More character-building stuff. Karma seemed really well when we headed off to Wolverhampton yesterday. I only rode one horse in the morning prior to departure. That horse (Batgirl) stands next to Karma, and while I was tacking her up I could hear some great grunting and thrashing next door - and was delighted to look into his box to see him doing some real virtuoso rolling. That was such a good sign. He duly ran well - but sadly things didn't go his way at all. He cantered to post as nicely as you'd expect, but the writing was on the wall shortly afterwards. One of the less obvious chances, ridden
by a 7lb-claiming apprentice, set off at a very fast pace and was soon 1o lengths clear. As they turned into the back straight, six furlongs from home, I said to Richard King, an EERC share-holder with whom I was watching the race, "Mmm - he'll want to get off the rails fairly shortly because that leader is going to stop suddenly in another half-mile and drop back through the field like a stone - and any horse on the rail is going to be stopped in his tracks." I then spent the next 50 seconds watching the debacle unfold, as it became more and more obvious that Shane
wasn't going to be able to work his way outward. We duly ran into a dead end, just as the winner Come On Blue Chip (with whom, through Shabora behind whom we had both finished second recently, we were weighted to run close) swept around the field on the outside and forged clear. We were stopped in our tracks, and it was hugely to Karma's credit that he was able to get going again well enough to finish fourth, only a length of the runner-up. Ah well! No lives were lost. And the other thing that made it less hard to swallow was the fact that Come On Blue Chip won so
well (by four and a half lengths) that we very possibly/probably would only have finished second anyway. A lot of the connections' money goes into preparing a horse for a race, and a lot of time and effort by several people, and it is rather frustrating to see it all go up in smoke in a matter of seconds while we stand by powerless to do anything about it. Still, we put it behind us and look forward, and our old friend Kipling comes to mind yet again: "Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools". That, of course, would be grossly overstating things, but it's a mini-version of that. As I said, it's all good character-building stuff.
There's always some pleasure, though, in a day (or night - and this time it really was a night, with the M6 being closed on the way home and a tortuous diversion through the middle of Coventry seeing us home around midnight - and thank God I wasn't driving and could sleep most of the way) at the races. If we couldn't win the race, I wasn't displeased to see Come On Blue Chip win it as we'd travelled up with him, and he comes from a stable which I like (Paul D'Arcy). We saw a winner from Exeter Road (Willie Musson's Yarra Valley) and another really pleasing victory was that of Clean Bowled in the claimer. Clean Bowled is trained by one of Britain's nicest trainers, Roger Curtis - and was ridden
to victory yet again by Roger's 16-year-old son Ned, who has been having a great run of success. Ned has won three races from three rides on this horse in the past three weeks. It's a lovely story. Apparently Ned was the leading pony-race rider last year, achieving most of his success on a pony (or ponies) owned by Richard Dean. Now that he was old enough to ride in races, Richard Dean said that he'd like to reward Ned's good service by putting him on a winner - so Roger claimed Clean Bowled for Richard after the horse had won a claimer at Wolverhampton on 9th February for Alan McCabe's stable; and the horse's record for his new owner/trainer/jockey team is now three wins from three runs. That's really nice. And the icing on the cake was seeing father and son celebrate t
he winner in the best time-honoured style: with a cup of tea in the canteen before heading for home. So that was nice - as was the result of the 4.20 at Wincanton today, which saw Ger Tumelty, a good jockey who has done us a few good turns on the schooling grounds, ride a winner for the first time for several months. Ger (pictured riding Dr Darcey on the Links last September, leading Joe Akehurst on Frankie, and then on Alcalde 12 months previously) rode a winner for Alan Bailey in the autumn, maybe five months ago, but this was his first since then. He's a good jockey - like so many under-appreciated hoops - and he is a very good reminder that the difference in effectiveness between the famous and the obscure is not nearly as great as the media would have us believe. His success today was very well deserved - as has been William's recent run of success, which saw him, as I'm sure that you noticed, ride four winners (at prices up to 16/1) from six rides in the first week of this month.
More character-building stuff. Karma seemed really well when we headed off to Wolverhampton yesterday. I only rode one horse in the morning prior to departure. That horse (Batgirl) stands next to Karma, and while I was tacking her up I could hear some great grunting and thrashing next door - and was delighted to look into his box to see him doing some real virtuoso rolling. That was such a good sign. He duly ran well - but sadly things didn't go his way at all. He cantered to post as nicely as you'd expect, but the writing was on the wall shortly afterwards. One of the less obvious chances, ridden
by a 7lb-claiming apprentice, set off at a very fast pace and was soon 1o lengths clear. As they turned into the back straight, six furlongs from home, I said to Richard King, an EERC share-holder with whom I was watching the race, "Mmm - he'll want to get off the rails fairly shortly because that leader is going to stop suddenly in another half-mile and drop back through the field like a stone - and any horse on the rail is going to be stopped in his tracks." I then spent the next 50 seconds watching the debacle unfold, as it became more and more obvious that Shane 
wasn't going to be able to work his way outward. We duly ran into a dead end, just as the winner Come On Blue Chip (with whom, through Shabora behind whom we had both finished second recently, we were weighted to run close) swept around the field on the outside and forged clear. We were stopped in our tracks, and it was hugely to Karma's credit that he was able to get going again well enough to finish fourth, only a length of the runner-up. Ah well! No lives were lost. And the other thing that made it less hard to swallow was the fact that Come On Blue Chip won so
well (by four and a half lengths) that we very possibly/probably would only have finished second anyway. A lot of the connections' money goes into preparing a horse for a race, and a lot of time and effort by several people, and it is rather frustrating to see it all go up in smoke in a matter of seconds while we stand by powerless to do anything about it. Still, we put it behind us and look forward, and our old friend Kipling comes to mind yet again: "Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools". That, of course, would be grossly overstating things, but it's a mini-version of that. As I said, it's all good character-building stuff.
There's always some pleasure, though, in a day (or night - and this time it really was a night, with the M6 being closed on the way home and a tortuous diversion through the middle of Coventry seeing us home around midnight - and thank God I wasn't driving and could sleep most of the way) at the races. If we couldn't win the race, I wasn't displeased to see Come On Blue Chip win it as we'd travelled up with him, and he comes from a stable which I like (Paul D'Arcy). We saw a winner from Exeter Road (Willie Musson's Yarra Valley) and another really pleasing victory was that of Clean Bowled in the claimer. Clean Bowled is trained by one of Britain's nicest trainers, Roger Curtis - and was ridden 
to victory yet again by Roger's 16-year-old son Ned, who has been having a great run of success. Ned has won three races from three rides on this horse in the past three weeks. It's a lovely story. Apparently Ned was the leading pony-race rider last year, achieving most of his success on a pony (or ponies) owned by Richard Dean. Now that he was old enough to ride in races, Richard Dean said that he'd like to reward Ned's good service by putting him on a winner - so Roger claimed Clean Bowled for Richard after the horse had won a claimer at Wolverhampton on 9th February for Alan McCabe's stable; and the horse's record for his new owner/trainer/jockey team is now three wins from three runs. That's really nice. And the icing on the cake was seeing father and son celebrate t
he winner in the best time-honoured style: with a cup of tea in the canteen before heading for home. So that was nice - as was the result of the 4.20 at Wincanton today, which saw Ger Tumelty, a good jockey who has done us a few good turns on the schooling grounds, ride a winner for the first time for several months. Ger (pictured riding Dr Darcey on the Links last September, leading Joe Akehurst on Frankie, and then on Alcalde 12 months previously) rode a winner for Alan Bailey in the autumn, maybe five months ago, but this was his first since then. He's a good jockey - like so many under-appreciated hoops - and he is a very good reminder that the difference in effectiveness between the famous and the obscure is not nearly as great as the media would have us believe. His success today was very well deserved - as has been William's recent run of success, which saw him, as I'm sure that you noticed, ride four winners (at prices up to 16/1) from six rides in the first week of this month.
1 comment:
great blog as always John, I watched the karma race and it was exactly as you described, frustrating not getting a run in a small field. I do feel at wolverhampton your position 2f out is crucial to where your horse will finish as in many races the horses on the inside get tightened up and a horse that comes middle to wide gets first run.
Lets hope karma can win again soon,
Last year problem walrus and your good self put forward a list of horses to watch out for at cheltenham, would you be able to do it again,
thanks
Ian
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