We've had three runners over the past week, and the reports have to read, 'Could do better'. And, I hope, they can read, 'Will do better'. I hadn't really been expecting Dr Darcey (pictured enjoying the Kempton afternoon sunshine prior to heading home after his race) to be beaten nearly as far as he was, but under the circumstances his run was very excusable: he took a while to find his feet, in which respect he certainly wasn't helped by a horse falling in front of him at the second hurdle. But his confidence seemed to pick up again as the race progressed, and it certainly wasn't a dispiriting National Hunt debut. Kempton, incidentally, deserve
high praise for having produced very good ground (albeit ground which, by National Hunt standards, one would have to call good fast ground) and certainly did considerably better in this respect than Cheltenham had done a couple of days previously. Conditions had and have been dry and bright (and, earlier in the month, extremely warm) so it certainly has not been easy for these courses. Certainly Gus was happy enough with Kempton's circuit - and all the more so for bumping into William running around it before racing, as this photograph shows.
After Kempton, our show rolled on to Newmarket on Wednesday. As mentioned in the previous chapter, I never expect much from horses in their early races, but I must say that I did expect a bit more from Zarosa than she showed on her debut. Grand Liaison (pictured before the race) had run adequately earlier in the afternoon when finishing towards the back of the main pack in what was probably a very hot maiden race, contested largely by horses who are more forward than she is and who, ultimately, will prove to be less unsuited by shorter-distance races than she. She'd clearly progressed
from her debut, so is evidently going the right way. Let's hope now that Zarosa will also progress from her debut, as her debut showed no immediate promise. That, though, is actually no surprise at all. She's such a baby in her head as well as in her body, and her babiness was evident before the race, never mind in it. She can be a bit of a livewire, who 12 months ago was a real handful to break in, so I had it in my mind that she might play up in the parade ring, notwithstanding the fact that she'd had a dress rehearsal visit to the races for her stalls test last
month and hadn't put a foot wrong. With this in mind, I voiced a cautionary, "Just watch out that she doesn't jump around" prior to legging Hannah aboard - and within a few seconds both Hannah and Terri (who was leading her) were rolling around on the ground, Hannah having spent about two seconds on the filly's back in the interim. No harm was done, but this meant that by the time the partnership was ready to head out onto the track, there were no other horses around. Still, she made her way to the start, albeit hesitantly and inelegantly, on her own (second picture in this paragraph) - and then was still, unfortunately, on her own as she passed the post (third photograph in this paragraph) a few minutes later in the other direction, her fellow competitors again having left her behind! Still, it was a start and, looking to the future, I'd still be very happy to say, "She'll be right, mate".
Other than that, what's been happening? Well, we've had some magnificent weather still, as this photograph of some of Luca's horses at the bottom of Long Hill yesterday morning shows. It is starting to get quite cold, and it's going to be a struggle to maintain my shorts dress code until the end of the month, but we've had some lovely skies with plenty of sunshine, and we're still getting a few days like today of more or less unbroken blue skies. Clear skies, of course, can mean low temperatures, and Gemma's first morning (Thursday) of
riding out since giving birth a couple of months ago coincided with the first proper frost of the autumn, which was hardly the perfect welcome-back gift from the weather gods. Still, I'm sure that she would have been pleased to get back in the saddle, and it was certainly great to have her back in the string. This photograph of her and Rhythm Stick cantering up Long Hill is far from a good one, but that was simply because it was still quite dark (considerably darker than one would guess from the photograph) but the one thing which it does show is the frost.
It was still dark enough when we headed up to the Links this morning, but it was a very clear morning so visibility was improving by the second, and by the time the horses which we took up there (Kadouchski, Dr Darcey, Frankie, Asterisk) started jumping, everything was grand. Unbelievably, there were three jumps meetings today and William didn't have a single ride, so he called in here which was very good of him. (Things aren't actually as dire as that implies because William was meant to be riding
at Aintree, but he got the message at midday yesterday that he'd been 'jocked off' his mount there, leaving him with no chance of picking up any rides elsewhere as it was already a couple of hours after declaration time - but even so William's lack of patronage never ceases to baffle me). William's nephew Jamie jumped Asterisk (pictured here walking back from the hurdles alongside William on Dr Darcey) and William jumped the other three, and all went very well. Anyway, that was
a lovely start to the day, and one enabling us to continue to travel full of hope. This was the first time that Kadouchski and Dr Darcey had jumped since their chasing and hurdling debuts respectively, so it was very good to see that they are thriving for the experience. (Hard to believe, incidentally, that the second and third photographs in this chapter were taken ten minutes AFTER the first, but there you are: Dr Darcey, Asterisk and Kadouchski, ridden by Terri, Jamie and William, cantering home after the schooling session, the fourth horse involved in the session, Frankie, obviously not featuring in the photograph as he was the photographer's mount).
Otherwise, one of the week's highlights (over and above these lovely morning skies, two more pictures of which adorn this chapter) has been the series in the Racing Post of great bookmakers. These articles were really well written and very entertaining. One came away with great admiration for the subjects, in particular my hero Freddie Williams, who always got along so well with the late Joe McCarthy at the Scottish tracks. The only disappointment was the Victor Chandler article, which posed more questions than it answered, and overall was as anodyne as those awful Victor Chandler
ads on Racing UK. It was remarkable that the move offshore could have been so prominent a part of the article without any mention of the issue of levy being paid or not being paid by offshore bookmakers - while a really tantalizing wasted opportunity was the partially-told tale of the man who'd apparently won eight million pounds off Victor in one afternoon and then put it all on the favourite in the concluding novice hurdle who duly got turned over at four to one on. A bit more detail on that saga really would have been interesting, particularly bearing in mind that someone of a cynical frame of mind might suggest that the true odds about a horse in a novice hurdle on whom there had been a bet of eight million pounds would be something like 33/1 against rather than 4/1 on!
We've had three runners over the past week, and the reports have to read, 'Could do better'. And, I hope, they can read, 'Will do better'. I hadn't really been expecting Dr Darcey (pictured enjoying the Kempton afternoon sunshine prior to heading home after his race) to be beaten nearly as far as he was, but under the circumstances his run was very excusable: he took a while to find his feet, in which respect he certainly wasn't helped by a horse falling in front of him at the second hurdle. But his confidence seemed to pick up again as the race progressed, and it certainly wasn't a dispiriting National Hunt debut. Kempton, incidentally, deserve
high praise for having produced very good ground (albeit ground which, by National Hunt standards, one would have to call good fast ground) and certainly did considerably better in this respect than Cheltenham had done a couple of days previously. Conditions had and have been dry and bright (and, earlier in the month, extremely warm) so it certainly has not been easy for these courses. Certainly Gus was happy enough with Kempton's circuit - and all the more so for bumping into William running around it before racing, as this photograph shows.
After Kempton, our show rolled on to Newmarket on Wednesday. As mentioned in the previous chapter, I never expect much from horses in their early races, but I must say that I did expect a bit more from Zarosa than she showed on her debut. Grand Liaison (pictured before the race) had run adequately earlier in the afternoon when finishing towards the back of the main pack in what was probably a very hot maiden race, contested largely by horses who are more forward than she is and who, ultimately, will prove to be less unsuited by shorter-distance races than she. She'd clearly progressed
from her debut, so is evidently going the right way. Let's hope now that Zarosa will also progress from her debut, as her debut showed no immediate promise. That, though, is actually no surprise at all. She's such a baby in her head as well as in her body, and her babiness was evident before the race, never mind in it. She can be a bit of a livewire, who 12 months ago was a real handful to break in, so I had it in my mind that she might play up in the parade ring, notwithstanding the fact that she'd had a dress rehearsal visit to the races for her stalls test last 
month and hadn't put a foot wrong. With this in mind, I voiced a cautionary, "Just watch out that she doesn't jump around" prior to legging Hannah aboard - and within a few seconds both Hannah and Terri (who was leading her) were rolling around on the ground, Hannah having spent about two seconds on the filly's back in the interim. No harm was done, but this meant that by the time the partnership was ready to head out onto the track, there were no other horses around. Still, she made her way to the start, albeit hesitantly and inelegantly, on her own (second picture in this paragraph) - and then was still, unfortunately, on her own as she passed the post (third photograph in this paragraph) a few minutes later in the other direction, her fellow competitors again having left her behind! Still, it was a start and, looking to the future, I'd still be very happy to say, "She'll be right, mate".
Other than that, what's been happening? Well, we've had some magnificent weather still, as this photograph of some of Luca's horses at the bottom of Long Hill yesterday morning shows. It is starting to get quite cold, and it's going to be a struggle to maintain my shorts dress code until the end of the month, but we've had some lovely skies with plenty of sunshine, and we're still getting a few days like today of more or less unbroken blue skies. Clear skies, of course, can mean low temperatures, and Gemma's first morning (Thursday) of 
riding out since giving birth a couple of months ago coincided with the first proper frost of the autumn, which was hardly the perfect welcome-back gift from the weather gods. Still, I'm sure that she would have been pleased to get back in the saddle, and it was certainly great to have her back in the string. This photograph of her and Rhythm Stick cantering up Long Hill is far from a good one, but that was simply because it was still quite dark (considerably darker than one would guess from the photograph) but the one thing which it does show is the frost.
It was still dark enough when we headed up to the Links this morning, but it was a very clear morning so visibility was improving by the second, and by the time the horses which we took up there (Kadouchski, Dr Darcey, Frankie, Asterisk) started jumping, everything was grand. Unbelievably, there were three jumps meetings today and William didn't have a single ride, so he called in here which was very good of him. (Things aren't actually as dire as that implies because William was meant to be riding
at Aintree, but he got the message at midday yesterday that he'd been 'jocked off' his mount there, leaving him with no chance of picking up any rides elsewhere as it was already a couple of hours after declaration time - but even so William's lack of patronage never ceases to baffle me). William's nephew Jamie jumped Asterisk (pictured here walking back from the hurdles alongside William on Dr Darcey) and William jumped the other three, and all went very well. Anyway, that was 
a lovely start to the day, and one enabling us to continue to travel full of hope. This was the first time that Kadouchski and Dr Darcey had jumped since their chasing and hurdling debuts respectively, so it was very good to see that they are thriving for the experience. (Hard to believe, incidentally, that the second and third photographs in this chapter were taken ten minutes AFTER the first, but there you are: Dr Darcey, Asterisk and Kadouchski, ridden by Terri, Jamie and William, cantering home after the schooling session, the fourth horse involved in the session, Frankie, obviously not featuring in the photograph as he was the photographer's mount).
Otherwise, one of the week's highlights (over and above these lovely morning skies, two more pictures of which adorn this chapter) has been the series in the Racing Post of great bookmakers. These articles were really well written and very entertaining. One came away with great admiration for the subjects, in particular my hero Freddie Williams, who always got along so well with the late Joe McCarthy at the Scottish tracks. The only disappointment was the Victor Chandler article, which posed more questions than it answered, and overall was as anodyne as those awful Victor Chandler
ads on Racing UK. It was remarkable that the move offshore could have been so prominent a part of the article without any mention of the issue of levy being paid or not being paid by offshore bookmakers - while a really tantalizing wasted opportunity was the partially-told tale of the man who'd apparently won eight million pounds off Victor in one afternoon and then put it all on the favourite in the concluding novice hurdle who duly got turned over at four to one on. A bit more detail on that saga really would have been interesting, particularly bearing in mind that someone of a cynical frame of mind might suggest that the true odds about a horse in a novice hurdle on whom there had been a bet of eight million pounds would be something like 33/1 against rather than 4/1 on!
No comments:
Post a Comment