Looking ahead to New Year's Day

Great excitement!  We don't have many runners in the winter (we had one in November and two in December, etc) but we shouldn't have to wait long to have a runner once 2017 has started because White Valiant (pictured here, yesterday, happily sporting considerably more mud than he will wear on Sunday afternoon) is declared for the last race at Cheltenham on Sunday.  It's always exciting to have a runner at Cheltenham, particularly if one doesn't have runners there very often.  In 22 years of training I doubt that I have had more than five or six, our most recent one having been more than five years ago, Alcalde in October 2011.

Our best result there was when Diamond Joshua finished third in the Triumph Hurdle, the first British-trained horse home  in the Britain's biggest juvenile hurdle.  But that was nearly 15 years ago, on Gold Cup Day 2002, the day that Best Mate won his first Gold Cup.  So that's a fairly distant memory by now.  That was actually the second time that I'd found my way to the placed horses' unsaddling enclosure at the Cheltenham Festival, and the third time that I'd been to the Festival as a competitor.  In 1985 I had led up the horse who finished fourth in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle (Welsh Warrior, ridden by Steve Knight, who is now Richard Hannon's head lad) and in 1987 I had ridden Le Vulgan in the National Hunt Chase (and fell off).

Both horses were trained by my boss Andy Turnell, as was the other horse I had ridden at the course (but not at the Festival): Black Rod, third behind the Fred Winter-trained Observe in an amateurs' steeplechase there in 1986.  But those are even more distant memories - so, as you can gather, any trip there is a rare and special occasion.  So we'll go to Cheltenham on Sunday and savour the fact of being competitors at the world's premier National Hunt racecourse; and anything better than that would be an unexpected bonus.  A further source of pleasure will be that we will have Davy Russell on board.

I was hoping that Daryl Jacob would be able to ride, as he's a terrific jockey and he rode the horse superbly when he won on him last month.  But the disappointment of the news that he was obliged to ride for Nicky Henderson in the race was assuaged by the discovery that Davy Russell was available to take his place.  There is no jockey, Flat or National Hunt, anywhere in the world whom I admire and respect more, and prior to today it had never occurred to me, not least because he lives and mostly rides in Ireland, that he would ever don my silks.  I hope that I don't forget my camera!

W. R. Swinburn - Requiescat in Pace

Another sad day: today I attended a third memorial service of the past fortnight or so.  A week or so before Christmas I had been part of a disappointingly and inexplicably small congregation in the Roman Catholic Church at the end of this street paying its respects to Jon Daly; today I was in the same church, part of a contrastingly massive crowd saying 'Adieu' to Walter Swinburn.  As often happens at this kind of thing, I came away wishing that the subject could have been present, not merely because that would mean that he/she was still alive, but more realistically because it would have been good for them to have seen the massive well of love, respect and affection out there for them.

Michael Haggas, who was Walter's agent from 1989 to 1995 and knew him very well, gave a lovely eulogy which hit all the right notes.  Without quoting from Kipling or talking about things in such terms, he portrayed the struggle which we all face to a greater or lesser extent, the sometimes daunting task of treating those two impostors, Triumph and Disaster, both the same.  He related how Walter would rationalize the bad days by observing that they merely served to help one to appreciate the good days all the more; and how he faced the inevitable tests which crop up through life with courage and with dignity.

Jockeying in one sense is a very easy way of earning a good living, and certainly most jockeys who become trainers generally end up saying that only now do they realize how easy they had it while they were riding.  But there is one big problem which jockeys face which is an issue for few other professions: the dieting.  It can make things very tough, and it certainly made things tough for Walter.  Had he been born 20 years later it would have been different, but his riding career came while a jockey was still obliged to be able to ride at no higher than around 8:07 or 8:08 if he was to be taken seriously.

Nowadays, as George Baker and Adam Kirby demonstrate, a jockey, if he has enough talent, can forge a very good career riding no lighter than 9 stone.  Walter would, relatively and figuratively speaking, have found that a piece of cake.  But his riding days came marginally too early for that luxury, and he did seem to struggle as his career went on.  Furthermore, like a lot of jockeys, particularly very successful ones, he possibly found retirement tough.  Riding was his vocation, and I never felt that his heart was in the training the same way as it had been in the jockeying.  In general, the withdrawal symptoms from ending a successful riding career are generally such that it comes as relief  when one sees a retired top jockey settling happily into something else, rather than a surprise when he/she appears to find it hard.

Anyway, the gist of these reflections is that it would have been particularly nice for Walter to have been there today, to see just how many people he had standing so staunchly in his corner because (not least because he was naturally modest and, as Michael said in his tribute, did not possess the self-confidence which he displayed in the saddle when he was out of it) he would not necessarily otherwise have realized how popular he was.  In general, there are all too many funerals which one attends and thinks, "I wish we had told him/her all this when he/she was alive!"  It all goes back to one of the wisest pieces of advice: 'Don't leave it too late to tell someone you love them.'

In 'Singing My Hymn Song', Malachy McCourt, while recalling a time in his life when he was finding the going very heavy, explains that the secret to life is straightforward enough: all that one needs to do is to open one's heart and let God's love flow into it.  Easy, isn't it?  Well, not really, because at times that can be much easier said than done.  We all need at times to remind ourselves that, for all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world, because it can become easy to overlook that fact.  In fact, it can become easy not even to believe that fact.

However, whatever burdens one has to bear, they are invariably borne more easily when one knows that people care.  When one remembers that God cares.  When one can remember that, as the beautiful 'Footprints in the sand' text which was printed in today's service-sheet reminds us, in our times of greatest need He is there not merely to walk beside us, but to carry us.  And when one knows that the people around us care too.  I hope that Walter was up there looking down on the church today, and that he saw how many people cared, and how deeply.  I hope that he is resting in peace.

Season of relative inactivity

We've made it through to December 28th.  I bumped into someone in the town about a week before Christmas and was asked whether I was doing some 'last-minute Christmas shopping'.  My idea of last-minute preparations are a bit more last-minute than hers, but somehow or other Christmas arrived and I was not as unprepared for it as my lack of preparation might have meant.  And very pleasant it was too.  As was our trip to Huntingdon on Boxing Day, when Delatite ran a nice race to finish sixth of the 12 runners in the bumper on his debut.  Joshua Moore had been booked to ride, but he was injured in a fall earlier in the afternoon so Tom Garner stood in and proved an excellent substitute (as I had expected as we already knew him to be a very good young jockey).

Other than that, I've eaten more than I should without being a glutton, and drank more than I should without going overboard.  I've done less work than I should, but have still ridden two or three horses every day and done plenty in the stable.  I've watched less television than I would have liked, and read less than I would have liked.  And I still haven't submitted my VAT return, which is due on or before 31st December.  So I haven't done very much at all, really, but that's supposedly what 'the festive season' is about nowadays, I believe.

Full steam ahead on the midwinter road to nowhere

Oh dear: two weeks between posts.  Where does the time go?  I generally find that time just goes at any time, but in the pre-Christmas period it  just goes even more so.  And that's even despite our having hardly any runners, as has been the case this year.  One runner (White Valiant, 1st at Huntingdon) in total in November.  One runner so far (Kilim, 0th at Wolverhampton) in December, hopefully to rise to two (Delatite, ???th at Huntingdon on Boxing Day) by the end of the month.  (And then I hope that we might have four in January.  White Valiant, Cheltenham, 1st January; Kilim, Wolverhampton, 20th January; Hymn For The Dudes, somewhere, late January; So Much Water, Kempton, late January).  But the time just goes anyway.

It's hardly surprising, really.  Everyone seems to be busy in the pre-Christmas period, even if that only means being busy shopping.  I did my bit today, 21st December, by writing and posting 20 Christmas cards.  I tend only to send Christmas cards to people whom I've hardly had any contact with over the past 12 months but am keen not to lose contact with altogether, rather than following the usual policy of sending Christmas cards (or handing them over personally, which doesn't make much sense really: just say, "Happy Christmas" if one is face to face with the recipient) to everyone one has ever met or has ever wished to meet.   And if I am in contact with them anyway - well, I'll just wish them even more well than usual.

And this is the time of year for staff taking time off, both because it's Christmas and because we are out of season.  Three people work here, aside from me: Jana Trnakova, Abbie Bunten and Dominika Valkova.  Basically through December it's turned out that we've had at least one person off at any time.  Jana has been away.  Dominika is currently away for two weeks, set to return to work on December 28th.  And I'd imagine that Abbie will be spending the period from before Christmas until after New Year with her family, although I suspect that she might want to come in on New Year's Day to see if she can maintain her 100% success rate of leading White Valiant into the winner's enclosure.

So that's that really: it's supposedly the quiet time of year, but we're still bloody flat out.  Or I am, anyway.

Looking back at the last chapter, I see that we had a couple of bits of feedback, thank you.  I'm glad that you enjoyed reading the chapter, Greg.  And, Neil, I didn't read Kevin's blog on the Best issue, but maybe I should have done as I was on the Sunday Forum on ATR on Sunday, a Forum which was obviously dominated by the Best (worst) debacle.  I'd like to think that we (ie Matt Chapman, Charlie Poste, Jim McGrath and myself) managed to tread the fine line satisfactorily, ie not being too mealy-mouthed but also not saying anything slanderous or unnecessarily offensive.

One could have argued that I ought not to have been saying anything in criticism of a fellow trainer, but hopefully that wasn't a problem, particularly as Graham McPherson seems happy enough to lead the prosecution of his fellow trainers (including those whom, it turns out, are innocent) without anyone (apart from me, or our colleagues unfortunate enough to find themselves being persecuted by him) finding anything odd or distasteful about it.  So I hope that the Sunday Forum went well, and happily any feedback which I have had subsequently has been positive, which is a relief as there was obviously scope for the other kind if we had (I had) got things wrong.

The other main topic on the Forum was the death of Walter Swinburn, which perfectly topped off a maudlin week for me, a week in which I had attended two memorial services (for Carol Whitwood and for Jon Daly) including one at which I had delivered the eulogy (ie Carol's).  It was easy enough to think of nice things to say about Carol, but harder to say them without faltering too much; but I'd like to think that I did our dear and sorely missed friend justice.  I hope so, anyway.  2016 has been what one might call an interesting year (along the lines of the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times") so I hope that, with only 10 days remaining, we have by now already exhausted our quota of bad news.  One wouldn't count on it, but.

Time to reach for the brandy

I always like to read the Readers' Letters in the Sunday Racing Post.  There are always a few interesting ones there.  This week's edition contained one from Nigel Payne, picking up on an article in the paper a couple of days previously which I hadn't read.  Nigel was explaining the unfeasibility of an idea which, apparently, Tom Kerr had put forward, ie that the Hennessy Gold Cup should still be called the Hennessy Gold Cup once Hennessy has ceased to sponsor it and once its new sponsor - which seemingly might be Ladbrokes - has taken over.  I can see both points of view, and realistically Nigel's verdict will hold true, because it would be an act of remarkable selflessness by the new sponsor to allow it.

But, by the same token, it's neither impossible nor unprecedented.  The Whitbread was inaugurated seven months before the Hennessy.  The Whitbread was formerly the longest-running commercial sponsorship, so the Hennessy took over that mantle the year after the Whitbread ceased to exist in 2001.  It's wrong to regard either of them as the first commercial sponsorship, of course, and one of the earlier ones provides us with a precedent to suggest that Tom's idea isn't totally beyond the pale.

It is hard to say which was the first commercially sponsored race in the UK.  That honour is often attributed to the Middle Park Stakes at Newmarket, which was first run in 1866.  It was sponsored by William Blenkiron, proprietor of the Middle Park Stud at Eltham in north west Kent (ie in what was then a pleasant rural location but which is now part of London’s south-eastern outer suburbs).  The Middle Park Stud was at the time the most significant and successful commercial stud in England, generating a good profit by selling a large draft of yearlings each year.  Mr Blenkiron inaugurated the Middle Park Stakes both to promote his business and to give something back to the sport from which he was earning a good living.

The Middle Park Stakes is, of course, still run (and has actually never missed a year, which makes puts it in a minority of historic races, even if the 1940 renewal was run at Nottingham rather than Newmarket) but, of course, is no longer sponsored by the (long-since defunct) Middle Park Stud.  In recent years it has been sponsored by other studs, eg Juddmonte, Shadwell, Newgate (GB, not Aus) and they have all been happy to have the name of Mr Blenkiron's stud share the billing with their own operations.  I assume that Harry McCalmont did a similar thing when the Cheveley Park Stakes was first run in 1899 (he had bought the stud seven years previously, which then comprised 8,000 acres and included all the land along that side of town, right up to the July Course - Stetchworth road, and including what was the National Hunt racecourse in the early years of the 20th century and which is now the Links) and that race retains the founding sponsor's name too.

However, the story about the Middle Park having been the first commercially sponsored race is one of racing’s myths.  It is easy enough to come up with a commercially sponsored race which predated it - and, in doing so, we can simultaneously debunk another of the sport's myths, ie that tradition dictates that races are not sponsored at Royal Ascot.  Ascot Races have been well attended since the reign of Queen Anne, even if initially getting there was not easy (unless one happened to live nearby, of course).  By modern standards the racecourse is close to and easily accessible from London, but for the first 100 years or so of its existence such a journey would have been a fair hike.

That journey, though, became a lot  more straightforward once the Great Western Railway began to lay its tracks heading westwards out of the capital.  In 1838, the GWR reached Maidenhead (eight miles from Ascot as the crow flies, ten miles by road).  In 1849 rail travel towards Ascot became even easier when the GWR opened a branch-line from Slough to Windsor; while from 1856 onwards there was a direct service from Waterloo to a new station at Ascot.  There was consequently a strong symbiotic relationship between Ascot racecourse and the Great Western Railway, which as early as 1839 was carrying over 5,000 racegoers during the week, who collectively paid over £2,000 for their tickets.

Consequently the Ascot Authority prevailed on the railway company to sponsor a race at the meeting, which meant that for several years in the middle of the 19^th century the commercially sponsored Great Western Railway Race was run at Ascot.  In 1847 it was part of the four-timer with which the champion jockey Nat Flatman ended the meeting, a sequence which comprised a sweepstake, a division of the Wokingham Handicap, the Great Western Railway Race, and the Borough Maiden Plate.  (One interesting aspect of this quick-fire four-timer was that Flatman completed it on only three horses, Pic-nic, owned by Lord Chesterfield, winning twice.  By modern standards, this is unusual both because of a horse winning twice in the same afternoon, but also because the second win came in the maiden race -  but that, of course, is explained by the fact that the qualification decreed that horses had to be maidens at time of entry, rather than starting).

Where, then, does this leave us?  Nowhere, really.  But the whole topic does reinforce a point which I made in a recent chapter, ie that the restructuring of our racing programme (in the form of the British Champions' Series) to make the sport less of an irrelevance in the eyes of the commercial marketing men has woefully failed to achieve its objective.  Obviously the Whitbread and the Hennessy were inaugurated at the time when the families owning the companies were keen racing people, so were not necessarily the targets for objective commercial promoters.  Colonel Bill Whitbread was a great racing man and I would imagine owned runners in his own race, even if the best horse whom I remember him owning, Kilbrittain Castle, raced best when tackling one lap of Sandown's steeplechase course, rather than two; while the first Hennessy winner Mandarin was owned by a member of the sponsoring family.

However, these sponsorships outlasted the era of the instigators' control.  They continued to be deemed justifiable sponsorship commitments in the new more commercial world, just as one would hope would be the case with races which gave great exposure to the sponsors.  But one by one they went.  We lost the Mackeson.  We lost the Whitbread.  And now we've lost the Hennessy.  Apparently the marketeers controlling Hennessy's marketing budget deem that the money would be better spent in the 'fashion' world.  Ye gods!  Isn't Hennessy Day at Newbury fashionable?  One would hope that it is, and it even had various celebrities posing for photographs in the Hennessy marquee on the day this year.

I saw some pictures of the guests.  The line-up included the very good actor who plays the nice vicar on the TV in 'Grantchester' (and who is a dead ringer for the jockey who rode this year's Grand National winner); sports TV presenter Kirsty Gallacher; and a woman whom I'd never heard of but who, I discovered, is one of the 'stars' (if that is the right word) of 'The Only Way Is Essex', a programme which I have never watched and am likely never to watch, but which I assume to be one of the worst programmes ever made.  Which is saying something.  Anyway, one can only conclude that the marketeers, despite the great leap forward which we were supposed to be making, now regard 'The Only Way Is Essex' as more fashionable than top-class National Hunt racing at Newbury.  How depressing is that?

Oh, by the way, on a happier note, I've worked out why Cottesloe didn't take up his engagement at Fontwell Park yesterday: he's running in a weaker race at Taunton tomorrow.  That makes sense of his having run at Chelmsford last week.  The form of his last run at Ludlow is working out well (the winner New Member won the other day) and he ought to have a first-rate chance tomorrow.  He has top weight and it's never easy to win under top weight, but he hasn't been harshly treated by the handicapper, and the form of his opponents isn't strong.  I know that I no longer train him, but I'll be proud of him if he does win tomorrow - as Jack Quinlan would be entitled to be too, because he taught him to jump, and he does jump extremely well.  I'm only sorry that it will be another jockey who reaps the benefit of Jack's good work.

One day at a time

The trip to Wolverhampton on Friday night turned out to be fairly straightforward, even if I was very drowsy at times on the journey home.  I kept the window down so that the icy blast kept me awake, and we got home safely.  And the run was OK.  On the face of it, it was moderate as Kilim only finished 10th of 12, but I wasn't too disheartened.  The main thing was that she needed to show that she had learned to relax in a race. She's bred to stay, but had not previously contested staying races because she was always in too much of a hurry.  But she ran as if she's finally learning to relax, so we can now run her a bit farther, and we can continue to travel hopefully (as always - I'm an optimist by nature!).

Another horse who ran seemingly moderately was our former inmate Cottesloe, who had his first start for Neil Mulholland at Chelmsford on Thursday.  He too didn't run very well, finishing 14th of 15 which was poor for him as he usually runs better than that.  However, it was the shortest race he's ever contested in England (it was a mile, and all his 20 races for this stable were over 10 furlongs or farther) so that's easily excused.  I was assuming that he was running in it solely to have a gallop in preparation for a run tomorrow at Fontwell, where he was entered in what looked a suitable handicap hurdle.  But he isn't declared for that, so we'll have to wait and see what happens next.  He's a lovely horse who ought to continue to hold his form, and who should have a win in him over the winter.

As we're into December we can say that we're in winter.  However, it has been very straightforward so far, all five days of it.  The worst aspect of winter is the wet and the mud, even more so than the cold.  But happily we are still blessed with high pressure so, although we have had to endure overnight frosts, we have been enjoying lovely days with very benign conditions, both overhead and underfoot.  Long may such weather continue - but, of course, it won't, as it has to start raining sometime soon, and once the place becomes a quagmire, it is likely to remain thus for the duration of the winter, unless we have the respite provided by a freeze-up at some point.  But we'll just enjoy the current dry sunny spell while we have it.

The world keeps turning and we keep going

The world has indeed kept turning as the week has gone on, as is generally the case.  It's been turning a bit glumly from my point of view, but one keeps going.  It helps to be busy (and fortunately, if that's the right word, I've been very busy) and good weather helps too.  The past two days were truly glorious: cold at the outset, but with crystal-clear skies which made for a few hours of splendid sunshine during the all-too-short midwinter days.  It's not really midwinter, of course, as today is only 1st December, which to my way of thinking is the first day of the three winter months.  But we're only three weeks short of the shortest day (which is a daunting thought in that we have another three weeks of the already-short days getting even shorter).

It was weird yesterday because the weather page on my phone maintained that it was 5 degrees for several hours during the day, but the frost never budged at all in the areas which the sun didn't reach.  And then last night it was ostensibly above freezing all night, and 2 degrees at dawn - and yet the conditions were extremely icy this morning.  So strange.  Exeter Road was like a skating rink for the first three lots, but once we had tip-toed down it, leading the horses, it was plain sailing for the rest of the exercise, thanks to the good work of the Heathmen in keeping the surfaces of the AW canters and of the walking grounds as they should be.  And plain sailing for the rest of the day too: although the forecast had said that we wouldn't see the sun all day today, we had bucketfuls of it again.  Truly glorious.

Anyway, I'll be off to Wolverhampton tomorrow with Kilim.  She's capable of going very well, but hitherto she hasn't been a very professional racehorse, falling into the trap of running her races the wrong way round, ie putting too much effort in in the first half of the race, and weakening at the end.  She's been going around in a very relaxed manner in recent weeks which is lovely, but she can still be headstrong enough when she gallops, so we'll just have to see how things transpire.  Still, she seems fit and sound, healthy and happy, and she has a good jockey (John Egan) booked.

So,  in what looks a competitive - if, obviously, low grade - race, we'll hope for the best and expect nothing.  Whatever happnes, it'll be a long day.  7.15 doesn't sound too late, but I'm quaking.  Racing at 7.15 means leaving the racecourse maybe 8.30.  And as the racecourse is Wolverhampton, which is 130 miles away from here, that means getting home some time after 11.00.  (And that's assuming that we don't have the overnight closures on the A14 which made trips back from Wolverhampton on Friday nights last year a real test).  And 11pm, over and above being about 7 hours after nightfall, is dauntingly late for someone who likes to be in bed around 9.00.

I got on my first horse this morning at 5.50 (for a lot in complete darkness, but there were no other horses on the Heath, so that was OK) on the way through to finishing morning stables at about 1.15; and I will be disappointed if I'm not in bed by 8.00 tonight (and I'd imagine that I'll be asleep within a couple of minutes of turning out the light).  So tomorrow evening's schedule - gulp!!  Let's hope that Kilim (pictured in this chapter, enjoying the afternoon sun yesterday with one of her friends) does run well, as a good run generally shortens the journey.  Coming home with a winner in the back makes the journey seem to take about 10 minutes, but even a good run buoys the heart.