. At the races Rod, like I, had very much enjoyed seeing a very classy winner of the Cheveley Park (Special Duty) and a high-class field of five for the Middle Park, which was won by the unbeaten Awzaan who, although arguably the least taking physically of the quintet, is just a very tough colt who keeps winning.
Both winners illustrate this paragraph, with Awzaan shown being led into the winner's enclosure by Mark Johnston's very good travelling lad Paddy Trainor. Another winner that day for Shadwell (sponsors of the Middle Park) was Tabassum (shown here returning to the winner's enclosure, ridden like Awzaan by Richard Hills, and with Jimmy Scott following close behind), successful in the Oh So Sharp Stakes: although she clearly hasn't yet shown the class of Special Duty, she too could become a 1,000 Guineas contender next spring.

Rod left on Saturday morning to head back to London, and thence to Paris for the following day's Arc, where of course he was able to see the paragon who is Sea The Stars. I enjoyed that wonderful horse's history-making Arc win on the television in the canteen at Tattersalls sales complex (otherwise more correctly known as Park Paddocks) where I was looking at some yearlings yesterday on another gloriously warm and sunny afternoon, but I've still had two really enjoyable days at the races.
On Saturday I went to Epsom were Ethics Girl ran a tremendous second on her first start at 12 furlongs, chasing home a nice Red Ransom colt of Sir Michael Stoute's called Worth A King's in the Apprentice Derby. She'd had a month or so between runs, courtesy of my having been unhappy with her for a couple of days a week or so after her previous run, but the let-up had clearly done her no harm because she looked tremendous (as I believe this photograph shows) and, under a very good ride from the experienced apprentice Marc Halford (whom we've known and liked from his early days with Mick Ryan), she ran accordingly.
Then today took us to Warwick, where Destiny Rules (pictured) made her debut in a 6-furlong maiden under Cathy Gannon, who as usual provided an extremely satisfactory service. The filly wasn't fast enough, but then that was neither a surprise nor a disgrace, and she did everything right bar getting from A to B not quite as quicky as one would ideally like. Basically, I was very proud of her as she conducted herself very well throughout, thrived on the race-day experience and, if this isn't too stupid a thing to say about a horse who has just finished a tailed-off last, performed like a horse who has a future as a racehorse.
So that made for a very pleasant trip, another highlight of which was being able to watch the following race from the start (as the start was beside the parade ring) which is something I always enjoy doing. It was a one mile, seven furlong three-year-old handicap (and therefore run over slightly more than one circuit of the track) and, although only having a small field, it produced an exciting finish, which I was pleased to capture on film as the horses passed the starting point in the closing stages - and all the more pleased because the winner, the Darryll Holland-ridden Khayar, is trained by our neighbour Mark Tompkins. Khayar, a son of Refuse To Bend, just got home ahead of Dice (farside, ridden for Luca by Kieren Fallon and led up by Malcolm "Smiler" Burch, one of the very few lads there now who was there when I worked there - and, funnily enough, he doesn't look a day older).

If we can say that Destiny Rules conducted herself well today (which we can), we should also say that she did likewise under taxing conditions yesterday morning. I rode her out to give her a quiet day-before-race canter along the first sand on the side of the Heath, and Emma came with me on Panto. As we were walking back home alongside the canter, we heard galloping hooves approaching from behind us. We turned round to see a magnificent, but frighteningly imposing, colt heading towards us. Sadly he didn't just gallop on past (which was never really likely to happen!) but instead homed in on my mount. Emma and I had both independently decided that it might be easier to deal with this tricky and potentially dangerous situation on foot rather than mounted, and with trepidation I managed to catch hold of the colt, still holding Dizzy (as the filly is known) in my other hand. Obviously it wouldn't have been wise (nor, probably, feasible) to remain holding both and standing between them, but happily for me Emma was able to walk over and relieve me of Dizzy, holding her in one hand and Panto in the other. There she waited, both horses behaving impeccably, while I led the feisty stallion back to Beech Hurst, for he was clearly one of Michael Stoute's horses. I thought that it would be interesting to enquire his identity, because he was a magnificent horse and clearly in rude health, and all became clear when Hannah, one of Michael Stoute's head lads, greeted me with the cheery, "I thought you might want to keep that one - he's a good one". Indeed he is: Harbinger, this year's Gordon Stakes winner and a horse who, if he turns up in a race shortly, is likely to turn up on very good terms with himself!

Just before I close, I ought to own up to having done Epsom an injustice in expressing the fear that the ground might be firmer than the official report had suggested. It wasn't: it was as close to perfect ground as one could find. So ten out of ten to the team there. The ground at Warwick also was surprisingly good today, so my congratulations to that team too. It hasn't been easy for them in such a dry period, especially as all racecourses nowadays have more racing than used to be the case, although obviously Epsom still isn't over-used (by modern standards). I can't comment on the ground at the other track I've visited in the past week, because I didn't walk out on the course at Newmarket, but it certainly looks considerably lusher than the adjacent Heath, and I've heard no complaints (other than about the fact that the track seemed much faster on the far side, giving those drawn low in the Cambridgeshire, such as the gallant but luckless Nanton, no chance).
However moist the Newmarket turf was, though, it was clearly much less wet than the heavy tracks in Ireland on which the lovely grey Shamardal colt Arctic (pictured, being attended to by his trainer Tracy Collins and being overseen by the immortalized-in-bronze Brigadier Gerard) had been winning. He coped well with the vastly different conditions at Newmarket to run respectably for his expatriate Australian owner Richard Pegum, to whom Rod was keen to say "G'day" - sadly, though, he couldn't, because Mr Pegum hadn't been able to make it to Newmarket to watch his lovely colt contest his first Group One, which was a shame. Still, I'm sure he'll have other opportunities to see his nice horse carry his colours with distinction.