Nice results

Hannah had a ride  for Chris Dwyer at Yarmouth today, which was nice.  She rode a nice filly Sarah Berry (no relation - pictured here, flanked by Chris and Shelley Dwyer and ridden by Mirco Demuro, on her way back to the Yarmouth winner's enclosure in the summer) who unfortunately didn't run very well, but it was typically good of Chris, one of the best people as well as one of the best trainers, to give her the ride.

Still, even if he didn't have any luck today, Chris has already had one very memorable victory this month, Patriotic (on whom he is pictured on the Heath last month, alongside Shelley on stable stalwart Mia's Boy) having won the Legends' race by about quarter of an inch at the St Leger meeting.  The only shame was that Chris didn't take the ride himself, but you wouldn't turn down Mick Kinane, would you?  Gee it was good: he and George Duffield rode for the line as if not only their lives depended on it, but as if it was still their daily job, rather than a once-a-year venture.  One just had to scratch one's head and wonder aloud why on earth they had ever retired.

As regards pleasing results, coming a close second to Patriotic's victory was the recent win of Enthusiastic, the first winner trained in this phase of his intermittent training career of Mick Murphy.  This whole M. Murphy thing is very confusing.  When Mick was riding in jumps races in the '70s (for Middleham trainers such as Neville Crump, Pat Buckley and Steve Nesbitt) I think that he wasn't the only M. Murphy riding.  More recently, when his son Michael (pictured in Ed Walker's string recently) was riding on the Flat (most notably on Presvis) he rode as M. J. Murphy so that he wouldn't be confused with the M. Murphy who was riding over jumps.  Just when we got that straight - blow me, another M. Murphy has started riding on the Flat, and his middle initial is J. also.  So he's Michael J. M. Murphy.  And it's hardly less confusing for Mick senior now that he's training again: there's already a Mike Murphy training, so Mick (as he is invariably known) has gone down as Michael, which is even more confusing than it needs to be.  Anyway, Mick was either a salaried or a private trainer briefly for someone near Bury St Edmunds in the late '80s, but since then he's worked behind the scenes, spending some years as James Eustace's head lad, several years in Sheikh Mohammed's employ and several years running a livery yard.  And now he's a trainer in Hamilton Road - and got off the mark for this reincarnation when the Hon. Earle Macke-owned Enthusiastic won at Wolverhampton recently.  Enthusiastic was formerly with Luca, but when the Macke horses moved, Mick became his new trainer - and that recommendation by Earle Macke's racing manager Fiona Shaw (whose father Dan Burke and Mick have been friends for years) was clearly a very good one because Enthusiastic is in the hands of one of the most experienced and conscientious horsemen I know.

I can't end this cursory run-through of interesting results without mentioning the Town Plate.  I'd already decided not to try to retain it before it became tragically apparent that I didn't have a mount, my preferred option being that Lisa Jones' and Wayne Smith's wedding, with which it clashed.  Anyway, I headed off to Ireland that day and Clare Twemlow, Neil King's partner, won the Town Plate - which I'd reluctantly handed back earlier that week.  In her wake there came some brahmaful competitors, including the Brahmameister himself, Toby Coles.

Toby had had a very bad fall only two weeks previously so the fact that he was riding was remarkable - as was the horse he was riding, Dear Maurice, a winner at Brighton over six furlongs the previous month.  Dear Maurice unsurprisingly found the three and three quarter miles a bit far (as did Toby, who must have been in terrible discomfort as he really wasn't very sound at all) but still finished third.  That performance, though, was exceded in brahmaness by the presence of Mr Shammie, who rode the unplaced favourite.  Mr Shammie (real name Simon Archer) is one of the town's characters, his van (seen here outside the stable of Lydia Pearce, trainer of the horse whom he rode in the Plate) doing the rounds of the town anywhere there is a car needing to be valetted.  Anyway, that was a really plucky effort by Mr Shammie to take part - the only disappointment being that he was listed by his supposed real name in the racecard, rather than as Mr Shammie.  They really should have used the latter - and, of course, if he ever turns professional, he'd then just be Shammie.