Black Caviar, Frankel, Midday - and Oscar Bernadotte

Twin excitements: today is a lovely spring day with the temperature having risen from its overnight frost to the current balmy mid-afternoon high of six degrees, and tomorrow sees the debut of the much-vaunted five-year-old Oscar Bernadotte.  Oscar is Emma's horse,  having been bred by her and now raced by her and Steve McCormick, but I feel very proprietorial towards him.  Not only have I trained him for longer than I care to mention, but I bought his mother as a yearling, named her Desiree (after the book of that name, in which her son Oscar Bernadotte also appears) and was her trainer and owner or majority part-owner for the entirety of her racing career (which saw her placed once, beaten a neck in a poor 12-furlong race at Beverley as a four-year-old, in a few runs on the Flat and out the back on her only start over hurdles).

Not only that, but I also feel rather proprietorial about Oscar's father Sulamani.   He ranks as one of my favourite horses.  I always regarded him as one of the toughest and most genuine top-class horses whom I've ever seen.  When he retired I wrote an article in 'Winning Post' extolling his virtues and saying that he had to become a good stallion - so when he sired the St Leger winner (Mastery) in his first crop I was very pleased.  I was also pleased to see him at Dalham Hall Stud a few times, including in November 2004 with Michael Tidmarsh when he had not long come out of training and was still looking terrible, and when he covered Desiree in June 2007 (and looked terrific).

And, obviously, I've seen Oscar many, many times since then - including at Batsford Stud when he was a few days old, at Colton Stud a few times when he was growing up (including with his mum in the summer of 2008 in the first paragraph, and on a miserable day in March '09 in the second paragraph when he was a yearling) and daily while he's been here.  And now he makes his debut in the bumper at Southwell tomorrow, aged five.  It's a lovely day today and I enjoyed a lovely ride on him this morning (and, as you can see from his ears in this picture taken while we were cantering around Bury Hill, I think that he enjoyed it too) and I've been very happy with his work recently (and it has only recently that I've been able to say that, hence him not racing until now) so let's hope that he can acquit himself well.

Realistically, though, he'll be one of the outsiders in tomorrow's field, not least because he's the only unraced horse.  Two of his eight rivals are winners and some more have been placed - but at least Red Sherlock, Lady Cricket's four-year-old, who stood out among the initial entries, isn't running, having instead headed to Ascot yesterday (where he justified favouritism in what was surely a very good bumper).  William, of course, rides him, and he'll go there in good form, having won on his only ride today (at Market Rasen).  He outrode The Champ in a National Hunt flat race at Lingfield two or three weeks ago (on Foster's Road) so let's hope for the best tomorrow - and let's hope that the weather is as nice as it is today, when the conditions have been relatively idyllic, as this photo of Alcalde and Iva, taken from Oscar's back, shows.

Looking at the wider world, the big stories have clearly been Black Caviar and Frankel.  It looked very likely that she might be heading for retirement after her stay (shown here heading to the Al Bahathri early one June morning) in Newmarket last 'summer', when she was clearly sore and ran like a light of former years at Royal Ascot, notwithstanding the fact that she won the Diamond Jubilee Stakes.  Anyway, it's great that she's back, and it was lovely to watch her on TV yesterday running 55.4 to break the track record at Flemington when winning the Black Caviar Lightning Stakes with extreme ease.  That was great, so let's hope that the Black Caviar Show can keep rolling along for a while longer yet.

Frankel was, of course, the other star on show at Royal Ascot, but this week, while Black Caviar has resumed racing, he's started covering - and it was lovely that, apparently, his first mate was Midday (on Friday).  For most of 2011, Shane Fetherstonhaugh would ride Frankel first lot every day over and above looking after Midday (pictured here with Shane in the stable yard at Goodwood that summer just after winning her third consecutive Nassau Stakes) and frequently riding her.  So they're a match made in heaven - and that she turned out to be his first mate is just perfect.

It'll be so interesting to see how Frankel's first crop fare on the racecourse in 2016 and beyond.  Let's hope that we're around to see them, that Henry Cecil's around to train some of them - and if he is, then it's London to a brick on that the Frankel ex Midday colt or filly (assuming that he or she does eventuate) will be a resident of Warren Place.  And, if that's the case, we can assume that Shane (pictured here on Frankel last July) will be the youngster's daily rider.  I'm already looking forward to putting up a photo on this blog of him on board!