The present and the past

It's been a busy week - hence the lack of action on this blog - but it's also been a good one. No week, of course, is entirely good, but on balance this one has been excellent from this point of view. We've had two runners and both have provided very pleasing outcomes. First we had Douchkette (pictured returning to the unsaddling enclosure after the race) at Kempton on Wednesday. By finishing fourth, she didn't collect any prize money, but she did provide cause for optimism, something which, despite the fact that she's always shown an element of promise in what she's done at home, had been hard to take from her previous four runs, two on the Flat (last year) and two over jumps (this year). But it now seems as if a mile (or perhaps a touch farther) on decent ground (or Polytrack) seems to suit her, so I hope that now, emboldened by her bold showing on Wednesday, we can now justifiably travel forward with optimism.

Our second runner of the week came yesterday, when Ex Con provided a massive amount of joy to all connected with him by scoring at Bangor in very gritty fashion. After his run at Wincanton three weeks ago, it was very easy to approach yesterday's race very hopeful that he might win, but even so we've seen plenty of horses for whom one can justifiably expect victory but who fail to salute - so the horse still has to go out there and win the race. Which, happily, is exactly what Ex Con did, hugely assisted by a typically excellent ride from William. It was a very exciting and very tense race to watch because, as it was run at a sedate pace, the field remained tightly bunched for almost the entire duration, to the extent that all the runners bar one were still tightly packed after the second last hurdle. Ex Con (pictured both before and after yesterday's race) had lost his chance at Wincanton with an error at a jump, but of course in a race such as yesterday's a horse is at much at risk from an error by one of the other horses as by himself; but William's safe handling of him meant that he enjoyed a very smooth passage in what could potentially have been a messy race, neither making any significant mistakes himself nor copping any interference from any other runner. A daring move to switch to the inside to make his challenge approaching the last hurdle, plus a magnificent leap at that jump, then proved enough to seal a brave and tremendously exciting victory, much to the delight of his supporters. The only sad aspect was that his band of supporters was smaller than it ought to have been, on account of the suspension of air traffic: two of his part-owners, Richard Jones and Kevan Leggatt, had found themselves marooned (in Spain and New York respectively) - a fate which, at any other time, might have been not displeasing, but under the circumstances I suspect that it might have been considerably harder for them to detect the silver lining to the cloud. But, all in all, it was a great day. It would actually have been a pleasure to go to Bangor almost irrespective of how the horse had run because it's a lovely track in a beautiful part of the country (which deserves to be complimented on providing a racing surface in very good condition yesterday) and yesterday was such a lovely day that it would have been hard not just to enjoy being there and travelling there. And the icing on the cake was that Ex Con's victory proved to be the first leg of a double for William (he later scored on the Paul Webber-trained Tribe, on whom he is pictured returning to the winner's enclosure) which I was very pleased to see as he is a top-class, very professional and industrious jockey who deserves much more patronage and success than he currently enjoys. (Which is something I may have mentioned a few times previously!).

On the subject of top-class professional jockeys, saddest news of the week from a racing point of view was the death of Greville Starkey, who has to rank as one of the greatest jockeys of the second half of the twentieth century. It was disappointing (although not, I suppose, unsurprising) that the Racing Post let itself down by remarking that he will possibly be best remembered for being beaten in the 1986 Derby on Dancing Brave; my retort to whomever wrote that would be, "You've got a short and very selective memory, laddie!" and also to point out that that ride was no worse than that put in by the excellent Michael Rodd on Faint Perfume in yesterday's AJC Oaks, a ride which I am sure will not be cited in Rodd's obituary (which I hope will be written in about 60 years' time). (Although I suppose that poor Greville will indeed end up being most remembered for that ride if the Racing Post keeps telling us that that is what he is remembered for, such is the power of the press to produce self-fulfilling prophecies). To my mind, though, if Greville is synoymous with one Derby, it is with the 1978 version, where his strength and daring enabled Shirley Heights to win a race in which the victor arguably should have been Hawaiian Sound. Greville's victories that week also included the Oaks on Fair Salinia, his victories that month also included the Gold Cup on Shangamuzo and his victories that summer also included the Irish Derby on Shirley Heights and the Irish Oaks on Fair Salinia - and if that run of success sticks less prominently in the mind than his being caught out by Dancing Brave (on whom he had previously won the 2,000 Guineas and would subsequently win the Eclipse, let us not forget) becoming unbalanced during the run down Tattenham Hill, then that mind has surely to belong to a very negative and jaded person. Another race whose memory I savour was the 1981 St. James's Palace Stakes, a race I was lucky enough to watch in person, in which Greville and the 2,000 Guineas winner To-Agori-Mou beat King's Lake and Pat Eddery in a driving finish, thus providing a fitting post script to the Irish 2,000 Guineas (after which team Ballydoyle had hammered a few extra nails into the sport's coffin by taking the unprecedented step of bringing lawyers into a stewards' enquiry to ensure that King's Lake, rather than To-Agori-Mou, was declared the winner). I can't remember exactly, but I'm sure that Greville would have copped a fine from the Ascot stewards for his Harvey Smith-style 'V-sign' salute after the line, but we all knew and appreciated what he meant. The best tribute to Greville I have read was written by Richard Dunwoody in yesterday's Daily Mirror, in which Richard recalled the awe which he felt when, as a 14-year-old schoolboy working for Paul Kelleway, he was honoured to ride work alongside Greville on the Heath. Richard's respect for Greville was clearly massive, as was mine; and I used to feel similarly pleased to be able to salute him in the mornings as he rode out for Michael Stoute in the latter stages of his working life on horses such as the Japan Cup winner Pilsudski.

On the subjects of deaths, it would be remiss of me not to salute two other Newmarket stalwarts how have passed away recently. I did not know Bobby Middleton, Harry (and later Geoff) Wragg's long-time head lad, but I knew Ken Atterton very well. We have a picture on the wall of Ken holding the first winner to carry my colours, Witchway North, in the winner's enclosure at Fontwell 16 years ago. Ken, who must have been well past retirement age even then, was working for Hugh Collingridge at the time (and actually hadn't long stopped riding out at that stage) and he fitted perfectly into Hugh's stable, because Hugh is blessed with an easy-going nature and sense of humour which generally enables him to tolerate various eccentricities with which less amenable employers might struggle. Hugh has some wonderful stories to tell about the diplomatic incidents caused by Ken at the races (including the one when Hugh was summoned to the stewards' room at Nottingham to be told that his employee Mr Atterton had used some "old soldier's language" on a gateman who had upbraided him for being late in leaving the racecourse stables - at which point in the enquiry the said gateman piped up with, "Old soldiers' language, sir? He called me a f**king old c*nt!"). Anyway, Ken was one of racing's truly great characters. I would guess that he might have drunk more alcohol in his lifetime than anyone else I've ever met and it is a miracle that he lived for as long as he did. I remember going over to Bury hospital one evening at least ten years ago with Colin Casey and Cliff Rimmer, because Ken was in there and was meant to be very ill. When we asked for him at reception, we were stunned to be told, "He's gone" - so it was a massive relief a few seconds later to discover that that didn't actually mean (as we'd thought) that he'd died, but merely that, against the advice of the unfortunate doctors, he'd discharged himself (presumably much to the relief of the nurses). We tracked him down to the Exning Road Club (where else?) and found him savouring a glass of Scotch there. By the look of him, you'd have taken odds on that he wouldn't have lasted the night, but he lasted more than another decade, and that alone tells you what a tough man he was. They don't make them like Ken, or like Greville, any more - more's the pity.