Monday, November 07, 2016

Heading to Huntingdon

Regular readers of this blog might remember that I got very excited a few weeks ago when White Valiant - whom I bred, own and train - was about, or so I thought, to make his debut.  Of course, it turned out to have been much ado about nothing: he went into the stalls, but when he came out of them it was out of the rear gates rather than the front gates.  He panicked in the stalls, was taken out and withdrawn.  He's basically very quiet and I don't expect him to have problems with the stalls long-term, but it seemed sensible bearing in mind that, still being unraced and thus eligible for bumpers, he can now start of racing without stalls, and can become a bit more seasoned before he has to go into them again.

So that means that we'll be heading off to Huntingdon tomorrow.  God only knows what to expect: I never really know how good a horse has to be to win a bumper, so I never really know what to expect from a horse making his debut in such a race.  Mind you, I don't think that that's really knowable, because there is a massive gulf in class between a good bumper and a moderate one, as one can get bumpers from which no subsequent winners emerge, and bumpers from which future Grade One winners emerge.  That's not really the case on the Flat: other than occasionally at really quiet times of the year, there is no such thing as a moderate maiden race.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to running him (I hope!) tomorrow.  As explained above, I don't really know what to expect, but I think that he has the makings of quite a nice horse, so I'd like to think that his chance is better than would be implied by the 100/1 quote which he appears to have been given.  We'll see.  Whatever chance he has, though, I'm sure will be maximised because he has a very good jockey, Daryl Jacob, booked.  Jack Quinlan was first choice, but he rides for Sarah Humphrey in the race.  William Kennedy was second choice, but he will be at Sedgefield for Donald McCain.  But I'm very happy have Daryl on board.  He's only had one ride for us previously - Russian Link at Leicester last autumn - and he rode her perfectly.  She ran poorly, but he did everything right, and I'd like to think that I'm giving him a better ride tomorrow.

4 comments:

Charlie said...

Well done John.

Brian Jones said...

^ ditto


great result!

Mulldog said...

Super win!

neil kearns said...

the only thing you failed to do was ride him probably would have won ten lengths brilliant performance John