Well, that's another Cheltenham been and gone. I've really enjoyed it, as always, although I possibly haven't paid quite as much attention as I should have done. (For instance, I'm not sure that I caught all the on-screen analysis of the consequences of the last hurdle being in a different place to last year). I watched all the races, though, even if I missed the start of most of them - which is probably just as well, as otherwise I might have been scratching my head: I caught one start today in a replay and was rather baffled to see the leader shooting under the tape while the tail-enders were still only coming out onto the course, in preparation to passing the start line about two seconds after the leaders - and the reviewer took that as a sign to comment how well the starts had gone all meeting! If that was a particularly good one, I'd hate to have seen the others. To my mind, it doesn't make any difference whether you are starting from stalls or from behind a tape: if you start two seconds after your rivals, you have to run the distance more than two seconds quicker than they do to beat them. And you have to have a lot in hand to do that.
Anyway, it's been great entertainment. Why I've been particularly lucky, though, is that I've had plenty to entertain me here on Gold Cup Day too. Unlike at Cheltenham, where it seemed to start raining early on and then continue for the rest of the day, we had a glorious spring morning which didn't start to spoil until lunchtime, with the (light) rain only arriving at dusk. And this nice weather just makes everything seem easier and more enjoyable. I started the day by taking Ex Con, who is due to run on Monday at Plumpton, up to the Links to give him a bit of jumping practice as he hasn't run for a couple of months. That went really well, which was great (because I'm more out of practice for jumping than he is). The first time we went up the line of jumps I don't think that either of us had our eye in, but by the last time we were both seeing the strides like raccoons/mail-boxes.
(Don't worry if you don't get that allusion - just watch more 'Seinfeld' episodes). But the real highlight of the exercise came when I had cantered back along the strip of ground adjacent to the Cambridge Road: when I came to the gap in the hedge to cross the road to come home, I saw on the other side of the road Kieren Fallon dismounting from Gitano Hernando, having evidently just partnered his Dubai World Cup mount in what I'd guess would have been his final gallop prior to flying out to the the UAE for the race eight days hence. That, naturally, presented a great photo-opportunity, so here are two of the photographs. All three gallopers (Jerry O'Dwyer and Andrea Atzeni rode the work-mates in the gallop) are in the first picture, while the second contains just Gitano Hernando, while Marco Botti debriefs Kieren and Jerry on foot.
That was just my first visit to the Links this morning. Later, Hugh and I went up by car as three horses were ridden up there. Two of the three then had a jumping lesson, doing some circuits of the loose school. This went really well. Douchkette, who is due to run at Fontwell on Sunday, went first and she, as expected, was not only foot-perfect, but also full of enthusiasm. It was a pleasure to watch her, and easy too as all we had to do was stand still in the middle while she ran round and round, really relishing her work; in fact, the only hard thing was persuading her to stop!
Ben came next and, while stopping him was never likely to be an issue, getting him going wasn't quite as hard as one might have expected. Slowly but surely, Ben (who arrived here as an unraced yearling and is now an unraced six-year-old) really does at last seem to be getting his act together. His galloping is improving all the time and he no longer seems to find everything really hard work. He even, after a while, decided that the jumping was quite fun this morning and, while we only had him going over very small jumps
(mind you, I'm never particularly worried about practice jumps being big because, to my mind, the art of jumping is getting the approach, rather than the height right: if the approach is right, the horse will have no trouble with the height - and, as the technique for the approach is no different whether the jump is big or small, horses don't need to be practising over big jumps for the exercise to be worthwhile) Ben eventually seemed to find the whole exercise rather pleasant.
Even if, as this second photograph shows, he is still far from developing the sort of panache which seems to come naturally to Douchkette. All in all, it was just a pleasure to be up at the Links on a beautiful spring morning watching some horses jumping nicely, so it seemed only natural when our schooling session was over for Hugh and I, rather than head straight back to the yard, to wander over to the all-weather strip and watch Lucy Wadham supervising two of her horses - a youngster ridden by Matt Crawley and an older lead-horse - as they put in some practice over the artificial hurdles there (pictured). I wonder if any of these horses will one day find themselves at Cheltenham; the beauty of this sport is that it might just happen. You never know - it could even happen to Ben (pictured here looking really rather content with life at the end of his schooling session)!
Anyway, it's been great entertainment. Why I've been particularly lucky, though, is that I've had plenty to entertain me here on Gold Cup Day too. Unlike at Cheltenham, where it seemed to start raining early on and then continue for the rest of the day, we had a glorious spring morning which didn't start to spoil until lunchtime, with the (light) rain only arriving at dusk. And this nice weather just makes everything seem easier and more enjoyable. I started the day by taking Ex Con, who is due to run on Monday at Plumpton, up to the Links to give him a bit of jumping practice as he hasn't run for a couple of months. That went really well, which was great (because I'm more out of practice for jumping than he is). The first time we went up the line of jumps I don't think that either of us had our eye in, but by the last time we were both seeing the strides like raccoons/mail-boxes. 
(Don't worry if you don't get that allusion - just watch more 'Seinfeld' episodes). But the real highlight of the exercise came when I had cantered back along the strip of ground adjacent to the Cambridge Road: when I came to the gap in the hedge to cross the road to come home, I saw on the other side of the road Kieren Fallon dismounting from Gitano Hernando, having evidently just partnered his Dubai World Cup mount in what I'd guess would have been his final gallop prior to flying out to the the UAE for the race eight days hence. That, naturally, presented a great photo-opportunity, so here are two of the photographs. All three gallopers (Jerry O'Dwyer and Andrea Atzeni rode the work-mates in the gallop) are in the first picture, while the second contains just Gitano Hernando, while Marco Botti debriefs Kieren and Jerry on foot.
That was just my first visit to the Links this morning. Later, Hugh and I went up by car as three horses were ridden up there. Two of the three then had a jumping lesson, doing some circuits of the loose school. This went really well. Douchkette, who is due to run at Fontwell on Sunday, went first and she, as expected, was not only foot-perfect, but also full of enthusiasm. It was a pleasure to watch her, and easy too as all we had to do was stand still in the middle while she ran round and round, really relishing her work; in fact, the only hard thing was persuading her to stop! 
Ben came next and, while stopping him was never likely to be an issue, getting him going wasn't quite as hard as one might have expected. Slowly but surely, Ben (who arrived here as an unraced yearling and is now an unraced six-year-old) really does at last seem to be getting his act together. His galloping is improving all the time and he no longer seems to find everything really hard work. He even, after a while, decided that the jumping was quite fun this morning and, while we only had him going over very small jumps 
(mind you, I'm never particularly worried about practice jumps being big because, to my mind, the art of jumping is getting the approach, rather than the height right: if the approach is right, the horse will have no trouble with the height - and, as the technique for the approach is no different whether the jump is big or small, horses don't need to be practising over big jumps for the exercise to be worthwhile) Ben eventually seemed to find the whole exercise rather pleasant. 
Even if, as this second photograph shows, he is still far from developing the sort of panache which seems to come naturally to Douchkette. All in all, it was just a pleasure to be up at the Links on a beautiful spring morning watching some horses jumping nicely, so it seemed only natural when our schooling session was over for Hugh and I, rather than head straight back to the yard, to wander over to the all-weather strip and watch Lucy Wadham supervising two of her horses - a youngster ridden by Matt Crawley and an older lead-horse - as they put in some practice over the artificial hurdles there (pictured). I wonder if any of these horses will one day find themselves at Cheltenham; the beauty of this sport is that it might just happen. You never know - it could even happen to Ben (pictured here looking really rather content with life at the end of his schooling session)!
1 comment:
Thanks for the photo's John, i too love watching horses schooling and learning the ropes. Great photo of Kadouchski covered in mud too; what a monkey! Having read your comments on Paul Nicholls... 'If Paul Nicholls, with all the raw material in his stable and the financial muscle behind it, wasn't able to produce a horse good enough or sound enough to run with a realistic chance in either of the country's two best novice chases (because, realistically, Woolcombe Folly wasn't a legitimate Arkle contender and was just making up the numbers, as his SP and finishing position suggest) then we needn't feel so bad about our continued failure to make any impression on the upper echelons (or, indeed, the lower echelons!).'
It's worth mentioning that the small yards can provide the pleasures of ownership, that that bigger yards struggle to provide. Those such as lingering visits with mornings on the gallops, with little notice required. The personal touch both at the yard and at the races. Discussing dreams and then crashing back to reality can be so enjoyable in the racing game; it just takes the right approach...
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