Saturday, July 25, 2020

Looking inwards, looking outwards

I wrote a chapter on Sunday saying that we would probably have two runners during the week, and I'm pleased to say that we have now got to Saturday, have indeed had those two runners and have come home from the races happily each time.  The Simple Truth, at last, ran a respectable race.  On the fifth start of his life, he did for the first time what one wants one's horses to do, ie finish his race off strongly.  He had to be anchored strongly out the back to enable him not to expend too much energy in the first half of the race; but John Egan is such a masterful rider that he was able to do that, and we consequently had a good run from him for the first time.

Funnily enough, John was able to anchor him early on so effectively and help him to finish the race so strongly that the stewards had us in to enquire whether we had actually been trying to win the race!  It wasn't, though, difficult to convince them (the truth) that the horse had run what was easily the best race of his life so far because of the way he was ridden, rather than despite it.  As an aside, it was worth pointing out that when one has a horse rated in the 20s, the one thing one definitely doesn't do is to try to get them to run badly: you're so keen to have their rated raised so that they can get into races, you do everything you can, as we did, to get them to run as well as possible.

Anyway, it was a massive step in the right direction to see The Simple Truth run like that and run that well.  It took Roy until he was five to learn that the second half of the race is the important part, so it's very pleasing that we're getting the message through to his little sibling at the age of only three and on only his fifth start.  I actually think that his difficult experience on his debut at Goodwood, when he suffered from heat stress after the race, might have contributed to the fact that it has been too fired up in his races.  He isn't a particularly hard-pulling horse at home and he wasn't too fired up on debut, but he was a very different horse when he went to the races after that.  But hopefully we can now put that behind us.

I'd like to hope that it may be onwards and upwards with Dereham too.  He is fairly slow but he kept on well up the hill at Pontefract, and when they show stamina and genuineness, as he did, one always has a chance.  He's now eligible for low-grade handicaps, and he'll find those a lot easier than the maiden or novice company which he's had to keep so far.  It's hard to know how good a race it was in general on Thursday, but it's safe to assume that the winner Whisper Not is well above average: his 20-length victory was as impressive as you could ever see.

Wednesday and Thursday were thus busy days, and Friday was a busy one too.  I wasn't expecting to be involved with the breeze-up sale (originally scheduled to be held at Goresbridge in Ireland but transferred to Tattersalls in Newmarket because of COVID-19) but in the event I was.  Dan Tunmore selected a very nice colt by Rock Of Gibraltar from the immediate family of Mount Nelson (who was also by Rock Of Gibraltar, which is very encouraging) and bought him on behalf of his father Barry for what seems a very fair price, and I'm delighted to say that the horse is now here.  He looks a very nice prospect - and not least because he seems to have been very well and very sympathetically educated by the top-class former National Hunt jockey Andrew Lynch at Kilbrew Stables.  If the way that this colt has been prepared is anything to go by, Andrew will establish himself as one of the leading breeze-up producers.

Looking to the wider world, the small field for 'the King George' today was an obvious talking point.  It turned out that it might as well have been a two-horse race because Japan ran miles below his best; and the second horse in this two-horse race, although a Classic winner last year, had finished third of seven in a Group Three race on his only run this year.  So one could almost say that it was, as far as Group One contenders went, a one-horse race.  But realistically, who was missing?  The form book says that Ghaiyyath doesn't want to run more than once a month, so he was never going to be there, having already won the Eclipse in July.

Anthony Van Dyke obviously would have been there but for reportedly being unhealthy.  Magical would have been an obvious contender, but when three middle-distance weight-for-age Group One races in Europe are scheduled for the same weekend (it isn't just the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh tomorrow as there is an identical race in Germany!) she is obviously going to have to miss two of them, and one can't knock her connections for running her in tomorrow rather than today.  Love and Serpentine are the only horses who one might say should have been there, but that still doesn't get us away from the fact that only two stables contain a horse good enough to run in the race (plus Godolphin having one, and only one; and, as I say, it's understandable that Ghaiyyath wasn't there) and that's not a healthy or satisfactory situation.  But it's beyond our control, so we'll try to not lose any sleep over it.

One could also say that the on-going interference debate is beyond our control, which it is.  So we will try not to get too exercised on the subject.  Another chapter was added to this debate in Sydney today.  Many of the cases we see are errors of omission (failing to prevent interference, or allowing it to happen) or ineptness (inadvertently encouraging horses to come off a straight line) but the fatal fall caused by Hugh Bowman came as a result of deliberate interference, although obviously he did not intend to cause the death of the horse with whom he interfered or to cause serious injuries to the jockey Andrew Adkins, instead merely intending to give the horse a gentle nudge out of the way so that he could take the gap which rightfully belonged to the other horse.

It's going to be interesting to see how this one is handled by the stewards and I don't envy them their task.  In the past, it has always appeared to me that in the case of fatal falls, stewards have been very loath to apportion blame, presumably to head off the prospect of the offending jockey being sued.  An obvious example of this policy came when the fatal fall of Jwala in the Hong Kong Sprint was attributed to general bunching, rather than to the jockey who seemed to have caused the fall.  That's understandable: if an insurance company has had a seven-figure payout because of the death of a horse (or because of the serious injury, or worse, of a jockey) then it would be understandable if it were to seek damages from the jockey who had caused the damage if it was down in black and white that the jockey had indeed been responsible.

And if that started to happen, then it would present racing with some very major problems.  In this case, however, I don't see how the Rosehill stewards would be able to avoid finding Hugh Bowman responsible for the fall, and that could have serious repercussions not merely for him but also for racing in general.  Anyway, let's hope that this very sad event on the other side of the world might help the BHA to come to the conclusion that the current situation in Great Britain (ie that the rules encourage jockeys to try the type of gamesmanship which ended so badly at Rosehill this afternoon) is a recipe for disaster.

5 comments:

neil kearns said...

Think the poor turnout in the King George may also have had something to do with the calendar its a week too early in relation to the Derby/Oaks for me but the obsession with keeping everything at Ascot in its place happens again

John Berry said...

Yes, good point, Neil. There would have been a greater chance of having either the Derby winner of the Oaks winner there if there had been one more week between them. The cast-in-stoneness of the Ascot programme, when so many others have been moved around, is odd.

neil kearns said...

Great piece by Frank Keogh on BBC website on mental health issues in racing worth a look

John Berry said...

Cheers, Neil. I'll look that up.

neil kearns said...

Just watched Tilsit win at Goodwood i fail to see how on earth that kept the race , to me the jockeys move ostensibly to block the favourite caused potentially dangerous interference thought The rider of the second had to take major avoiding action thereby losing any winning chance . All of it caused by Moore's wish to block and challenge by khaloosy i really cannot understand how the stewards did not throw the winner out and that Moore is not facing a suspension -and no i had no monetary involvement in the race