Patience

This weather is meant to be picking up, but it's actually really grim today.  After some more very heavy showers, it looks wetter than ever out there now - and, under leaden skies, it's cold enough too.  Yesterday wasn't much fun either, but I still can't believe how lucky we were at Lingfield, where we hardly got rained on at all.  We drove through so much rain on the way down, and quite a lot on the way home too; but, while there was some fairly light rain there before racing, it more or less held dry through the afternoon.  Which was nice - as, to a certain extent, was Zarosa's run.  She finished 7th of 14.  I'd hoped that the move up to a mile and a half, and out of maidens into handicap company, might have seen her finish better than halfway down the field, but even so she still showed enough promise to suggest that she's going the right way.  As this photograph of her and Brett Doyle in the parade ring suggests, she's still relatively unfurnished and so should get stronger; and the way in which she finished the race off, having had only one behind her turning into the straight, suggests that she has, as we had always thought, plenty of stamina.  She's sound and she's genuine, and she'll be OK with more time and more distance.

I hope and believe that Zarosa will eventually illustrate the benefit of patience, and we had an interesting illustration of them last week.  July last year saw Hannah riding her first winner on board Kadouchski in a 46-60 two-mile handicap at Folkestone.  They were not able to repeat the victory as Kadou is now rated above 60, but his absence did not prevent the race from being annexed by an Exeter Road stable, it being taken by the Don Cantillon-trained Green To Gold, who I believe usually rejoices under the name 'Albert' and who is twice pictured here under his trainer back in the snows of early February.  Anyway, the background to Albert's success is worth considering, as the light of Don's genius is too often hidden under a bushel.

Albert was formerly trained in Ireland by Christie Roche, for whom he won two handicap hurdles in October 2010 and a 14-furlong handicap at Bellewstown (by eight lengths, very easily) as the 2/1 favourite off a rating of 55 in July last year.  He joined Don's string last October.  Don  ran him thrice on the AW Flat last backend: 11th of 12 at Kempton, 10th of 10 at Kempton, 8th of 8 at Wolverhampton, beaten a long way every time.  Don then ran him in five steeplechases over the winter and he ran badly every time: he was twice pulled up (and is seen jumping in one of those races, at Taunton just before Christmas) and on the occasion when he finished second he did so by default as there were only three finishers and the winner won eased right down by 19 lengths.  On his last two starts of the winter he got round but was beaten 124 lengths and 137 lengths.

He then didn't run from 16th February until last Thursday, 12th June - when he popped up in this two-mile handicap on the Flat at Folkestone, rated 55.  Bizarrely, Albert had run in Don's colours on all his previous outings for the stable, but he was now racing for Sir Alex Ferguson, whose connection with Don was previously unknown to me.  He was 12/1 in the morning, but started at 5/1 and won, eased down, by three lengths.  And the moral of the story is that if anyone ever tries to tell you that Don isn't a genius, you can look them in the eye and tell them that they are wrong.