An interesting day

I've had an interesting day. Having received notification that Henry Cecil's Champions Day runners (ie Frankel, Twice Over and Midday) would be galloping at 6.15 on the watered gallop by the racecourse and that the media would be welcome to watch, I felt that it would be wrong not to start my working day a bit later than usual. We see plenty of Frankel walking around, but our routine means that it's very rare indeed for us to catch sight of him going any faster, so this was too good an opportunity to miss. It was a lovely morning, but of course a good way of making sure that the proper media get good photographs (because proper photographers have good cameras) while the quasi-media (ie the Winning Post's correspondent with his box brownie stuffed in his pocket) takes unusable snaps is to gallop the horses before it's proper daylight. Hence all I can produce to prove that I was there is this first picture of Frankel (under Tom Queally) strolling leisurely clear of his half-brother Bullet Train and this second, only slightly better, photograph of Twice Over and Ian Mongan having (surprisingly) treated Midday with similar disdain. We had a bonus post-script as some of William Haggas' horses happened to come up the gallop after Henry's. The first pairing saw our Ben Morris outriding Richard Hills (well, I'm sure Ben would see it that way) but the real bonus came when Oaks and German Oaks heroine Dancing Rain was in the final group; again, she is a horse whom we frequently see walking but rarely see going any faster than that. As she wasn't in the script, I doubt whether too many of the onlookers picked up on that - and there were quite a lot of observers. I was initially surprised at how many there were, but then it became apparent that plenty of pressmen were staying up in the area for the current three-day meeting, at which point the surprise became not how many of them were present, but how few.

Having started the day by taking some of my worst ever photographs, I surprised myself by going from one extreme to the other when we went to the Links a couple of hours later. This isn't a great stable for jumps jockeys to be trying to pick up rides because we only have a few runners and William Kennedy is automatic first choice, which means that there aren't a great deal of opportunities to go round amongst the others. However, a couple of jumps hoops who are always kind enough to offer their services whenever they are in town are the locally-raised Joe Akehurst and Gerald Tumelty. Both were in town this morning, and both kindly gave us a hand this morning, the former riding Douchkirk and the latter Dr Darcey. Having earlier taken such terrible shots when I had my feet firmly rooted on the ground, I was stunned to find that from Kadouchski's back (and quite some distance) I got some really nice shots of the horses jumping, as I hope you'll agree. So that was all very satisfactory - and, as you can see, we were enjoying yet another day of lovely weather.

Preparations then went equally smoothly at the racecourse, where the fillies by Sir Percy and Barathea (who have been named Grand Liaison and Zarosa for quite a long time, only not in my mind) each had a stalls test. "Why?", you might ask, as neither had ever misbehaved at the racecourse, not having ever been to one. Well, a rule was introduced a handful of years ago which said that if a trainer had more than a set percentage of his individual runners misbehave at the stalls within a year, he would have to have all debutant(e)s take a stalls test before their intended debuts. This is a silly rule because applying percentages to small samples doesn't work, as with a small sample you will never get a representative figure. If you only have one runner, you can only have 0% or 100%, etc. Anyway, we had three miscreants last year so we have to have all the babies tested before their debuts, which isn't the end of the world as the racecourse is within walking distance and we shall probably only have three first-starters all year. But it's still silly - in just the same way as it would be silly to conclude that, because our figure this year is currently standing at 0%, we never have horses misbehave at the stalls. Anyway, the punishment is not for us much of a punishment at all, so there's no point in getting aggravated by it - but what did aggravate me was that both fillies were dope-tested afterwards. The history behind this is that horses having stalls tests were never dope-tested, but then the authorities woke up to the fact that some/many trainers gave their horses sedatives before the tests. Thus dope-tests were introduced - but then, of course, they realised that this was an appalling waste of money at a time when there is very little money to go around, particularly because, on account of the new rules, there are many more tests than there used to be because of all the ones which small trainers have to take unnecessarily, such as today. So the decision was taken not to test them all, but just enough so that there was always a possibility of the horse being tested, which would be enough to ensure that people wouldn't dope their horses - just as with runners in races (where on average something like eight horses per meeting are tested, which must be something like 10% of runners). Anyway, I've taken it quite badly that both our horses were tested, which really was a shocking waste of money. This merely highlights the deficiency of racing's intelligence services, because anyone who knows anything about me whatsoever would know that hell would freeze over before I would sedate a horse before a stalls test. And both being taken? On the basis that the stalls rules are currently framed on the assumption that one can draw worthwhile statisical findings from small samples, this leads me to conclude that 100% of horses who have stalls tests are dope-tested! Anyway, that's my moan for the day. But basically more good than harm was done, as these two fillies have had a nice gentle introduction to raceday procedure and have been able to enjoy a quiet canter up the splendour of the Rowley Mile (as you can see here, with their back views being almost visible). I'm just worried now that they'll be put out when they next discover that racecourses aren't holiday camps after all!

Anyway, that was today. And tomorrow sees us bound for Haydock and Wolverhampton, so let's hope for the best from that trip.