Gives hope to us all

We had a disappointing trip to Brighton yesterday. It is very rare that I am disappointed by one of Roy's runs, but I was disappointed yesterday.  I went into the race thinking that I'd be disappointed if he didn't finish in the first three, and he finished sixth.  It'll obviously help him getting back down to Class Six and having a lower rating, but even so I wasn't expecting to finish merely sixth of eight, or to be beaten 25.25 lengths.  But it was a really weird race, run very unsuitably from our point of view, so I'm content that things will work out better on another day.

Roy runs best when he sits last and is able to finish off strongly off a strong pace.  Yesterday had to be seen to be believed.  The fact that we sat fourth of the eight runners, when we're basically determined to sit last pretty much every time, tells you plenty about how unhurried half of the jockeys were.  Two of the runners went clear from the outset.  If no-hopers go clear, particularly if they are ridden by questionable jockeys, then it's generally safe to give them plenty of leeway.  In this case, though, it was the first two favourites and the jockeys were world-class, Adam Kirby and Richard Kingscote.  You can guarantee that those two jockeys would not be going too fast.

Another world-class jockey, Tom Marquand, worked out what was going on and, although his horse had started slowly, he moved up into third, albeit a fair way off the first two.  But the rest?  We'd still be running now if we'd waited for them.  John had to abandon the plan and sit fourth, albeit still giving the favourite a huge start in a sedately-run race.  At halfway the two leaders, including the obvious likely winner King Of The Sand (rated 86 in the spring of last  year, rated 70 yesterday) under Adam Kirby, were a long way clear.  If one were to have any chance of winning the race, one had to get after them.  We moved into third, but basically we had to make a premature move to do so and got tired at the end.

King Of The Sand won, heavily eased, by 13 lengths.  Richard Kingscote's horse was second, four lengths clear of Tom Marquand's horse.  And then two of the very conservatively ridden horses stayed on towards the end to pass us as we were tiring from our mid-race exertions.  It was just a complete non-event from our point of view.  I think that Roy probably isn't quite at his best yet - and it irks me to say so as I've been very happy with him - but the complexion of the race was just so far from our ideal scenario that I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I hope that we'll go back to Brighton in two and a half weeks' time, on 7th June.

Otherwise, it was, as usual, a pleasure to be there, particularly in such lovely weather.  And the afternoon started with a bonus.  I'm an optimist and am usually prepared to give a horse the benefit of the doubt even if he has achieved nothing in his early years in training.  Even by my standards, though, the first winner provided a remarkable and heartening case of coming good eventually: Pocket Warrior was not merely an eight-year-old maiden, but an eight-year-old who had never been placed!  He was beaten 63 lengths on his debut in a juvenile bumper at Huntingdon in November 2014, and he finally made the frame when winning yesterday (on, admittedly, only his tenth start) over five and a half furlongs in May 2019.  That's great.  It's probably worth mentioning that he has only joined his current (very good) trainer Paul D'Arcy this year.  Gives hope to us all.