Fakenham - one of the best

I see that I last wrote a chapter here on Wednesday.  Only four days ago.  Seems longer.  Part of that will be the recurrent drenchings we're getting from above and part will be having covered more ground: Kempton on Thursday night and Fakenham Friday afternoon.  And then the television took me all over the place on Saturday: to Caulfield to hero-worship Dunaden and to Ascot to hero-worship Frankel (and we'd be wrong not to hero-worship Cirrus Des Aigles too, a wonderful horse whose magnificent run meant that Frankel, for once, had to take part in a race, not a procession).  Kempton was pleasant enough, but it's preferable to race in daylight, and it's preferable when the horse runs to his or her best - and Zarosa unfortunately didn't run as well on the AW as she had previously done on the (wet) turf.  Still, no harm done.  The Racing Post Spotlight writer was evidently right to leave her out of his calculations - although I suspect that she ran not much worse than the horses whom he did highlight in a race which was dominated by outsiders.

Fakenham was a delight, as it usually is.  It's a real home-from-home.  The first winner wasn't local, but that result was very good anyway, the winner being ridden by William.  The horse (Fosters Road) is one of several Mick Channon-trained sons of his former charge Imperial Dancer to have saluted the judge, and the photograph in the first paragraph of him sticking his neck out suggests that these horses are ones to have on one's side - exactly as his jockey is.  The second race, though, did look like providing a local winner - until a couple of strides after the last, when Don Cantillon's mare Alpine Breeze (who was well clear and travelling easily, and who had jumped the fence well) stumbled and pitched her jockey Peter Carberry over her head.  That was just very unfortunate, and nobody's fault.

The third race was our race.  Ethics Girl will be among the smallest National Hunt horses around, but the evidence of her first hurdle run suggests that she's going to make the grade.  Time was when a horse with her Flat form would have gone to Fakenham in the autumn to make her jumps debut in a novice hurdle and started favourite.  Jumps racing, though, seems to have gone even more like the Flat than the Flat is: the race was full of horses who made her look like the poor relation, and she went off at double-figure odds.

Nicky Henderson had sent up a horse who had been sold for 100,000 gns after his first bumper, while David Pipe had sent up a horse who had finished third in an Ebor.  John Ferguson was running two Sheikh Mohammed horses who boasted very strong Flat form, and there were a few others with decent credentials.  On the way up there I was thinking how things have changed since the '80s when Philip Mitchell used to send up a box-load of moderate horses from Epsom and have loads of winners, often ridden by Simon Sherwood - and funnily enough Philip (who no longer trains but who has a horsebox) was one of the first people whom I saw on arrival.  I told him of my musings, to which he replied that the best illustration of the changing times came in the horsebox park, where he was parked next to two massive Godolphin lorries - complete with personalized numberplates (J3UAE and J9UAE) lest there be any doubt!

Anyway, Ethics Girl ran a lovely race.  She just took a bit of time to find her full confidence in her jumping under race conditions, but she warmed to her task well and kept on well in the finish, finishing fourth, beaten six and a half lengths, behind three nice horses.  It was a very nice start to what I hope might be a productive second phase to her career.  What was also nice was that the next race provided a good local winner, El Dancer getting home by a nose, our now-local jockey Denis O'Regan getting him home for Lucy Wadham.

So that was all good - as was the brahma of the day (Janah Emirates Sky Cargo trucks excepted).  Fakenham is an exceptionally good racecourse in many respects, with not least of its many good points being the fact that it is surely Britain's most dog-friendly racecourse.  Luke Harvey certainly made the most of its positive attitude in this respect, as you can see here, when I caught him multi-tasking out on the track before the first race, presenting his At The Races preview while seemingly taking a screen-test for 'One Man and his Dog'.  So that was all good.  I probably ought to air a few Champions' Day observations, but that can wait: this chapter can revolve mostly around a very different but similarly very good racecourse.