Absolution and Hope

A fruitless trip to Wolverhampton on Saturday night.  Sacred Sprite was not disgraced, halfway down the field, 7th ex 13; but she ran like a horse who is ready for a spell.  That's not surprising: it was her tenth start in 10 months and this is still her first preparation, so she was entitled to start showing that she's had enough for the time being.  My expectation was that Konigin would fare better, but she fared worse.  She only finished tenth.  In her case the problem was my bogey draw on the AW, barrier one, which can be a recipe for being locked away on the fence for pretty much the whole race.  And that's what happened on Saturday.  Ah well, another disappointment, but no lives were lost.

Saturday, of course, wasn't only Wolverhampton (and Caulfield Cup Day).  It was Champion Stakes Day, or Champions' Day.  And there is a difference (even if, bizarrely, there isn't an apostrophe unless I put it where logic dictates it ought to be, but isn't).  What's the difference?  Champion Stakes Day was Champion Stakes day, a top-class raceday which also featured the Dewhurst, the Cesarewitch and the Rockfel Stakes.  But this is Champions (sic) Day, and it's an event.  (See previous chapter.  And 'events' is OK - it's only the word 'event', singular, which has been highjacked, not 'events', plural.  We still have that.  Or those)  And I heard that on the telly, so it has to be right.  And it's an event which didn't exist before the race was moved.  And I heard that on the telly too.

I suppose you could say that we didn't have a raceday (event) which included both the Champion Stakes and the crowning of the champion jockey and champion apprentice.  We still had the crowning of the champion jockey and champion apprentice, mind.  Only it took place at Doncaster.  And therein lies the problem.  The season didn't end last Saturday (at Ascot.  Bizarrely, even though that was the last day of the jockeys' championship, not all winners ridden that day counted.  If the jockey who had finished second in the championship, beaten by two wins, had ridden a treble at Wolverhampton in the evening - too bad).

The season ends on 31st January, and the turf season ends on November Handicap Day.  And everyone who has been misinforming us by spreading the word that it ended last Saturday ought to be feeling a slight pang of guilt at the fact that the Vertem Futurity is going to attract a small field on Saturday.  You can't go on marginalising the race, encouraging others to give it less respect than it deserves, and not take a small part of responsibility for the fact that people now treat it with less respect than it deserves.  Too many people have been doing so too often.  Thank God for Aidan O'Brien, the race's saviour.  If he'd taken the same decision taken by all British trainers bar Andrew Balding, ie not to have any runners, we'd be facing an even greater embarrassment than we already do.

Stables which don't contain any potentially suitable contenders, of course, are absolved from blame.  (This one included!)  But the lion's share of the blame goes to those who have consistently and subliminally encouraged us to regard the Vertem Futurity as a second-tier contest.  This includes anyone who has peddled the lie that the season ended last Saturday and also includes anyone involved with taking the decision that the race is not important enough to count towards the jockeys' championship.  Anyone in either of those categories definitely isn't absolved.

And it's worth pointing out that it is not only the Vertem Futurity which has been devalued: the jockeys' championship has also been devalued.  Just as the excitement engendered by 'The start of the Flat' cannot be explained to anyone who doesn't remember it, so it is with the excitement of the jockeys' championship as it formerly was.  And you don't have to go back to Piggott v. Breasley or Cauthen v. Eddery.  Just think back to the Jamie Spencer v. Seb Sanders duel.  We'll never see that tension again, or not so long as the current situation pertains.  Ending it at the stage at which it currently ends (ie when the top-class horses are the centre of attention but while there is still plenty of the (turf) season left to run) guarantees that the jockeys won't take centre stage.

By the way, we'll be off to Wolverhampton again today, with Hope Is High.  I can't say that my hopes will be particularly high, notwithstanding that course and distance will be suitable, she's fit and well, has a good jockey with a free claim, and isn't badly handicapped (by the standards of older horses).  It's just that we look up against it with so many potential improvers among the relatively lightly-raced and seemingly progressive three-year-olds in the race.  She may go and win, but she'll only do so if everything goes very right for her and a few of her main rivals under-perform (which could happen).  But the facts that it's an 11-horse race containing seven three-year-olds and that these three-year-olds are the first seven in the betting tells you all you need to know about how hard older horses generally have it against the three-year-olds in these 3yo+ staying handicaps.