Smiling in the rain

It rained all day and night yesterday, but despite that it was still a lovely day.  And for that we have principally the mighty, the brave, the lovely Silken Thoughts (pictured before and after her race) to thank.  Sandown on the TV on Friday didn't make particularly edifying viewing, with nice horses finding it a real struggle to maintain any sort of gallop up the hill.  The two (good-class) mile races being run roughly 14 seconds slower than standard tells one all one needs to know.  I was feeling rather sorry for the filly as we were taking her down there on Saturday, especially as the fact that it was continuing to rain uninterruptedly made it clear that conditions were hardly likely to have improved.  I wasn't too worried, though, because she's tough - and at least it was only a mile.

Obviously I wanted to do everything I could to help her, so, comfortably if not fashionably wrapped in my wellingtons, thick trousers, long raincoat and cloth pork-pie hat, I set out to walk the course, something I generally do anyway.  By a happy coincidence, the father/son, trainer/jockey team of Aidan and Joseph O'Brien, plus Joseph's sister, was setting out on the same task at the same time (between the two-mile chase and the Whitbread, which was the final jumps race on the card) so we all toured the circuit together, which was enjoyable and interesting.  And which produced a brahma: we were caught on the RUK cameras, crowding round a particularly wet patch into which I'd sunk, which elicited the observation that this was "Aidan and his team inspecting the track".  In fairness, being so well wrapped up and filmed obliquely from above and from a distance, I would have been unrecognisable: I guess that they might have thought that Aidan had brought along a local farmer particularly skilled in spotting really boggy patches of ground.

Anyway, walking the track, it was plain that one had to be right close to the outside rail.  One could almost call it good to soft in places there, while it was whatever is heavier than heavy everywhere else.  There was one good brahma when we were looking at a tarmac road adjacent to the outside of the track.  For most of the way there was a running rail separating the track from the road, but this ended about 40m before the road did; Aidan, by way of illustrating the lengths to which one could justifiably go to seek out a bit of better ground, observed that Willie Mullins, when he was still race-riding, would have gone down the road - and this brought a real smile to my face during our race when the commentator remarked that Silken Thoughts was so wide that she was nearly out on the road!

Anyway, it was clear where we wanted to be: if the races were being run 14 seconds slower than standard on the heavy track, it would be well worth going, say, 40m farther (maybe adding on three seconds worth of distance) if that meant that one could race on the type of ground on which one can go 4 seconds slower than standard rather than 14.  Do the math and it's a no-brainer: you'd lengthen your journey by three seconds to shorten it by ten.  Anyway, the upshot was that only two horses in the four Flat races stayed on the outer throughout: Joseph on Imperial Monarch (third photo in the chapter) in the Classic Trial and Silken Thoughts.  Both won.

Another jockey (Paddy Brennan) set out to go our wide route in our race, but he cut in a bit on the bend; while the rest of the field came wide in the second half of the race when they saw how much easier the wide runners were finding it, but the damage had been done for them by that time.  As well as being surprised that nobody else chose the wide route (even in the race after Joseph's victory, no jockey came wide, which is remarkable) I was very impressed by Aidan Coleman that he followed to the letter the very detailed and rather unorthodox instructions which I had given him, so the upshot was that this lovely filly, aided by racing on faster ground than her rivals and being extremely well ridden, won easily, which was just lovely.

A very happy day for all concerned, especially for her part-owners Chris and Jody who'd arranged their journey back to Hong Kong around being able to be there for the race before heading out to Heathrow to catch the 2220 flight, and who were seeing her win for the first time.  'Whitbread Day' is always a lovely day to attend, even in terrible weather, and I had further treats over and above those described above.  The racing was good, with terrific performances by the Paul Nicholls-trained steeplechasers Sanctuaire (fourth picture) and Tidal Bay, who took his long and distinguished career to another level by winning the Whitbread (which I enjoyed watching from by the Pond Fence) easily under top weight.

The flat racing was good too, with Colombian (fifth picture) beating the lovely pair of Poet and Twice Over to win the Gordon Richards Stakes.  I ought to mention the brahma of Colombian's jockey William Buick finding himself on Barwick in our race, the Flat v. National Hunt jockeys' challenge.  Bearing in mind that William had ridden the horse on his last start when he'd beaten Batgirl at Yarmouth, this was remarkable.  Still, the combination had to settle for second this time as we ended up with another quinella for horses from this part of town, but with this stable coming out on top on this occasion.  All exciting stuff - but the bonus treat for me was patting Horse of the Year Big Bucks' (penultimate photo) and Grand National hero Neptune Collonges (last picture) in the stable yard.  Heroes don't come much better than those two.