It has been made clear to me just how silly it is to single out one National Hunt hoop for bravery because we had the bravest of the brave here this morning: Seamus Durack, the victim of umpteen horrific falls in the past and still as brave as they come. Seamus, of course, won on Anis for us at Uttoxeter last season and more recently partnered Ex Con in his first hurdle race at Newbury last autumn. He was in Newmarket this morning and was kind enough to pop a couple of horses over the jumps for us on the Links. One of these was Ex Con, in whom obviously he would justifiably have had complete confidence, knowing the horse. The other, however, was She Is A Cracker (on whom he is pictured), whom he didn't know from a bar of soap before I handed her over to him. All he had to go on was my breezy "She's good as gold over hurdles and she's ready to go over fences now" - and he was off! Pausing only to pull my stirrups up after he'd replaced me on her back, he shot off towards the fences without even the precaution of a stationary inspection! She jumped fine, of course, but that's not quite the point: what most impressed me was his utter fearlessness and disregard of danger, which would have been impressive enough in a younger man who had yet to receive any painful illustrations of just how dangerous riding horses (particularly over jumps) can be - but from Seamus, who has in the past shrugged off injuries which for most men would have been career-ending, it was breath-takingly impressive. A true hero!
The funny thing was that after I'd dismounted She Is A Cracker and was about to hand her over to him, she trod on my foot as I was leading her, twisting round on it and really hurting it. Of course, as I was mindful of the fact that Seamus has coped with some horrific injuries in the past, it was more than my pride was worth to let on that such a relatively minor inconvenience hurt! I don't normally show any sympathy at all to people who are stupid enough to get their toes trodden on, because such an injury isn't something which I would term an accident: rather, it is the natural consequence of being dozy and not concentrating on what one is doing and on what is going on around one. But, in this case, I'll break my rule!
On the subject of jumps jockeys, I must put right one omission from my Cheltenham reflections: the great ride William Kennedy had on (and gave to) Time For Rupert, on whom he finished a fine second to Big Buck's in the Ladbroke World Hurdle. There were 26 races at Cheltenham, 22 of which were open to senior professional jockeys, and it's disgraceful that William only had one ride. Still, he made the most of the one he did have, and that oughtn't to go unobserved in this blog. Another rider from the Festival whom we should salute is Amy Weaver, who rode one of her stable's inmates, Gandalf, into sixth place in the ladies' charity race on Ladies' Day (Thursday to you and me). This was the first time that Amy (pictured here in second place in her string in a photograph which I took around three weeks ago) had ridden competitively and, while I didn't see the race, I'm told that she did very well. Which isn't surprising because she puts plenty of effort into training horses and does that well, so it's only to be expected that the same would apply when she was to ride in a race.
It has been made clear to me just how silly it is to single out one National Hunt hoop for bravery because we had the bravest of the brave here this morning: Seamus Durack, the victim of umpteen horrific falls in the past and still as brave as they come. Seamus, of course, won on Anis for us at Uttoxeter last season and more recently partnered Ex Con in his first hurdle race at Newbury last autumn. He was in Newmarket this morning and was kind enough to pop a couple of horses over the jumps for us on the Links. One of these was Ex Con, in whom obviously he would justifiably have had complete confidence, knowing the horse. The other, however, was She Is A Cracker (on whom he is pictured), whom he didn't know from a bar of soap before I handed her over to him. All he had to go on was my breezy "She's good as gold over hurdles and she's ready to go over fences now" - and he was off! Pausing only to pull my stirrups up after he'd replaced me on her back, he shot off towards the fences without even the precaution of a stationary inspection! She jumped fine, of course, but that's not quite the point: what most impressed me was his utter fearlessness and disregard of danger, which would have been impressive enough in a younger man who had yet to receive any painful illustrations of just how dangerous riding horses (particularly over jumps) can be - but from Seamus, who has in the past shrugged off injuries which for most men would have been career-ending, it was breath-takingly impressive. A true hero!
The funny thing was that after I'd dismounted She Is A Cracker and was about to hand her over to him, she trod on my foot as I was leading her, twisting round on it and really hurting it. Of course, as I was mindful of the fact that Seamus has coped with some horrific injuries in the past, it was more than my pride was worth to let on that such a relatively minor inconvenience hurt! I don't normally show any sympathy at all to people who are stupid enough to get their toes trodden on, because such an injury isn't something which I would term an accident: rather, it is the natural consequence of being dozy and not concentrating on what one is doing and on what is going on around one. But, in this case, I'll break my rule!
On the subject of jumps jockeys, I must put right one omission from my Cheltenham reflections: the great ride William Kennedy had on (and gave to) Time For Rupert, on whom he finished a fine second to Big Buck's in the Ladbroke World Hurdle. There were 26 races at Cheltenham, 22 of which were open to senior professional jockeys, and it's disgraceful that William only had one ride. Still, he made the most of the one he did have, and that oughtn't to go unobserved in this blog. Another rider from the Festival whom we should salute is Amy Weaver, who rode one of her stable's inmates, Gandalf, into sixth place in the ladies' charity race on Ladies' Day (Thursday to you and me). This was the first time that Amy (pictured here in second place in her string in a photograph which I took around three weeks ago) had ridden competitively and, while I didn't see the race, I'm told that she did very well. Which isn't surprising because she puts plenty of effort into training horses and does that well, so it's only to be expected that the same would apply when she was to ride in a race.
2 comments:
Hi John.
the sight of your injured toes has had a very detrimental effect on the sale of that northern delicacy,namely pigs trotters.Demand has plumetted.
More important than your toes, the country awaits a damage report on your legendary "wellies." Has there been any lasting damage. If so they could be donated to the racing museum or raffled off in aid of the injured jockeys fund!
I'm pleased to say that the trusty gumboots held up well to their traumatic experience and they remain waterproof. Which is probably just as well as we're told to expect more inclement weather this week. Still, every cloud has a silver lining, and a few stormy nights might boost demand for some good hot pigs' trotter stew.
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