Stable Life

Roy Rocket

2012-01-25T20:51:00.014Z

On the subject of names, I should just explain the nomenclature of Roy, who has been mentioned previously on this blog. I actually got ahead of myself because I was calling him Roy before he'd been named - but his passport (eventually) arrived back, to great excitement on my part, last week; so Roy Rocket he now is. To start with, I should explain why the fuss about Roy. I'd never particularly aspired to breed a horse, on the basis that I waste more than enough money on horses which other people have bred without breeding them myself so that I can waste even more. However, when Tony Le Brocq very kindly offered me Minnie's Mystery at the end of her racing career, this was too good an offer to turn down. I'd bought her as a yearling and sold her on to Tony, and she'd done very well, winning a stack of races in the Channel Islands including the Jersey Guineas and the Jersey Derby. It might be stretching it to call her a Classic winner, but she was a tough, hardy racehorse who'd won several races over a period of several years - in short, she was just the sort of mare who should be bred from (in stark contrast to the majority who are bred from nowadays). And she has a good pedigree. She's by a good stallion (Highest Honor) with her first two dams both being by good stallions (Green Desert and High Line respectively) and she's from an excellent Jim Joel family. Coincidentally, she's related to the first horse whom I ever rode in a race, the Jim Joel-bred Golden River, whose greatest claim to fame was beating Sea Pigeon in an amateur Flat race, ridden by Julie Cecil. Anyway, I'm breeding from her, and loving doing so.

Minnie's' first mate was, naturally, Largesse, who was standing at Greg Parsons' Upperwood Farm in Hertfordshire. Thereafter she has visited French stallions, so has lived and is living in France at Haras de la Cauviniere near Livarot in Normandy. There used to be one and a half euros to the pound which made things more appealing, whereas now there's only just over one, but even so I still think that there's often value to be had with French stallions. Her first mate in France was the excellent Gold Away (the resultant offspring of which mating is pictured with his mother in the previous paragraph at Cauviniere in April 2009). As I love Sunday Silence as a sire of sires, she then visited Layman (which union yielded her third colt, ie Roy) and then Gold Away again (a filly this time, now aged one). She is currently in foal to Le Havre, who stands at her home. Obviously, one can't keep all the horses one breeds (unless one wants to go broke, or unless one owns a country, or unless one owns and country and wants to go broke) and I do not own her first two foals Grey Panel (whom I named) and Dream Walker (whom I didn't). They are aged four and three respectively. However, I decided that I'd treat myself to retaining her third foal - hence the two-year-old gelding Roy Rocket being here. I think that I am quite good at identifying the potential of an untried horse (well, nobody is good at doing that, but relative to other people I think that I do OK) but I have to confess that with Roy I haven't a clue - I just can't be objective. What I can say, though, is that he is as friendly a little horse as you'd ever find. And that's got to help. Hasn't it?

Anyway, her unnamed yearling colt arrived here in early September. I don't think that I'd ever seen him, but after a couple of little hiccups he settled in well (helped by becoming acquainted with Gus, as you'll have seen in the previous paragraph) and is now the two-year-old gelding named Roy Rocket. Why Roy Rocket? Well, Minnie's Mystery doesn't give us much help, but as I understand things a lay is, in olde English, a song which is as much a story as a song. That's great for me: I'm not very musical so my favourite songs tend to be as notable for their lyrics as for their musical intricacy. Harry Chapin's 'Greatest Stories Live' or Chris de Burgh's 'Spanish Train and other stories' are as good album titles as you'd get, if it's the words that matter. So I was left looking for a name from a singer who tells stories. Harry Chapin would have been fine, except that the last time I named a horse after one of his songs (Abetterplacetobe) it wasn't a great success. Something from Paul Kelly ("a man who'll be remembered/Through the analog of time/Not for complicated feelings/But for passions sung in rhyme", as Rupert McCall described him so well) would have been great, or even something by the master of them all, Leonard Cohen - although admittedly his stories are so elegantly described that it's usually very, very hard to work out what's going on in them. I was swaying towards Harry Chapin's Mr Tanner, the true song-man himself, but in the end plumped for something similar from Queensland's greatest musical story-teller, Graeme Connors. I chose his version of Mr Tanner, Roy Rocket, another true song-man. It's a lovely story, as reassuring as 'Mr Tanner' is sad. Broken dreams maybe, but Roy Rocket ends up happy with his lot, "letting out his heart and soul/In the music that makes him feel whole/Roy Rocket is alive and well/Every Saturday night at the Grand Hotel". And Roy Rocket's name - well, it's not his real name at all, because before he settled down as a 9-5, Monday-Friday mechanic back in his home town: "When he was young, he moved to the city to give it a try/Changed his name to Roy Rocket, 'cos some fool promoter said it sounded right/Had a record released, but it died without even making the charts/Came back to his home town, married and settled down". It's a lovely story - and thus Roy Rocket is the perfect songman. Let's hope that the equine Roy Rocket can do this lovely song proud.

Let's hope particularly that he can do so because it will give some credence to the fact that I am now, by accident rather than design, a bloodstock writer. This is the other thing which prompted me to think that it would be a good idea to be breeding from Minnie's long-term. If you're going to preach, you should be practicing. Ross Du Bourg, in my desert-island book 'The Australian & New Zealand Thoroughbred', puts it perfectly when, breaking off from analysing the greats of bloodstock history, he expands on his own breeding operation: "On a personal note, I think it is fairly important that authors who expound theories on breeding in published form should 'have a go' at some stage of their lives and 'practice what they preach'. I launched my own financially constrained career as a thoroughbred breeder when I paid $A5,000 for my foundation broodmare Cabaletta ...". So, like Ross Du Bourg, I'm 'having a go' - and Roy will be at the forefront of letting you know whether there's any substance in my ideas. And, if it turns out that I've bred a dud, I won't be able to blame the trainer!

Special names

2012-01-23T22:13:00.007Z

As regular readers will know, we like to keep abreast of good names in this blog. For this reason, we should salute a winner at Wolverhampton on Friday night: Welease Bwian. His trainer Stuart Williams not only has the distinction of being one of the very best trainers in Britain, but also of having trained some very memorably-named gallopers over the years. And Welease Bwian, who was getting off the mark at the fifth attempt, has to go straight to the top of Stuart's charts, having taken his name from one of the funniest of the very many very funny scenes in 'Life of Brian'. Under normal circumstances, Welease Bwian would get a special names' chapter all to himself, but on this occasion he's going to have to share it, because The Broken Shore is set to make her debut at Gosford on Wednesday. She's a two-year-old filly by Hussonet and is the latest foal of Shantha's Choice, a daughter of Canny Lad (pictured at the top) who is best known as the dam of the champion racehorse and champion sire Redoute's Choice (pictured in the second illustration) as well as of his Group One-winning full-brother Platinum Scissors and half-brother Manhattan Rain. And what's special about that (apart from the pedigree)? Well, as I hope that you know, The Broken Shore is one of Peter Temple's outstanding novels. If you haven't read it, I urge you to do so - and if you have, why not read it again? I enjoyed it just as much the second time around, and there aren't many novels which I've read twice. So let's hope that this filly goes on to be a champion, because her connections have certainly given her a mighty name to live up to.

Welcome to the Madhouse!

2012-01-22T18:49:00.008Z

Gosh, it's all been happening this weekend. More lengthy whip bans, Flat and jumping. Gales. Somersby yet again confirming that he is top-class at two miles. Ascot's dress code fiasco. The Spirit Son insider-trading debacle. And, unfortunately, further confirmation of just how badly the BHA have got things wrong over the whip.

This confirmation came in the Chatroom in yesterday's Racing Post when a reader called for disqualification when the jockey is found guilty of "whip abuse". Whip abuse??? I assume that he was meaning slightly exceeding the arbitrarily-set quota. But have we gone so far down the track in the wrong direction that even regular racing followers have now been instructed to regard this as "abuse", which is one of the most emotive words in the modern lexicon? In the modern world, animal abuse has become nearly as much a taboo subject as child abuse. Let's be clear about this: horses are not abused with the whip, but the BHA was forced into taking a more proactive stance on the matter because of Jason Maguire's ride in the Grand National. Action was required, but it is only now becoming plain how badly this action has misfired.

The vast majority of Britons do not follow racing, but get a once-a-year look through the keyhole on Grand National Day on the BBC. For years, British racing had had guide-lines to make sure that use of the whip both not only is harmless but, nearly as importantly, is seen to be harmless too. These guide-lines were working - helped by the fact that modern-day air-cushioned whips would not be much use for harming a horse even if one tried. It was just terribly unfortunate that the winning ride in the Grand National badly flouted the time-honoured guide-lines and, more pertinently, the winner nearly collapsed through exhaustion after the race. Thus the once-a-year peep through the keyhole presented a grossly unrepresentative image; but the damage had been done. Damage control was required. The onus was suddenly on the BHA to make sure that the wider public appreciated that there basically is no abuse with the whip in racing - which there isn't - and to make sure that jockeys would not ride in the manner which Maguire had done on that one occasion. For that latter part, it merely needed to re-emphasise the existing guide-lines, because Maguire would not have ridden as he did had he followed the guide-lines which were already in place. And the former part need not have been difficult, because it only involved telling the truth, making the public appreciate the situation - that use of the whip in racing does not harm horses - as it is.

So what the BHA has done is to scrap those guide-lines and to provide a barnful of evidence to the wider public that suggests that there is a problem in racing as regards use of the whip. Strange but true. The new rules which have unnecessarily replaced the previous guide-lines have predictably led to a barrage of whip suspensions, and all that these suspensions have done is to confirm the suspicions of those (probably few) people who had suspected that there was a problem. After all, the logic would go, there has to be a problem if all the leading jockeys are constantly being banned for whip abuse, doesn't there? It almost defies belief that, having engineered A P McCoy's winning of BBC Sports Personality of the Year, the BHA (well, it was the BHA spin-off RFC which produced the SPOTY coup, not the BHA itself) could create a situation in which that jockey hitting a horse nine times rather than seven, or whatever it was, in some race somewhere that would usually have attracted no attention at all could end up as a main headline on the general BBC news, "BBC Sports Personality of the Year A P McCoy banned from racing for whipping a horse".

It has been plain for weeks that the course on which the BHA is taking us is doing untold damage to the sport in the eyes of the wider public - but what is only now clear is that it is also doing the sport damage in the eyes of its own regular followers too. That regular racing fans have now been taught to regard nine strokes of the whip in the finish as "abuse" is just disastrous. The eight-stroke limit, or whatever it is, is a purely arbitrary figure, plucked out of the air. If nine strokes is abuse, then so is seven, so is five, so is three ... . It's as if the government had decided that 'six of the best' for schoolchildren represented abuse, so teachers weren't allowed to cane a child more than five times. That clearly would never have happened. The cane is either deemed acceptable (which nowadays it isn't) or it isn't. Ditto with the whip. To have instilled in racing's audience, as well as in the wider audience, the idea that nine strokes of the whip represents abuse of the horse, the BHA has set us off down a road which has only one logical end-point: the end of racing as a competitive sport, with asking a horse for maximum effort being deemed unacceptably cruel.

It is time for the BHA to do what it should have been doing all along - telling the public that air-cushioned whips do not hurt the horse, that jockeys apply these whips in a measured and tempered way in races closely supervised by stewards, and that there is nothing unacceptable in a situation where at the end of the race the jockey uses his whip in a responsible manner to let the horse understand that the time for maximum effort, for getting to the winning post as fast as possible, has arrived. If we cannot look the public in the eye and say that, then there is no future for racing. Hope is on the horizon in that the BHA has just taken on a new leader who is supposed to be a wise man of action. Let's hope that he is, because wise action is required to repair the damage which the BHA has been causing in recent weeks.

Damage was also caused by Ascot's ill-advised decision yesterday to stigmatize men who bought tickets to the 'Premier Enclosure' (ie the members') and chose not to wear a collar and tie. There was actually method in Ascot's madness. The idea was that the collar-and-tie thing is being phased in gradually, with yesterday, the first time it was applied, seeing it waived in practice as a bedding-in concession. Ascot clearly should have told everyone when they bought the tickets or entered the racecourse, but the decision was taken that as people entered the members' from Tattersalls', they would be told that in future their attire (if applicable) would not be acceptable. Obviously racegoers wander in and out of the members' throughout the afternoon, so it seemed a good idea that one's badge would be marked when one was told, so that the gatemen wouldn't need to annoy people by giving them the same lecture ten times in one afternoon. In retrospect, Ascot clearly went about things the wrong way. The world and his wife have now told them that and they don't need to be told any more. They have been roundly castigated and they have admitted their guilt unreservedly and are going well beyond the call of duty in making amends. Good on 'em. They have made one error of judgement (and, as I say, an error which did contain method in its madness) and now they have apologised and put it right. A regrettable incident, but one which has merely confirmed that Ascot is a racecourse which is genuinely trying to get things right.

Compare and contrast, though, with Cheltenham. A couple of weeks ago the Racing Post carried a long, reasoned and detailed letter from a long-standing regular Cheltenham racegoer outlining why New Year's Day there had been akin to a holiday in Fawlty Towers. It was embarrassing just reading it. The man was very reasoned, made no threats of future boycotts, but just outlined why things had been so dreadful. I have read no explanation from Cheltenham, no declaration of intention that the mistakes should not be repeated and no condemnation of Cheltenham's failures. It's as if this debacle never happened. The litany of incompetence and substandard service described therein made for far worse reading than reports of Ascot's solitary error, but it seems as if nobody minds. Ascot must be looking at Cheltenham's charmed life with envy - while poor Anthony Knott must be scratching his head. I was at Wincanton yesterday but unfortunately didn't see this wonderful little show. Apparently Anthony Knott was so excited when his horse won that he jumped on board behind the jockey as the horse was walking back into the winner's enclosure. Obviously the great god Health And Safety wouldn't like this, so Anthony Knott has been hit with a 100-pound fine. Honestly! Wouldn't a reprimand have sufficed? The BHA sets off down a path which is endangering the whole future of the sport, Ascot can irritate hundreds of racegoers while re-igniting the fires of all the 'racing's in a time-warp' critics, and Cheltenham can put on a feature meeting where the standards of service are bad enough to alienate thousands - and there is no sign of a reprimand, let alone a 'bringing the sport into disrepute' charge, for any of them. But Anthony Knott jumps onto the back of his own horse, which serves only to bring a few smiles to a few faces, and so cops a fine.

Still, I suppose that the hundred pounds will help to pay for the forthcoming Spirit Son Betfair enquiry which racing's police will presumably be about to undertake. In short, Spirit Son was one of the favourites for the Champion Hurdle. He galloped on Thursday. Some time afterwards his price began to drift on Betfair. By mid-morning on Saturday he had gone from 8/1 to 25/1, at which point his trainer Nicky Henderson announced that he had picked up a leg problem which would almost certainly rule him out of the Champion Hurdle. Nicky Henderson was, of course, under no obligation to make details of the horse's injury public immediately - in fact, he would have been wrong to publicise it until after he had informed the horse's owner. However, obviously someone (presumably neither Henderson or the owner) decided to make a sneaky buck and lay the horse on Betfair while they knew of the injury while the wider public didn't. Nicky Henderson presumably has done nothing wrong other than failing to control his staff (or, probably, just one member of it). And that's no disgrace, as the Teofilo thing told us that even Jim Bolger can't do that - and if he can't, then nobody can. However, all this has achieved is, presumably, to kick-start yet another of these interminably expensive security department investigations in which scores of expensively-employed ex-coppers will be scouring Betfair's records to identify the layer and then trying to find the connection between him and whichever lad let the cat out of the bag. And, in these straitened times, racing needs that like a hole in the head.

Anyway, that's been the weekend in our little corner of the world. Paul Bittar - welcome to the Madhouse! To return to sanity, our trip to Wincanton was pleasant enough. The wind was very strong, but fortunately not quite strong enough to bring racing to a halt, even if the main stand was closed off and two hurdles were omitted. The first race was run in bright sunshine (pictured) but in such windy conditions that didn't last for long, and conditions became progressively gloomier as more and more clouds sped our way. However, amazingly it didn't rain, it wasn't cold, and it was great to be racing as late as 4.25 (obviously, in winter the farther south one goes and the farther west, the later dusk will arrive, hence Wincanton being a good place to hold a late race) which was a nice sign that we are heading towards spring, as it would have been pitch black at such a time a month ago. Anyway, Frankie (pictured) ran a nice race. He travelled well for much of the race (mind you, it was very slowly-run, so they all did) before finding himself not fast enough up the straight when the tempo increased. However, he still ran quite well to finish 8th of 18, which was pleasing. For a 33/1 shot that represented a good run, so I'd imagine that we came home happier than did the connections of the favourite It's A Gimme, who finished second. Mind you, that horse still ran well and would probably have won but for being ridden too conservatively in a slowly-run race - and the fact that on form he should have started around 1/3 but actually went off at 5/6 suggests that J P McManus won't have lost too many bets on him yesterday anyway.

Rain, rain go away

2012-01-20T19:22:00.005Z

Firstly, the weather (obviously). Too much of it, I'm afraid. Oh for those recent hard frosts. You'll have worked out that it was cold at Wolverhampton on Monday, but you can cope with cold if conditions if the sunshine is as brilliant as it was then. But now? Much milder, but ever so wet. The night before last it rained all night, even if yesterday morning it did dry up for a while, with even a few hours of intermittent spring-like sunshine through the day. But come the night - well, a bit of rain last night became constant drizzle around dawn, which became solid rain all day. I'd say that we must have had a couple of inches of rain in the past three days, so unfortunately we have now (finally, admittedly - we'd usually have reached this stage at least a month ago, for which we should be thankful) reached our usual winter saturation point. I'm afraid that this property will henceforth, as of yesterday, be very wet and very muddy until spring, which probably means that we now have a couple of months of grim conditions to face. Still, worse things happen at sea; and it is, of course, wetter there too. But, oh for the ice which was baffling young Gus only four days ago. You could walk around the yard barefoot then (as long as you don't mind having very, very cold feet) but you wouldn't want to do so now.

We actually had the best of both worlds on Wednesday when we went to Southwell with Alcalde. It wasn't raining and it was very mild, which was rather pleasant. Southwell, for those who aren't familiar, is actually rather nice, but its weather is usually worse than most other places'. But on this occasion it laid on very pleasant conditions. Alcalde (pictured coming on off the track) ran OK too. He finished fourth with the first two clear of the remainder, but even so he showed enough on his first run at three miles to suggest that he should carve out a worthwhile role for himself as a staying handicap hurdler. He was still going forward as they passed the post, so I suppose in retrospect we've just got to be amazed that he was able to win (admittedly a weak race) over two miles at Fakenham. That race was nearly a year ago and in one sense it is a shade disappointing that he hasn't been able to get his head in front since then as he's had a few races, but he's generally run well enough - and this first run at three miles suggested that, granted normal luck, he might be able to add to his tally before too long. So that was promising enough - as, I hope, will be Frankie's run at Wincanton tomorrow. One might observe that Wincanton is a long way to send a horse, but with a syndicate horse it's not a bad idea to run on a Saturday if one can as that gives more of his connections a chance to attend; and it's a National Hunt novices' hurdle, which makes sense for a horse who has never run on the Flat. So off to Wincanton we go - but unfortunately fate has decreed that it features a horse much better than one would normally face in such a race, the top-rated horse It's A Gimme being rated something like 140. That, I'm afraid, means that it's hard to see anything other than It's A Gimme winning the race. Still, it's only early days yet, so if Frankie (pictured last month looking considerably less clean than he will be tomorrow) can run a nice race, whether or not he squeaks into the money, it would be a worthwhile outing. Let's hope so.

A pleasure

2012-01-17T21:26:00.006Z

What can I say about Karma Chameleon? He just continues to amaze. Yesterday was a cold day after a cold night, but it was very pleasant at Wolverhampton in wonderfully brilliant winter sunshine - but even if conditions had been as dull as they had been when the little horse had won at Southwell just after Christmas, he would have fully brightened the afternoon. He arrived here rated 54, finished second at Kempton and thus had his rating raised to 56 - and now, yesterday, he has won (his fourth consecutive race) off a rating of 72. And basically fairly easily. He's just such a tremendous little horse. So professional and unflappable before, during and after the races. So that was just wonderful. We've been lucky, of course, in that the races he's won have been extremely uncompetitive, but even so winning is always easier said than done, whatever the circumstances. And I think that the runner-up yesterday, the Mark Johnston-trained New Decade, will turn out to be quite a nice horse. He looked easily the nicest of our opponents yesterday (and is a far more imposing horse than dear little Karma) and duly ran as such. You can see him alongside Karma in the second photograph, taken as the horses were behind the stalls, and I hope that he turns out OK (as I believe that he will) as he is owned by very nice people, Claire Riordan and Kieran Coughlan. On the subject of nice people, I should highlight how decently Karma's jockeys handled the fact that two of them were at Wolverhampton yesterday (with the other one, Seb Sanders still being off injured) while obviously only one could ride. Shane Kelly had been second on him at Kempton and had won on him at Wolverhampton, while Hayley Turner had had one ride on him for one win (at Southwell on his most recent start). Anyway, rightly or wrongly I elected to put Shane on as he'd ridden the horse twice, but really I'd have felt bad for which ever one didn't get called up, as both deserved the call. Anyway, one might have thought that both would have felt that they deserved the ride - but it's a measure of their decency that both behaved as if they felt that their claims to ride the horse weren't the strongest. Shane straight off thanked me for putting him back on the horse, saying that he certainly hadn't assumed that the ride would be his - while Hayley, when I sought her out to tell her that I wasn't very comfortable at not having given her call-up, reassured me that she hadn't expected to get the ride, as the mount had been Shane's in the first place. Both behaved very well, and it's a pleasure to use jockeys like that - just as it's a pleasure to train horses like Karma Chameleon.

Let's hope that Alcalde, who runs at Southwell tomorrow, can be inspired by his achievements.

Reunited - Lanzarote and Comedy Of Errors

2012-01-15T19:55:00.015Z

Well, yesterday truly was a day to remember. For several reasons. Firstly, it was truly splendid. We had a hard frost, but once the sun came up we just had the most magnificent views all day. Friday had been good in this respect as the previous chapter had shown, but yesterday was even better. We just had 'bootiful voo' after beautiful view, and I'll insert a few of such vistas in this chapter. We then had the thrill of watching William ride a terrific race to get Swincombe Lane home by a nose in the Lanzarote Hurdle. That was really great as we like William so much, so it's great to see him ride a big winner (a) because it's nice for him and he deserves his success and (b) because it's good for the world to see what a good jockey he is, because that seems to have been a well-kept secret for too long. However, this great result came with two stings in the tail. Firstly, and most obviously, William was banned for seven days and fined his share of the prize money (about two and a half thousand pounds, I believe) for supposedly improper riding (ie hitting his mount ten times during the course of the race, with one of these whacks supposedly being in the wrong place). Secondly, and only Racing UK viewers will know this, he was savagely criticised by the TV pundits, who had come to the conclusion that he gone to sleep on the horse and hadn't ridden her hard enough far enough from home, and that she'd won despite the jockey. Honestly - but I'll come on to that later.

I'll start by setting the scene with Cornelius Lysaght's post-racing Tweet from Kempton: "@WTKJockey widely-considered to have shone; one official sighed: 'Before the new rules you'd have called that a really great ride.'" Anyway, William's ride really was a classy one. He was in a difficult position because he'd been told to race prominently, but the leader ran off the track with a circuit to go, so he found himself in front a long way from home. This is a very difficult position for a horse and jockey: you'll find yourself facing one challenge after another, and the real temptation is to be forced into using one's mount up too early. The first horse to put pressure on William was the other joint-favourite Decoy, but running down the back straight there were a host pressing up behind him. Thankfully William resisted the temptation to keep increasing his advantage and, while he was obviously already sooling her along to a certain extent, he still hadn't really asked his mount as they turned into Kempton's long straight. Worryingly, there was one horse following him through going seemingly better, and this horse duly joined him at the second last hurdle and went a length up on him. At this point, William could clearly wait no longer and rode the mare strongly. He hit her five times between the last two flights and another five times after the last. She responded admirably to his urgings and stuck her nose in front right on the line. It was a wonderful win, and tremendous performance by both horse and rider. I was left feeling slightly sorry for the runner-up, who would surely have won had he not hit the front too soon. However, that is no criticism of his jockey James Best, who is a terrific young rider whom I've been admiring ever since I saw him win a steeplechase one evening at Stratford in the summer with a terrific ride. He is surely a star jockey of the future, and when he's had enough experience to have ridden out his claim he will surely be on a par with even the best jockeys. However, yesterday he didn't ride his horse as well as William rode the winner, but that's only to be expected: he's a seven-pound claimer and thus is entitled to make a good seven lengths' worth of mistakes during the race. As it was, he made maximum of two lengths' worth of mistakes, so it's fair to say that his mount would have run worse if any top professional had ridden, because he'd have carried 7lb more, and the top professional certainly couldn't have got the horse to find another seven lengths. The comments in the Racing Post are rather harsh on James Best ("... almost 1 length in front and looked winner last, idling flat and edging left, rider changing whip hand and fumbling with reins final 150yds, driven close home, headed on post") but I wouldn't be too harsh on the technicalities - but would say that, had he held on to his mount a bit longer rather than sending him past the leader with 400m remaining, he would have won. Anyway, that's by the by - but you'll see why I'm labouring the point when I start the next paragraph.

Straight after watching the Lanzarote Hurdle, I was left flabbergasted by the post-race analysis on Racing UK. Having been impressed by William's 10-out-of-10 ride, I was more than stunned to hear Lydia's side-kick (whose name I don't know) tell us that Swincombe Flame had won despite the ride. William had, apparently, gone to sleep early in the straight, hadn't ridden her hard enough early enough, had let the runner-up get first run on him and had been lucky to get out of jail, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in the final stride and thus fluking a win which should have come easily and decisively. Lydia must have been put in a difficult position: she'd have been loth on air to tell her side-kick that he was talking nonsense, but at the same time she clearly couldn't endorse such idiocy. To me it was perfectly plain that the runner-up should have won but had come too soon, and that William consequently, by riding more patiently, had been able to beat a horse who should have beaten him. But therein lies the problem, and it's one which I have aluded to in the past. Traditionally, we have regarded the ability to remember that the winning post comes at the end, rather than at the 200m, as the hallmark of a great jockey. Nowadays, however, it is all too often the case that the jockeys who get the plaudits from the pundits are those who ride as if it is at neither the end nor the 200m, but at the 400m. The pundits love busy jockeys, those who ride their mounts hard from a long way out, those who can turn what should have been a straightforward, relatively easy win into success (or even defeat!) in a hard-fought slog. How often have we heard that "the strength of whomever proved decisive"? And that's why the over-use of the whip has become an issue: jockeys nowadays are under so much pressure to be seen to be as 'strong' that 'strong' riding has become almost compulsory. If you can be slated for riding a well-judged race and resorting only to pressure as a last resort, but praised for 'strength', you're going to make sure that you look busy, thus giving your horse a harder race than need be and thus needing to be busy. It's a vicious circle, and I'm afraid that the ignorance of our pundits has an awful lot to answer for. And, as is shown by the fact that the aftermath of the race has been dominated by rightful condemnation of the injustice of William's punishment while the crassness of the Racing UK analysis has passed unremarked upon (other than here), the pundits get off extremely lightly for the part which they have played in causing the current sorry state of affairs.

Let's hope that our trip to Wolverhampton tomorrow can be more straightforward.

Betfairgate

2012-01-13T16:55:00.017Z

It hasn't just been the boots buzzing around my head in recent weeks. I've also had Betfairgate exercising me, so I'll express my puzzlement on that one too. First, though, the important stuff: my favourite topic, the weather. It's easy to forget that we had a couple of days of very strong winds in the middle of last week, because since then conditions really have been very clement. Just like spring, really. Dry, warm, still, plenty of sun; and yesterday we had, I read, a top temperature of 13, which is about as balmy as one could get in the second week of January. The surface of the field is soil rather than mud, so that's a real bonus for man and beast alike. The horses have been revelling in that, while out on the Heath it's been lovely. There was a frost this morning for a change (and I'm sure that we're going to get a harder one tonight) but once the sun came up (as the final six photographs show) we had once again a lovely day. Anyway, this chapter will be illustrated with some of this week's photographs, with no further explanation for them attached other than my saying that the first five shots were taken a couple of days ago and show Karma Chameleon keeping himself fresh for his trip to Wolverhampton on Monday.

Yes, the Betfair thing. Let's start at the beginning. Initially I couldn't understand how Betfair was legal. It was clear to me that Betfair was a commission agent, with the problem that many of the bookmakers with whom Betfair placed the commissions were unlicensed, which made the whole business illegal. Anyway, it was eventually explained to be that, while in practice this is how it worked, in theory it is different: Betfair is a bookmaker who runs a completely balanced book and who accepts bets not only for a horse to win, but also for a horse to lose. His way of balancing his book is making sure that the bets he takes on each horse to win are exactly the same as the bets he takes on each horse to lose. That way he can't lose money. He can't, of course, make money either, because he breaks even on every race irrespective of which horse wins - so what he does is charge a commission, and therein lies his profit. So that all made sense: we might describe the people backing the horses to lose as layers, but (while they are clearly in practice laying the bets, which is not legal, other than for the minority of layers who did hold bookmakers' licenses) technically they aren't laying the horses: Betfair is laying the horses, and these people are backing them to lose. Semantics, maybe, but that's grand. All is legal and above board.

Now things look rather different. A couple of days after Christmas, Betfair dropped its guard. It accepted 23 million pounds' worth of bets at unrealistically long odds from one punter that Voler La Vedette, the hot favourite, would lose, and so simultaneously accepted bets from other punters (totalling a potential outlay of 23 million pounds, of course, were she to win) that she would win, also laying these punters unrealistically long odds. All would have been fine had she lost because the man who had backed her to lose would have collected while her backers would have lost and would have paid up; but she won. Anyway, Betfair, which operates only deposit accounts and no credit accounts, then discovered that the man who had placed 23 million pounds on her to lose only had a thousand pounds in his account. Betfair clearly was not going to get paid by the man who had backed her to lose. Therefore Betfair, for once, did not have a balanced book. In theory it was balanced because the man who had backed her to lose owed Betfair 23 million, but in practice it was hopelessly skewed: that man could not and would not pay, while Betfair still owed 23 million to the punters who had backed her at long odds to win. Still, Betfair wasn't the first bookmaker to make a major blunder, so it could put that one down to experience, pay the 23 million and reflect that, as a plc worth billions and with plenty of assets on which to call, it had had a very bad result indeed, but was still solvent and had still ended up less damaged than numerous other bookmakers (eg Gary Wiltshire on the day he got things badly wrong when Frankie rode his Magnificent Seven) had been in the past, when their unbalanced books had left them facing disaster because the results had gone the wrong way. Betfair wouldn't go broke, life would go on - and, you never know, Betfair could always try to recoup whatever it could from the man who had backed the mare to lose, even if clearly it would never be able to get anything like 23 million from him.

That's not how it has turned out, though. Betfair has decided not to pay the punters who have won on the race, on the basis that, as it is not going to be paid by the losing punter, it is thus absolved of its responsibilities to pay the winners. How can this be right? Were Betfair, as I had at first assumed, a commission agent, then Betfair clearly wouldn't be paying out: if the layer defaults, then the commission agent has nothing to pass on to the winning punters on whose behalf he had placed the bets. But, as we have established, Betfair is not a commission agent. (Just as well, because if he is, he's been placing bets with unlicensed bookmakers, which is illegal). Betfair is the bookmaker who has laid the bets. I can see no justification for a bookmaker deciding after the race that, simply because in retrospect he was unwise to have accepted a bet, the bet is void. Gary Wiltshire didn't take that view after his Ascot fiasco. Say Black Caviar and Frankel meet in a match. One punter stakes 23 million on Black Caviar with one bookie, so the bookie realises that he can afford to take plenty of bets on Frankel, and duly accomodates all and sundry. Frankel wins. After the race, the bookie realises that the man who has placed the 23 million on Black Caviar isn't going to pay him - so he just decides that he won't pay out Frankel's punters because otherwise the race ends up a big loser for him. Is bookmaking really allowed to operate on that basis? Maybe it is. Maybe in this 21st century which seems to baffle me at every turn we have reached the stage that it is now considered acceptable for bookmakers to "void" (ie default on) bets whenever it suits them. It would, though, be sad if we have reached that stage; and you'd like to think that the great layers of the past, who'd have paid every penny which they possessed (which is something which Betfair wouldn't even need to come close to doing to pay out those who backed Voler La Vedette) rather than welsh on a bet, would be turning in their graves.

On a soapbox

2012-01-10T19:38:00.009Z

Today's lesson comes from the book of Wath, beginning at chapter 1984. Chapter 1984? Well, that's when I started work. Leaving school after sitting my A-levels and then Oxbridge, I started work for Andy Turnell at Ogbourne Maisey. It was a great stable in which to begin one's working life. Andy was then in his, I think, third season as a trainer, having retired from race-riding to take over his father's stable earlier than he had intended because of the death of the latter. Anyway, I was working for a great horseman in a stable of lovely horses, owned by good owners and looked after by really good staff. Andy had already saddled a Cheltenham Festival steeplechase winner (Tracy's Special, pictured) and the stable also included the subsequent Grand National winner Maori Venture, as well as a novice hurdler called Tawridge who became a top novice steeplechaser a couple of years later. It was a great place to learn plenty - and one of the many things which I learned was that horses should always wear boots on their front legs when jumping. Apparently, years previously Bob Turnell had changed his plans when up on the Downs and asked a very good horse to school - and, as that hadn't been the plan, the horse wasn't wearing boots. Anyway, the horse struck into himself (the front of his back hoof struck the back, ie the tendon, of the front leg) and the horse was badly injured. He didn't make the same mistake twice, and Andy never made it either. Anyway, I thus grew into adulthood knowing that horses should always wear boots when jumping, either at home or in races.

There was, of course, a catch. Those old-style leather boots weren't actually much use: better than nothing, admittedly, but if one struck them with an axe - which effectively is what happens when a horse's back leg strikes the front one at that speed - the blade (ie the hind shoe) goes straight through and into the leg below. This was graphically shown to me when I took a steeplechaser to Folkestone in maybe 1986 or '87 and he struck into himself landing over the fence past the stands, which I suspect might then have been a water jump. The horse was put down on the spot as the injury was chronic and the damage irreparable.

Fast forward a decade or so, and I started training. I began by using boots on all jumpers. But it kept gnawing at me that this might not necessarily be correct: it's only natural to question everything that you have been brought up to believe to be axiomatic. By this stage, boots were no longer the norm, and it certainly hadn't escaped my notice that the greatest trainer of them all, Martin Pipe, never used them. As I say, their advantage (because they didn't actually offer that much protection) was not nearly as great as one would like to believe, and there certainly were disadvantages. They were a potentially race-losing extra weight; fitted badly or applied incorrectly, they could do significant damage, internal or external to the leg; and it was now felt that, because their insulating properties made the tendon even hotter during exertion than it gets anyway, they might damage the tendon by over-heating it. So I stopped using them, believing that I was taking a step forward. Then, on 1st June 2006, Ngauruhoe (pictured as a yearling three years previously with her friend A Fortunate Life) struck into herself in a hurdle race at Wetherby. Whether it need necessarily have been a fatal injury I do not know. She travelled well for the first half of the race but was going nowhere and moving badly for the final circuit, but the jockey didn't seem to realise that there was anything amiss, kept going and got round eventually. As soon as she eased back from a canter to a trot, it was clear that she was hopping lame. The damage to the tendon was enough for the wise veterinary advice to be that putting her down there and then was the humane and sensible option.

I don't need to tell you how upset I was. And you will understand that I reassessed my ideas: "taught wisdom by disaster", to borrow a phrase from 'The Fox's Prophecy', and thus demonstrating that, while the clever course of action is to learn from other people's mistakes, in practice the way it works is that one has to make them for oneself before the learning properly takes place. Anyway, I concluded that, even if boots have their drawbacks and even if they don't provide much protection at all, some protection has to be better than none at all when horses' lives are at stake, because, when jumping at speed, striking into himself/herself is not uncommon. Thenceforth boots were once de rigeur, certainly as far as I was, and am, concerned. And the icing on the cake came a couple of years later when we discovered the modern Tri-zone boots, which really are the best. Their design eliminates the worries of the downsides (they are very light, well ventilated and they fit in a kind of seemingly-cumbersome manner which actually makes it almost impossible to apply them too tightly). And, most of all, you can't cut through them as they have a titanium strip down the back. The manufacturers had reached the conclusion which I (and presumably many others) had reached that existing boots were virtually useless, and hence they had made it their goal to make the one and only boots which really do do what one wants them to do. So now that is what we invariably use - and we've already saved one horse's career, and almost certainly his life. January 2nd 2011, Alcalde ran in a novice hurdle at Plumpton. He put in a mighty leap at the last hurdle with a circuit to go, took off a stride too soon, really had to stretch out to get over it, and landed in a heap steeply on the other side. That is just about the classic scenario for a horse striking into himself - and is why a disproportionate amount of such injuries have happened at water jumps - and that's exactly what he did. But he's still alive. He had a reasonable wound on the leg as it was, but that soon healed, even if the boot had to be replaced. And he won at Fakenham 28 days later. Without Tri-zone boots he would have either been dead or retired (probably dead) by that time. The photographs in this paragraph and the next one tell their own story: have a look, and you won't need me to explain what would have happened had his near-fore leg been unprotected.

So what's brought this on, you might ask? Well, you might have guessed: Master Minded's career-ending injury at Kempton in the King George. I read that Paul Nicholls said that Azeryuiop's career had ended for a similar reason, and you can be sure that he'll have had umpteen lesser names find either their careers or their lives cut short in the same way over the years. I've become something of an evangelist for Tri-zone boots, because I genuinely believe that many, many horses' lives would be saved if these boots' use in jumps races became widespread, rather than a rarity as it is now. I've just watched the replay of the King George on the RUK website and, while it's hard to tell from the film, I don't think that any horse in the race was wearing boots at all, never mind the one type of boots which do work, Tri-zone boots. We're told that the key to training is paying attention to minor details, but this is a major lapse on a frighteningly widespread scale by people who really ought to know better. I was showing these boots to Richie McGrath when I was at Market Rasen with Kadouchski in November, and he was telling me that he'd ridden a second the previous day and that, apparently, the mare who had beaten him in that race had struck into herself in the race and was put down afterwards. I'm not talking about a once-in-a-blue-moon occurence, but one of the more frequent injuries, and an injury which is extremely serious, fatal even, in a worryingly high proportion of cases. I don't like the nanny-state approach to the running of racing (and everything else) under which we labour nowadays. There are bloody 'health and safety' rules about everything. You can't have a training license unless you have a fire extinguisher in your yard - I ask you, as if that would do any use at all if the place catches fire, which it might do once every few thousand years! I can lead any two horses around this stable on their head collars (and I mean on their head collars, not on ropes attached to their head collars) but if I tried to lead more than one horse at a time in the racecourse stables, or to lead one without a bit in his/her mouth, I'd be up before the stewards. And yet those same stewards would be happy for me to run a horse in a jumps race not wearing Tri-zone boots. Madness! I would lead Alcalde in one hand and Ex Con in another, no bit in either mouth, for a thousand miles before I would let either run in a jumps race without Tri-zone boots, because I am interested in the horses' safety, rather than ticking a few boxes to give the impression to those who don't know better that I'm adhering to 'best practice'. It's the same with the whip review, and the modifications to the Aintree fences: racing has a veterinary advisor, Tim Morris, who seems a caring and sensible man - and yet he has been forced to waste his time with the whip review, which as we know has virtually nothing to do with equine welfare at all and yet, as far as I know, has never been asked to look into what horses do or don't wear on their legs in jumps races, which is a far, far more pressing issue. I've even read him quoted in the papers about the whip rules, something which ought not to fall within his remit at all - and yet I've never once heard him mention the absence of Tri-zone boots on all too many jumpers' front legs.

Here endeth the lesson - and if this chapter leads to one more jumper wearing Tri-zone boots in his races, then the time spent writing it won't have been wasted.

Early (and presumably temporary) spring

2012-01-07T19:45:00.011Z

We're still getting off very lightly with the weather. We've just enjoyed two lovely spring-like days. I was particulary well placed to enjoy the sight of the weather yesterday as I spent much of the day driving around the countryside collecting horses from various winter quarters, including finding myself in the perfect place to enjoy the dusk: Primrose Farm (aka Horse Heaven) whence Gus and I collected Silken Thoughts, leaving Ethics Girl and Zarosa (pictured) to return anon. It's a lovely spot and you can see in the first of the pictures how much a wriggling-with-delight Gus enjoys visiting it. Then today I was particularly well placed to enjoy the conditions as there was plenty to do during both morning and evening stables. We'll be getting busier again so there'll be plenty of riding to be done, but when the weather is good and the horses well behaved (and today scored highly on both counts) then that's not much of a hardship. Yesterday we saw five horses return to the stable from winter breaks in various locations, four of whom had been here previously. Our new arrival is called Nurai and, if you look up her form, you'll see that when she last "ran" (at Yarmouth in May) she refused to race. However, you'll also see that she has some ability and is a well-bred mare, so we'll see what we can do with her. She was with a good trainer previously (Paul D'Arcy) so it's far from certain that we'll be able to get her career back on track, but we'll try. A change of scenery can sometimes work wonders; and, before you point out that Paul and I both train in the same town so the scenery won't be that much different, I might mention that Paul trains on the other side of town - and that the scenery in this yard is a bit different from that in most other stables in these parts anyway. I remember when Niall Moran, formerly Barney Curley's head lad and now a trainer in Ireland, was heading back to Ireland to start training, he was trying to explain his future set-up to me. He was telling me that I had to understand that stables in Ireland are generally very different from how they are around here, and maybe he thought that he wasn't making things clear. So he was saying, "... and stables in Ireland tend to be like, like ..." pause while he tried to work out what they'd be like that I might be able to relate to "... your place"! At that point, he realised that I probably wouldn't be finding it too hard to envisage your typical Irish racing stable, so the monologue rather ground to a halt at that point. Anyway, that's an illustration that things do tend to be rather less formal and more rustic in this stable than elsewhere, so perhaps hoping for the magic of a change of scenery might not be quite as stupid an idea as it sounds! I'll keep you posted on how we go, but as of now I'd just say that I'm delighted to have her here. We already have one big strong Danehill Dancer (Ex Con) so it's great to have another - and just to inspire her to follow in Ex Con's hoofprints here's a photograph of her father in Neville Callaghan's stable with Michael Tidmarsh, who was head lad there at the time (1996). Also in the picture is the redoutable Richard Sims, who now too ranks as a champion sire having recently produced Anthony (pronounced with the 'th' as in 'the' rather than as in 'thyme', I'd hope and imagine) David Sims, whose initials are obviously (and this is too good to be true, bearing in mind that Richard's life's mission is to sell ads) ADS. In addition to becoming a father, Richard has also recently become a 50-something, so a glimpse of him when he was less far from the prime of life than he is now won't go amiss.

Aside from the lovely countryside, the joys of driving northwards into Norfolk include keeping one's eyes out for American military aircraft from the Mildenhall and Lakenheath airbases, and the delights of BBC Radio Norfolk, 104.4 FM. There were plenty of interesting planes to be spotted yesterday, even if the photograph of the only one I managed to photograph (and please make allowances for the fact that photographing fast-moving aeroplanes while driving isn't that easy) doesn't add much to the chapter. BBC Radio Norfolk, though, always adds plenty to the journey. We can, of course, just about pick it up here, but the signal gets stronger as one heads north. And why the excitement? Well, it's Alan Partridge's station, of course. I've never picked up his graveyard shift programme, but yesterday I had the next best thing: straight out of his creative department we have noon to 2pm 'One foot in the groove'. Yesterday they were playing songs from this week in both 1963 and 1977 which was great - particularly the latter as that was around the time when I was starting to take music seriously. But the icing on the cake was the discovery that, for those who miss the midweek shows, there is a weekly 'One foot in the groove' compilation show, 1pm to 4pm every Sunday, called 'One foot in the gravy'. That's got good old AP written all over it - superb! Mind you, the real excitement I've had in recent weeks was hearing Hot Chocolate's 'It started with a kiss' on BBC Radio Norfolk - and anyone who has ever seen the Valentine's Day episode which ends with Alan singing along to that song while his microphone is turned off ("You don't remember me, do you - YOU DON'T REMEMBER ME, DO YOU") will appreciate the terrific brahma of that.

I'm told (by Emma) that brahma of today is that she's signed me up to Twitter (as JohnWathenBerry). If you've got this far on the blog, you'll have worked out that being concise, which of course is compulsory on Twitter, is not my forte, so don't expect too much on that front.

Lovely episodes

2012-01-04T20:34:00.009Z

I enjoyed a very pleasant little outing today. We won't have any runners this week or next, but I still had a trip to the races today. Eagle-eyed observers might have noticed that the second race at Huntingdon this afternoon was named the Sid Jeffcoate - Celebrating A Lifetime In Racing Novices' Handicap Chase. This was the latest of the series of races in honour of retired stablelads which Racing Welfare organises (our friend Colin Casey had a race in his honour at Fakenham a few years ago, to name but one) and Sid was the beneficiary this time. Sid lives around the corner from here, in Jim Joel Court. He spent most of his working life in racing, having started his apprenticeship with Jack Jarvis in 1953 in Palace House (no, that is not a misprint - Jack Jarvis, of course, trained in Park Lodge, but apparently at his peak he had his string scattered over three stables in town, including Palace House, which is easy enough to understand as Park Lodge is not a big place, even by the standards of the old days when the size of even the biggest strings did not reach to three-figures). Anyway, I had the honour of being asked to present Sid with his momento, which I did after Sid had presented the race's trophy (pictured) to Mrs Carsberg, owner of the good winner Global Flyer. It was a lovely afternoon and I felt very honoured to have been asked to be part of it.

On a completely different subject, I've been meaning to mention how honoured we have been by some of the wild creatures who have visited us in recent months. Each summer we are blessed to have a family of house martens (we're guessing that they are house martens, but this could be completely wrong) set up home in a nest clinging precariously to the wall under our eaves. It's great that they keep coming back, and it's always lovely later in the summer when firstly the sound of the peeps, and then the sight of the beaks, announces that the babies are getting ready to tackle the outside world. They are hard to photograph, but the best one which I took is reproduced here, with one of the adults just heading off foraging with the nest visible if you look carefully to the bird's left as we look at it. So that's nice - and let's hope that they honour us with their presence in 2012 too. More recently, we've had two more particularly welcome guests. The less surprising of these appeared at bedtime three days after Christmas. He didn't appear of his own volition: when the dogs went out for their final wander of the evening, Stan, followed by Gus, rushed off down to the bottom of the yard barking, and when they returned Stan presented me with this little creature. Good effort to carry him. Fortunately, Stan's hedgehog-hunting only goes as far as carrying them around, so once our little visitor had been put down (and once Gus had stared at him for a while) we left him in peace and he soon shuffled off into the night to continue his peregrinations.

Finding a hedgehog mooching around the place at night is a one-or-two-or-three-times-a-year event; but our previous visitor was a once-in-a-lifetime thrill. If one walks down into the yard at dusk in the summer, one has the pleasure of catching glimpses of bats swooping around one's head. I'd always said that one never sees the bats at rest: I assume that they hang out in the loft, but I've never seen them there (although I suppose it might just be the case that I need to look harder). Anyway, a couple of days before Christmas we had a massive thrill, courtesy of a bat who'd clearly got lost. How he'd found his way into the house at this time of year when none of the windows are open is hard to fathom, but that's what he'd done, so there he was, hanging asleep above the door into Anthony's room. (And Anthony was here at the time so he was able to see him too, which was great). He ended up being there for two nights. When I got up on the first morning he was swooping around the hallway so I left the back door open for five minutes, sure that his sonar would detect the open space and that he'd fly out. I returned five minutes later and shut the back door, assuming that he'd have gone. (It was dark and I'd turned the light off, so I couldn't see). However, when it became light, it became clear that he'd returned to his hangout. On the second evening, the photograph I took of him was less clear than the two which I had taken on the first evening, but interestingly he seemed more in control of his ears the second evening: they'd been hanging down on the first evening, but this time they were less evident. Anyway, the second morning I repeated my open-door policy, and this time he did manage to make his escape. It was sad, really, to bid him farewell, but he was better regaining his freedom. Anyway, that was another lovely episode. I must go for a really good tour of inspection in the loft one of these days, as it would be lovely to see a tribe of them hanging out up there.

New Year reflections

2012-01-02T15:30:00.015Z

Karma Chameleon's victory at Southwell did indeed, as I had anticipated, prove to be the stable's final achievement of the year, although our one subsequent runner (Douchkirk at Newbury on Saturday) didn't do too badly: he was predictably outclassed, but he plodded round safely, willingly and happily enough in an incident-free hurdles debut. He won't find himself up against the likes of All The Aces and Destoyer Deployed every time he runs, and his rather cautious jumping style will, one presumes (and hopes!), become slicker and less ponderous as he becomes more experienced. He's schooled up at the Links until the cows come home (hence his very correct and accurate technique) but generally they need to experience the hurly-burly of race conditions one or more times for their jumping to acquire the necessary urgency. So that was all good - and it was lovely to be at the races at a Grade One track with a runner on a day which featured such top-class horses as Cue Card, Walkon, Minella Class, Fingal Bay and Celestial Halo, as well as the hugely promising novices Vendor, All The Aces and Destroyer Deployed. We only watched a couple of races after ours, but I made sure that we had a good view of the rising star Fingal Bay (pictured in the pre-parade ring) before we loaded up Frankie for the journey home (pictured with both Anthony and Gus making sure that all is in order).

Since then, it's been a couple of quiet days to start the New Year, although we were up at the Links in the sunshine this morning for a straightforward schooling session, which I was able to observe through the ears of Frankie, acting as my hack for the morning and happily none the worse for his run two days ago. By and large, though, the majority of the horses' New Year exercise has taken place out in the field, where they have been really enjoying playing in what are really rather benign conditions for the time of year. So that's nice. Here are a few photographs of the playing, just as accompaniment for my end-of-year musings. (The pictures being Kadouchski, Asterisk and Frankie indulging in a spot of synchronized rolling yesterday; Alcalde rolling under Frankie's supervision this morning; the half-brothers Kadouchski and Douchkirk getting the synchronization almost right; Karma Chameleon hooning around the herd; and Gus enjoying today's sunshine with what remains of one of their Christmas bones). The year has ended as the stable's most successful ever, with 16 wins. Our previous best was 14 in 1999 (when, admittedly, the prize money tally would have been significantly higher, not just because prize money in general was better in those days, but also because two of that year's principal contributors, Largesse and Il Principe, were running in higher-class races). I don't tend to indulge in much record-keeping, and I certainly couldn't tell you our seasonal tallies in the interim, but it is by our numerical total (Flat and National Hunt combined, with the Town Plate included) that I generally assess the year, and I've had the figure 14 in my head for a dozen years as the one to beat. So it's great that we've had our best year ever. And for that we have some nice horses owned by some wonderfully supportive patrons, and plenty of hard work predominantly by Hugh, Hannah and Terri, to thank. As regards the horses, they are all special, and each victory is a very special occasion indeed. However, I ought to highlight a few equine contributions. Kadouchski has been a true trouper all year and over the past 13 months he has provided three real riders' red-letter days: giving Hannah her first ride at Kempton in December 2010, giving her her first winner at Folkestone in July 2011 and then giving me the Town Plate victory the following month. I can say with certainty that those are three races which will live in the riders' minds forever. Otherwise Rhythm Stick's third consecutive win (in January) and his fourth consecutive win (in September) were very satisfying occasions, as were the string of good runs, most obviously her wins at Newbury and Lingfield, of Silken Thoughts, who turned out to be an admirably progressive filly. Let's hope that her progress can continue in 2012. Batgirl too provided some lovely moments, courtesy of her two memorable back-to-back wins under Frankie Dettori at Yarmouth. And finally, what better way to end the year than with Karma Chameleon's three wins in 15 days in December? One particularly remarkable aspect of this hat-trick was that he wore the same set of plates throughout: a hat-trick is rare enough, but I would say that very few sets of plates/shoes are ever carried to victory three times without having come off the horse at any stage during the period. I should add, incidentally, that whenever I've remarked that the bulk of the credit for this spree goes to Richard Guest, I've been told that I'm being modest - but I'm not. Consider this: if you look at our roll of honour, you'll see three two-year-old victories in the period 1995 - 2010 inclusive (one win each by Seaside and Largesse in 1996, and one by Imperial Decree in 2007). So in just over a fortnight we've doubled our tally of juvenile victories, winning the same amount of races in 15 days as we had done in the previous 15 years! That alone is remarkable - hence my remarking on it.

Thank you little one

2011-12-30T10:38:00.010Z

A massive thank you to Karma Chameleon, whose plucky victory yesterday at a damp, dark and windy Southwell has ensured that what has been a very successful year for the stable has kept going almost to the end. We'll actually have one more runner (Frankie at Newbury tomorrow, 31st December) but, while that, being an 8-runner introductory hurdle at a lovely fair track, is a nice race for Frankie to start off his hurdling career in, it would be silly to predict him troubling the judge, bearing in mind that two of the runners (the Newmarket Listed winner All The Aces and the Cheltenham Championship Bumper runner-up Destroyer Deployed) stand out head and shoulders above the others. So we can say that Karma Chameleon has brought the curtain down on our year in the best possible style. Bearing in mind that he was racing off 66 and is set to go up to 72 tomorrow, and that he won very easily last week, I was expecting him to be odds-on. (He actually went off as the 13/8 favourite). But expecting a horse to start at odds on certainly does not equate to being confident that that horse would win: I am never confident and, while there was little doubt that the horse remained in great shape, a first trip to Southwell is always a step into the unknown. As I said to Hayley Turner (who stood in for the indisposed Seb Sanders, who unfortunately had suffered a nasty kick in the parade ring at Lingfield the previous day)beforehand, it's not a case of how to ride the horse, but how to ride Southwell, which can be a law unto itself. And it duly proved that the victory was not totally straightforward. Hayley knows Southwell much better than I do (and not just because she rides there regularly - it's also her home town) so I left her with a fairly loose plan of action. Predictably, she used her nous. It would have been nice to have kept out of the kick-back all the way, there was such a dash for the lead that she wisely let the horse settle behind the leaders after a furlong or two. It was a rough enough race and getting up out of the ruck was easier said than done, but the horse was tough and genuine, and so was his rider - and once he had got to the front, he was always able to do just enough to win by a length and a half from a Mark Johnston-trained Cape Cross filly to whom he was giving a whopping 21lb. So that was just really, really lovely - and a lovely end to the year for the Emirates Entertainment Racing Club too, who have now had six winners from their past six runners (three in England and three in Dubai) over the past three weeks, which is a terrific run of success. I just count myself fortunate that they chose to send this lovely horse here at a time when he was poised to strike form - and all that he has done since has been a great tribute to upbringing which he had formerly received in Richard Guest's stable, and on the Somerset farm of his breeder Richard Tucker before that.

I was at Southwell from before the first race yesterday, but stupidly I did not take on board all that was happening prior to our horse running in the fifth. I was, therefore, delighted to read in the results that Richard Guest had trained the winner of the second race. Richard is an proper horseman - as Karma Chameleon's ongoing success is continuing to demonstrate - as well as a hard worker and a really nice man, so I was very glad to see his name on the score-sheet too. I was pleased also to note that that winner (the 11-year-old Dunaskin) was ridden by his nephew Charles Eddery, formerly of this parish (he grew up in Newmarket and was apprenticed through the past season to our neighbour Mark Tompkins) who I believe has gone up to South Yorkshire to work for Richard. I'm sure that Charles (pictured with his grandfather Charlie Guest in Stewart Leadley-Brown's colours at Yarmouth three years ago, prior to riding Lady Suffragette in an apprentices' race) will do well there. Another good apprentice to ride into the winner's enclosure at Southwell yesterday was Danny Brock, who is continuing to further his career since returning to Chris Wall's stable after a long stint with John Jenkins, in whose employment he will have learnt plenty. Another upwardly-mobile local apprentice to salute the judge yesterday was Ryan Clarke, who is following in William Carson's footsteps by showing the benefit of the tutelage of Stuart Williams. Ryan won the race before ours on the Pat Eddery-trained Storm Hawk, which was a nice result. I'm always pleased to see Pat (pictured supervising the unsaddling) train a winner. It can be hard for jockeys who have been at the very top of the tree for an extended period to settle into the training routine, where the effort:reward ratio (leaving out the issue that they can at least eat what they want once training) can prove to be so much less satisfactory. But Pat seems very happy in his role of a middle-of-the-road trainer, and that's just as it should be: if you are a horseman, which Pat surely is, then you appreciate the involvement with horses, whether they be champions, handicappers or platers. And that's lovely to see.

I ought to mention that there were also some very pleasing results when Karma won at Wolverhampton last week. Chief among these was that Jason Ward trained a winner. Jason has only recently taken out a license and is doing very well, having already sent out three winners. Mind you, that's only what one would expect, because he has a wealth of experience under his belt. He rode a few winners in the '80s when apprenticed to Lester Piggott, who had previously featured prominently in the life of Jason's father Bob (who had trained near Doncaster and who had been warned off after Lester had ridden a horse for him somewhere - I forget the details but you'll find them in Lester's biographies). Jason (pictured in the cap being interviewed after Eastward Ho's victory at Wolverhampton last week) then worked for James Fanshawe early in James' training career. I don't know where he's been more recently, but I do remember something about him at one stage possibly being in line for the training job in Scotland which Ian Semple landed and which Keith Dalgliesh now holds. Anyway, he's now training in Middleham and doing very well. That same day at Wolverhampton also saw local apprentice Michael Murphy ride another winner (on the George Prodomou-trained Reset gelding Trip Switch), saw George Margarson send out the 20th winner in what has now been numerically his most successful season, and saw Hayley Turner ride the first winner (pictured) since returning from breaking her leg when winning the two-miler on the Swedish-bred Jonjo O'Neill-trained 8-year-old Dream Catcher. That, too, was a win which I enjoyed watching - if, admittedly and understandably, I enjoyed watching her win on Karma Chameleon yesterday even more!

Little triers

2011-12-28T16:08:00.008Z

I probably picked the short straw by going to Market Rasen on Monday, but there you go. (Do I mean the short straw? I'm never quite sure which way round that saying goes). It meant that I missed out on 'being there' when Kauto Star made history. Even so, it was still really special just seeing it on the TV at Market Rasen. What a horse. And we must salute all responsible for his continued success, especially his trainer. The horse has won at least one Grade One steeplechase every year from 2005 to 2011 inclusive. That's seven consecutive years. Amazing. And it would be a rash man who'd say that he won't win a Grade One steeplechase during 2012 too. Terrific. Anyway, at a less exalted level, our two runners both did their best on Monday. Alcalde ran a gritty race to finish in the first half of the field in his very competitive handicap at Kempton, and Kadouchski again tried his heart out at Market Rasen. One never fears that Kadou is going to fall because he's a very sensible jumper, but he does just find jumping the fences hard work. He has to put so much effort into every jump and he tries his heart out. It was my dream that he could win Flat, hurdles and fences in the same year; he's done his best, as usual, to make it come true, but it hasn't happened, so I'll keep him to hurdles and the Flat from now onwards. His steeplechase form is 2235 and I am sure that he would win a steeplechase eventually, but it's not fair on him. He is so genuine that I don't like to keep asking him really stiff questions, as he does come back so tired from his steeplechases. I think that these first two pictures makes it clear that his lack of size is an issue (and bear in mind that the excellent Jack Quinlan is not big by jumps jockeys' standards) while the third picture, taken with one circuit still left to go, shows that the whole race becomes hard work for him. Still, judging by the way he and Alcalde have been playing around and rolling in the field in the two days since their races, one can tell that they've both come back in good shape. So Alcalde has shown that he deserves his place in the line-up in these good hurdle races; while Kadou can look back with pride on a year which has seen him finish in the first three 13 times, and can look forward knowing that I'll try not to make things too hard for him henceforth. I had a little chuckle when we were asked to go to the dope-box after the race, which isn't an obvious thing when a horse who starts joint second-favourite finishes fifth - but it's so rare for him to finish out of the first three that I can perhaps see the stewards' point!

Talking of the field, I gave the horses a treat on Christmas Day as I moved them over from the field they had been in for the past half a year (which had just become very muddy from all the pre-Christmas rain, but which is actually not too bad again now after our mild and dry few days) to the smaller field of fresh grass which had been waiting to be re-opened. I think that you can see from the Christmas Day joie de vivre of Karma Chameleon and Frankie (Douchkirk) in this photograph that the change was appreciated! That's particularly nice for Karma as we want to keep him nice and fresh: it's no rest for the tiny because, having won last week and the previous week, he's running again tomorrow. Southwell this time, which will be new and less pleasant for him. But he's an in-form horse who seems to be taking his races well - so, while the race won't be a formality by any means and while he has top weight in it, he'll likely start favourite and one would have to hope that he'll acquit himself well again. If he doesn't, it certainly won't be for the want of trying (on his part and ours) as he's a wonderfully genuine little horse who always tries to please. He's done a bit of trotting and a bit of cantering since he ran, and plenty of playing and plenty of eating, so let's just hope that that's what he needs.

Happy Christmas

2011-12-25T14:46:00.008Z

It's Christmas Day (hence the Santa hats which we all, bar Gus, sported yesterday - and today, in my case) and I'd have to say that I'm rather tired. Three runners (two of them at farther-away-than-usual venues) on three consecutive days allied to Anthony's pre-Christmas visit (which was great - but he certainly keeps one on one's toes!) wore me out. So Christmas, a day supposedly for relative relaxation, arrived, I dropped my guard and - oomph, I feel as if I've been run over by a steam-roller. Still, I had better buck myself up, not just because there is still plenty of work to do here today, but also because there's a busy day ahead. Alcalde, Hugh and Emma will head off to Kempton in the morning in Ian Watkinson's horsebox, while I'll hit the north-bound road shortly afterwards, taking Kadouchski to Market Rasen. It could be a good day or it could be a bad day; and time will tell.

Our three trips to the races last week produced various degrees of satisfaction. The outing to Taunton wasn't a disaster as nothing went wrong, but Dr Darcey ran a very poor race which was disappointing. I thought that he should have run better than that, and in retrospect I still think that he should have run better than that - but he didn't (through no fault of his rider, I should add, who rode him exactly as asked). I suppose one could say that it was just a long way to go to be reminded that horses, in the famous words of the late, great George Hanlon, are "only human". Still, the weather was mild and dry, the ground was good, and Taunton is a very pleasant spot. Particularly for dogs, as Gus and I discovered when we were merely one of several dogs scampering around the track before racing. Some courses can be given a 'should try harder' in the welcome which they extend to canine visitors, but it would be impossible to fault Taunton in this respect. It's gone straight to the top of Gus' chart, at least.

Wednesday's trip to Wolverhampton proved far more straightforward. Dr Darcey's mini-me Karma Chameleon might be very small, but he is as straightforward and genuine a little horse as one could find. Even though he was racing off a 6lb higher mark (courtesy of his penalty) than when he'd won at Kempton six days previously, he looked to have a very strong chance as this was a much weaker race. And it became clear once we reached the parade ring (eventually, having again had to return to the weighing room during the saddling procedure for some smaller girths) that the opposition really was weak. The top two in the weights had form only at Southwell and only in claimers respectively; while the Arab-owned Authorized filly, who had been napped by Diomed in the Racing Post on the basis of seeming to have had three quietish runs in maiden races to qualify for what might be a lenient handicap mark, was clearly still extremely backward. In fact, the only horse who looked physically as if he might put up a bold show was Orwellian, whose form was ordinary. And, anyway, he looked and was bred to be a sprinter, so the 8.5 furlongs didn't look his go; and, during the race, he duly travelled easily before getting very tired. And that was pretty much it as regards our opponents: they just dropped away in the final 500m, leaving Karma to come home six lengths in front. There must be an element of embarrassment for a jockey in winning a handicap by six lengths, but it wasn't really Shane's fault: one couldn't have predicted how quickly the horses around him would slow down, and our horse did look to lose concentration when he was left in front at the top of straight, so it was the correct thing to do to give him a smack to ensure that he continued to concentrate. And then he just sort of shot clear. So that was all grand: an excellent win by a lovely little horse. As he seemed to pull up from the race very well and as he will surely now be in line for a hefty hike in the weights, the decision to enter him again this week (Southwell on Thursday) was an easy one.

Thursday's trip to Hereford with Asterisk ranks about halfway between the other two trips as regards its satisfactoriness. Asterisk didn't win and wasn't placed, but she ran very well. Although she'd been third last time, this looked a very hot mares' novice race and she was duly 50/1 in a 16-horse field. So to finish fifth has to be regarded as good. And she did everything right in the race, tried very hard and really seemed to relish her work. She was a long way behind the fourth, but the ground was like quicksand in places, and the margins are inevitably very exaggerated under such conditions. It was years since I'd been to Hereford, but I'd obviously watched racing there on TV umpteen times in the interim; and watching it on TV tells one that in winter the ground is about as bad as it gets. However, while it clearly was very heavy, it had been looked after very well, and it was as good as it possibly could have been, if that makes sense. A few other courses could take note of the effort which had clearly been put in to make sure that the racing surface was level, at least. Anyway, the real highlight of the day was the weather: it was glorious. There was snow on the hills in the distance, but raceday was like a proper spring day, sunny and warm. I had a lovely walk around the track with Gus, and then Anthony and I had another walk on it, and all in all it was just a pleasure to be there. And the final stages of the drive, the last 20 miles or so through lovely countryside, were lovely in that weather too.

So those were our pre-Christmas outings. Christmas Day is a very mild one as is suggested by this photograph of my view across the Severals between Kadouchski's ears on my way home during second lot, a far cry from the snow and frost of last year, and that helps too. The only downside is that I'm worn out, but hopefully that is something which can be overcome with plenty of sleep. The run-up to Christmas has all gone well, so now we just have to hope that that the next few days, starting with our two Boxing Day runners, can also produce satisfactory outcomes. Happy Christmas, one and all.

Three days, three runners

2011-12-19T22:00:00.008Z

It'll be an early start in the morning to get us to Taunton well in advance of the 1.00 race. Still, the morning is forecast to be less intimidating than the conditions which we endured today: a very hard frost 'warmed up' rapidly just before dawn so that we were left with the worst of all worlds, ie it was both cold and wet. Rain and temperatures hovering about 1 degree was truly unpleasant, but we're promised drier and milder conditions tomorrow, which should make driving around in the dark less of an ordeal and being at the races, touch wood, rather pleasant. So let's hope that Dr Darcey can rise to the occasion, and then that we can then get good runs on each of the two subsequent days too, with Karma Chameleon backing up at Wolverhampton on Wednesday and Asterisk set to head over to Hereford on Thursday. It'll be a busy three-day period, so let's hope that we have something to show for it. Not, of course, that the horses are the main worry in these conditions - the smaller animals are more the concern. It's hard to get the cats outside at present, which obviously presents problems. It's actually hard enough to get Alamshar out of the radiator bed (pictured at the top of the page), irrespective of whether or not the radiator is turned on. She will leave it to eat, and as she eats a lot that means that Natagora, who is considerably less greedy, is able to nip in there briefly (as you can see). But that, I am afraid, is all that Alamshar will leave the radiator bed for, which means that she has decided that cold wet weather means that urinating indoors is acceptable, which is not good. Natagora, at least, will go outside for brief periods, but not for long enough to get the freshness out of her, which means that she's got plenty of energy left for her favourite Yuletide pastime, which is adventure training in the Christmas tree (pictured). Which is rather sweet, if destructive. Compared to the worries posed by these cats, the dogs are relatively straightforward and will at least go outside for reasonable periods. Gus doesn't really like being rained on, but he doesn't mind getting dirty, so at least he is happy to frolic around as usual, stirring the other dogs into action and checking up that these yearlings have been performing to his satisfaction. So that seemed to be OK as I was thinking that he, our problem child, would at least be getting enough exercise despite the adverse conditions to satisfy his puppyish spirit of adventure. However, that might not be the case, as I found him earlier this evening with the chewed-off end of my mobile phone charger in his mouth, which wasn't a good discovery to make. Still, there should be a day's worth of power in my phone, so I can set off for Taunton in the morning without worrying about the problem. Wednesday's departure for Wolverhampton won't be so early so I might be able to sort something out then. And I'll make sure that Gus gets a good walk around the course at Taunton tomorrow to tire him out. I'll be tired enough come tomorrow evening, so no harm if he is tired too.

The baby doctor warms the winter

2011-12-18T19:57:00.012Z

Well, we couldn't put it off any longer: winter's here. But it's not too bad, and the forecast says that it's going to hold itself in abeyance again this week anyway. And the good thing was that we had a winner just before it arrived, so the glow from that has kept us warm. Karma Chameleon was excellent on Thursday at Kempton. He's just so professional, taking every aspect of raceday in his stride. He was well enough drawn, but he got back a bit early on in the race when the leaders set off very fast. However, Seb Sanders' positive riding and the horse's spunkiness ensured that he had got himself back into a good position before halfway. You wouldn't necessarily have picked him as the winner for the first three quarters of the race, but he stayed on really strongly and in the last 300m he was just too strong for them. So that was lovely. When he arrived, Richard Guest told me that he was a grand little horse, very genuine and straightforward, and would continue to progress - and that's exactly what he's done. I've been friendly with Richard for 25 years, since he was a 7lb-claimer with Toby Balding and I was a 7lb-claiming amateur with Andy Turnell. He rode a couple of winners for us on Bold Cardowan late on in his riding career, and all in all he isn't necessarily someone from whose stable I'd like to receive a horse. But this goes back to what I was saying a couple of chapters ago about horses moving from stable to stable, and from jockey to jockey: it's a fact of life and nothing to lose sleep over. Richard, predictably, was as helpful as possible when the horse came, wished me well and told me that he was pleased that the horse was coming here rather than anywhere else. And five minutes after the horse had won he gave me a call to say 'Well done' and to say how pleased he was that that he'd won. That meant a lot to me, and ensured that a happy day really was a happy day - and a happy day for Karma too, as he seems really to enjoy everything. Even though he seems to take his races very well, he's still only young so one can't be too cavalier, but when they cope with things as well as he does and then just come home and relax (pictured) then there's not too much to worry about.

Other than that, the weather has been the big topic (as always!). We've had proper frosts the last few mornings, which have consequently dawned clear and cold. And late, this being the shortest week of the year. However, these bright starts haven't necessarily meant sunny days: on Friday, Saturday and today it had clouded over before midmorning and then we found a load of snow being dumped down on us. This didn't lie, though, even though today, a very cold day, saw the ice on the puddles completely undisturbed through the day in anywhere where the sun didn't shine (ie most places). You'd imagine from this picture of Asterisk and Hannah (and of Alcalde's ears) cantering around Side Hill AW in the middle of the morning on Friday that we'd be covered with snow now, but we aren't. But it's still very cold. Kadouchski and Asterisk galloped in a mini-snow storm on the Al Bahathri at around 11.00 this morning, but earlier it had just been a clear dawn on a very hard frost, as the view from Dr Darcey at the end of Bury Hill earlier in the morning shows. It might look icy (particularly in this last picture of his shadow striding out boldly over the frozen puddles) but conditions were not a problem, again reminding us what a good job the Heathmen do - even if closing on the the AW canters on Warren Hill yesterday so that it could be used as a walking ground (on the basis that the usual walking grounds were frozen solid) could be termed as an over-reaction. But better to take the conditions too seriously than not seriously enough.

Talking point number two, of course, has been the jockeys' disqualifications. I can't really add much to what I said previously, from which you might have deduced that I feel that the sentences are rather harsh. However, the BHA's master stroke has been publishing its reasoning in a 20,000-word document: nobody, of course, other than Howard Wright is going to read all that, so really it ensures that any criticism will be (supposedly) uninformed criticism, and therefore invalid. It's hard enough even to work out what Jimmy Quinn and Kirsty Milczarek were charged with and found guilty of. I believe that Jimmy's crime was passing on "inside information" (but was it information or was it his opinion, which as opinion rather than fact can't be described as information?) without receiving any reward for it, while riding every horse to achieve the best possible finishing position. A six-month disqualification for this seems draconian, particularly set against Simon Callaghan and Holly Hall receiving a 3,000-pound fine and a two-week suspension respectively for ensuring, as trainer and jockey, that one of the horses owned by the villain in question was stopped. Maybe Simon's decision to hand in his license and emigrate persuaded the authorities to err on the side of leniency, but even so that previous (and seemingly very much related) case makes Jimmy's punishment seem very harsh indeed. But, then again, I've got a job so don't have the time to wade through 20,000 words of explanation (plus I've got this blog to write), so what do I know?

Good omen?

2011-12-14T19:19:00.013Z

We've had a good omen for our trip to Kempton tomorrow with Karma Chameleon: Dave Morris, who occupies the far side of this property, sent out a winner there this evening, Zaheeb (ie 25% of Dave's string, pictured here back in the summer, ridden by his trainer) winning under a typically excellent ride from William Carson, who promptly rode the first winner which he his dad, Willie's son Tony, has trained in the next race. William has had a really good tutor (Stuart Williams) and that education, complemented by the Carson genes, seems to have produced a really good jockey. So that was grand, and let's see if we can't make it two winners by Haafhd at this Kempton meeting for Beverley House Stables. Since we've been targetting Karma Chameleon at the AW, I've noticed that Haafhd has a lot of winners on the AW. When the baby doctor (ie Karma Chameleon) finished second at Kempton last time, Amy Weaver had a winner by Haafhd on the same card; and then I noticed two Haafhds winning on the same AW card shortly after that. I am sure that one could provide a very convoluted line of reason to show that Haafhd's stock are, by stride pattern or the like, particularly well suited by the AW, but I suspect that it's nothing more complicated that because Haafhds in general are not very good he has a lot of runners in the winter. On the subject of Amy's winner, by the way, I ought to salute her for that project: she bought the (seemingly very unsound) horse out of John Dunlop's stable at the Horses-in-Training sale for around 3,500 gns, ran him in two claimers for two wins, and had him claimed, by Tom Dascombe, for 12,000 pounds after the second of those two victories, around a month after his arrival in the stable. I would be very surprised if it does not turn out that Amy had the better of both of the deals in which she was involved with this horse. Anyway, our dear little Haafhd (pictured here on Monday, enjoying one of the greatest luxuries which the world can offer a horse, ie a roll in the mud on a sunny day) heads to Kempton tomorrow, so let's hope that he can further enhance his father's excellent AW record.

As the pictures of Doctor jr show, we're still doing very well with the weather. True, it's been stormy, but we've been very lucky in that nearly all the bad weather has happened at night. We've had very little rain during daylight hours, and the worst of the fierce winds seem to have raged during the night too. And, of course, storms keep the temperatures up. So we've basically been having bright, spring-like days - which probably explains why we've already got some bulbs (daffodils?) pushing their shoots upwards into the light. They'll realise the error of their ways, of course, when we do get some consistent frosts, but they provide an interesting and heartening sight at present. So all remains rather pleasant, as is suggested by this view which I enjoyed while trotting around the Severals yesterday. What has made the week even more pleasing so far is that both of the yearlings currently present are now both broken. Roy, as you know, was ridden last week, so for the past couple of days he's been ridden while the Nayef gelding who came from the December Sale was long-reined. Anyway, as of today both are broken, which is great. They make a very good pair so, while there's no hurry for either of them and I doubt that either will be doing much/anything during the first quarter of the year, they can wander around between now and Christmas to ensure that, if and when they have a spell so that they can get a bit older in peace, they will head off for it knowing too much to forget it all while they're on holiday. The Nayef, in particular, is wonderfully bold, and it was a real pleasure to watch him having his first riding lesson from Hannah this morning: it was all a big adventure to be enjoyed for him, and if he approaches all his tasks so willingly (which I am sure that he will do) then he surely has a good future ahead of him. Let's hope that they both have.

I can't close without saluting John Egan (pictured on what I think remains his most recent British winner, the David Griffiths-trained Not My Choice at Wolverhampton 15 months ago) for returning to the winner's enclosure, on the Michael Halford-trained Salam Alaykum at Dundalk on Friday night. John doesn't ride very much in the British Isles nowadays - he's only had seven rides in Britain this year and 20 rides in Ireland for one win - but he's as good a jockey as you'll ever see, and he's such an ingrained horseman that his ability to ride will only desert him the day the ability to breath deserts him. Elsewhere, another top jockey kept his end up today. It must have been tough for William Kennedy to watch, rather than ride, Time For Rupert running at Newbury in the softest race he's contested for three or four years. I'd say that I'd have won today's race on him, never mind William doing so, but life goes on - and William gave the best example of business as usual on his only ride of the day, finishing second on a 125/1 shot in an earlier novice hurdle. As I've said previously, he'll bounce back. As, of course, will Jimmy Quinn (pictured) who has been rubbed out for six months for keeping the wrong company. I'm delighted to find that Jimmy has, as I had expected, been cleared of any wrong-doing while in the saddle - and the benefit of reaching middle age is that six months nowadays pass in the twinkling of an eye. He'll be back next summer and will then have several more years of good riding in him. And he'll find that I'll be merely one of many trainers still keen to use him.

A pleasant winter weekend

2011-12-11T18:01:00.009Z

Yesterday morning was indeed a cold one, but the wind had dropped so it wasn't too bad at all. We had a fair amount of frost here (as they clearly had at both Lingfield, which was abandoned, and Doncaster, where racing only went ahead after, I think, four inspections) and the ice which had formed here overnight on the puddles was still there come nightfall where the puddles hadn't been in the sun. In fact, even though a signficant warm front had moved in overnight last night, some of the ice was still there this morning. But, as I say, it was only a few degrees below zero, and a still and bright morning meant that conditions were far from unpleasant. And the morning was quite spectacular once the sun came up, as you can see with the pictures of Karma Chameleon heading into the rising sun en route to the Al Bahathri, and then coming up the Al Bahathri; and then of Dr Darcey heading up towards Side Hill for his canter mid-morning. Karma Chameleon was meant to have gone to Southwell yesterday but we had to scrap that plan, so he just had a gallop instead and will instead head to Kempton on Thursday. I'm actually very glad that he wasn't ready to run at Southwell because it turned out to be a race which he couldn't have won anyway: our potential opponents didn't look particularly fearsome on paper, but one of them turned out to be pretty much unbeatable in that grade, as the winner won by 12 lengths in a time which was the fastest of the four mile-races at Southwell yesterday, two of which were for older horses. So we wouldn't have won that. It's far from certain, of course, that we'll have a winning chance at Kempton, but as of now we can't say that we won't win there, but we can say that we wouldn't have won at Southwell.

So yesterday's entertainment instead revolved around watching the racing on TV, which is a great way to spend any Saturday afternoon, and a particularly good one when there's Cheltenham to watch. The highlight in our camp came in the first race when Kadouchski's little Tom George-trained half-brother Fair Mix galloped and jumped his way to Triumph Hurdle favouritism by winning his first start in the UK. He seems clearly the best horse which Douchka has bred from a variety of stallions, which speaks very well for the merit of his sire Al Namix, an admirable horse who raced 49 times over six seasons, winning eight (including a Listed race at both four and five) and finishing in the first three 27 times. You can't beat having a bit of toughness in any horse, and Al Namix clearly had plenty of it, which probably explains why he's turning out to be such a good stallion. Baby Mix was, of course, merely the first leg of an Al Namix double at Cheltenham yesterday, the second leg coming when Grandouet won what should still be called the Bula Hurdle. So that was good - as was ATR's coverage of the Hong Kong races this morning, which provided a perfect reason to get up at the same time as normal, rather than enjoy a Sunday lie-in. It was great to see the Melbourne Cup winner Dunaden back up by taking the Vase, and to my eyes even better to see a grey son of Highest Honor (California Memory) winning the Vase. Highest Honor, sadly no longer with us, ranks as one of my all-time favourite stallions, not least because he is the sire of my mare Minnie's Mystery (pictured, above, a couple of winters ago at her home at Haras de la Cauviniere). Let's hope that little Roy, who conducted himself very well when going for a trot along the horsewalk yesterday (pictured) can emulate in California Memory in bearing Highest Honor's grey coat with distinction. And the highlight of last night's racing on TV was seeing Chris Dwyer's stable star Mia's Boy (seen here on the Heath last month in an embarrassingly bad photograph, ridden by Shelley Dwyer with Chris following on Patriotic, who finished third at Southwell this afternoon) win the feature handicap at Wolverhampton, seemingly with a bit in hand but by about the same margin (ie a pixel) by which Dunaden won the Melbourne Cup. He really is a tremendous horse, and one who has long been a real credit to Chris and Shelley.

As one door closes ...

2011-12-09T18:36:00.010Z

I'm going particularly to enjoy watching Cheltenham on TV tomorrow. Not only will be we be able to watch the British debut of Baby Mix, a half-brother to three horses who have won for this stable (Kadouchski, Douchkette and Douchkirk), but we shall also be able to watch William riding in the big race, the one which will be called (for one year only, one assumes) the Spinal Research The Atlantic 4 Gold Cup and which is unlikely ever again to be called the name by which I still think of it, the Massey-Ferguson Gold Cup. We have observed William's loss of the ride on Time For Rupert, but it seems to be a fact of the ying-and-yang nature of life that, as one door closes, another one opens. This is a classic example. I'd mentioned how William appears to be regarded as the substitute of choice for JP McManus when AP McCoy is unavailable; well, that's what's happening tomorrow. JP has three runners in the race. Obviously AP can only ride one of them, so William has been called up for Finger Onthe Pulse, his first ride for the Irish stable of Tom Taafe. That's grand. Common sense says that AP is likely to have chosen the correct one of the trio, bearing in mind that he would looked elsewhere had there been any doubt, with Sunnyhill Boy having the lightest weight of the trio (10 stone 4lb); but Finger Onthe Pulse won two starts ago, and is clearly a good big-race ride to have. So that's grand. William was here this morning, schooling Douchkirk, Asterisk and Alcalde over hurdles and Kadouchski over fences, which was great. (We have two photographs of Frankie/Douchkirk and Kadouchski returning home, ridden by Sara and William, and then one of Asterisk, ridden by Jamie, which also includes the top of Alcalde's head). It was a cold morning - mind you, it will be even colder at dawn tomorrow, with the temperature being forecast to dip tonight to minus 3 - but a good one: all jumped well, so we came home happy. As, I hope, did all the other people who were schooling up there: it was a busy morning, with Don Cantillon, Alan Bailey, Lucy Wadham and Sara Humphrey all having horses schooling while we were up there. Leighton Aspell, Gerard Tumelty, Trevor Whelan and Mark Marris were among the riders, while I was very impressed to see the born-again lightweight Flat jockey Dominic Fox schooling over hurdles alongside Gerard Tumelty in Alan Bailey's string (pictured, with Gerard in the dark blue and Dominic in the red cap).

So that was good - as was the second half of the morning, the highlight of which was the fact that my pride and joy Roy, my yearling, was ridden for the first time. Hugh has done more of the ground work with him than I have, and Hannah is the rider, so I can't claim to have had much input in Roy's breaking - which is a pity because I'd like to claim the credit, as it seems to have gone very well. He's been straightforward, even if it did take him several sessions of long-reining to get to the stage where he was no longer really spooked by all the hustle and bustle of all the other horses going about their business on the Severals. Anyway, Hugh had had him out and he had again shown that he's getting pretty grown up, so while Terri was out on Ex Con on her own during the final lot, we put Hannah up on him for the first time. That went very well: he was a little bit spooked for the first minute or so by the unaccustomed feeling of having someone on his back, but he soon learned not to be afraid, gaining the confidence to relax, stretch his head out and go forwards in an unflustered and relaxed manner. It was great. Hannah rode him around the yard for a while, supervised by Gus of course, and then we went for a wander down Exeter Road. I'd hoped that we might have timed it right, and it turned out that we had: when we got to the bottom of the street, Terri and Ex Con appeared around the corner, so they turned around (which was a bit like turning the Titanic, Ex Con being so big) and headed off for a walk along the Watercourse as far as the Astley Club and back, just to give Roy a bit of company. All went really well - which is just as well as, of course, we found Gus waiting to check up on how things had gone when we returned to the yard. So that was lovely. You'd think from the way I'm going on that we'd never broken a horse previously, which of course if far from the case. However, while all horses in the yard are special, there's something rather magical about having a horse of whom one is breeder and owner as well as trainer, so please bear with me if you hear more than you'd like of Roy as he progresses through life. And today was a big milestone for him; and a milestone which, thanks to Hugh and Hannah, was passed very smoothly.

So that's been today. Tomorrow should have seen us heading to Southwell with Dr Darcey's mini-me (Karma Chameleon) but unfortunately he's not quite right to go. He should be fine to head to Kempton on Thursday, though, so, fingers crossed, we'll only have to wait another five days before our next outing.

The past and the present

2011-12-08T19:11:00.005Z

I might have been wandering around Fontwell Park racecourse in a dream on Tuesday, but I did at least notice that Ron Atkins, forever remembered for bearing the initials 'RA' on the front of his helmet, was present. I was pleased to catch sight of him because he was a great character of yesterday, as well as a top-class jockey. I believe that he once had a ride for the late Bob Turnell, who of course rarely had to use outside jockeys, having Jeff King, Johnny Haine and his son Andy in the yard, and then subsequently Steve Knight and Ted Waite to fall back on as Andy's deputies. Anyway, 'RA' rode Bob Turnell's horse predictably well, but the length of his hair didn't go down well. The trainer's verdict? A grudging compliment: "You'd be a good jockey if you got a hair-cut!". Anyway, my thoughts when I saw 'RA' were firstly wondering what he does for a living nowadays; secondly considering that he's probably retired as he must be about retirement age; and thirdly thinking how well he looks for a man of 65 or so - he'd easily pass for at least ten years younger. So that was nice - and very timely, because Ian Watkinson wandered into the yard this morning while I was tacking up Alcalde (pictured). I was delighted to be able to tell Ian of my sighting of 'RA', against whom he would have ridden umpteen times in the late '60s and through the '70s. Following on from this, Ian, who is remembered as the one-time rider of such jumping legends as Tingle Creek, Sea Pigeon and Night Nurse as well as for having won a Hennessy on Zeta's Son, reported that he was due to leave today for a brief visit to his apartment in south-east Spain, and that while he's there he would be paying his usual visit to see the great David Mould, who now lives nearby. He said that when he came home after seeing David Mould for the first time there, someone had asked him what the latter is up to nowadays, to which Ian had had to confess that he had no idea as they'd spent the entire time swapping brahmas from 40 or more years ago, and hadn't got round to discussing the present. And that's just the way it should be. Who says that nostalgia isn't the same any more?

To move to the present, though, and to riders of a considerably more recent vintage, I was pleased to see Rose McKee give Well Mett a very nice ride in the bumper at Huntingdon today, holding a good position throughout the race and running well to finish fourth. Rosie has worked for Lucy Wadham for quite a while now and is an excellent girl. She has only just taken out a conditional jockey's license, and today's outing was her first ride. She and Lucy's horse General Ting came home with us from Market Rasen last week: their box broke down on the return journey down the A1, so we retraced our steps to bring them home, which was no problem. It delayed our return by a short while, but came with the added bonus of meaning that, while listening to my favourite station BBC Radio Norwich for longer than would otherwise have been the case, I caught Hot Chocolate's 'It started with a kiss'. Anyone who appreciates the brahma of Alan Partridge will understand why hearing this song on BBC Radio Norwich is a very special treat: the sight and sound of Alan singing (if you can call it singing) along (with his microphone turned off) to this song on his radio show was one of the series' many unforgettable joys. "You don't remember me, do you? You don't remember me , do you? ...". Aaaaahh!

Finally, shock of the day came when I discovered from the Racing Post that Newbury has been voted the ROA's Racecourse of the Year. How the hell can this have happened? Newbury has been probably the worst offender for failing to meet tarriff. It set the tone from the outset, holding the feature meeting on the first Saturday after the introduction of the tarriffs and having all its races that day (which didn't even take place after two horses were electrocuted in the pre-parade ring) bar the Tote Gold Trophy set below tarriff, by a total of around 60,000 pounds. Come the flat season it continued in the same vein, kicking off with Frankel winning a Greenham Stakes which fell well short of tarriff. This continued on through the summer, meeting after meeting, and off the top of my head I would guess that Newbury fell short of tarriff by the greatest sum of any course through the year. This is not in any way a criticism of the staff at Newbury, who are unfailing pleasant, hospitable and welcoming when one goes there. However, one can't run a racecourse on courtesy alone - and one can't forget that the fatal electrocutions did take place. Furthermore, its final jumps meeting last season was run on some of the worst ground I saw anywhere bar Hereford all year, as Alcalde (who stumbled badly on the frighteningly poached ground, losing his rider after jumping a hurdle cleanly) and a horse whose name I forget who is owned by Nick Luck's mother and who sustained what I think was a career-ending injury in similar circumstances the next day, will testify. So, while Newbury must have scored highly in several categories in the voting process, it can have picked up 'nil points' in what I would have thought are nearly the two most important areas. Racecourse of the season? Well, if the ROA has decided that prize money and ground conditions are of no relevance, as this award would seem to imply, perhaps we'll have to have a long, hard look at whether the Horsemen's Group, of which the ROA is a key constituent, has any purpose at all. Which is a shame.

My mistake - and some misconceptions

2011-12-07T19:52:00.007Z

Everything ran smoothly with our trip down to Fontwell yesterday, which was really rather pleasant. It was a cold night leading into a cold morning, and I was rather concerned at one point of the drive through Sussex to see the thermometer in the box still showing the outside temperature as minus one. However, on our arrival at Fontwell we found it dry and not particularly cold, so that was lovely - particularly for Gus and I on our walk around the track, which was clearly going to present very testing conditions for the horses. Dr Darcey (pictured with William both before and after the race) ran OK and jumped very well, even if getting very tired in the final quarter of a mile, which was understandable on a day of gruelling conditions. He's only young still, and he'll get more seasoned as he goes along. His heart is definitely in the right place, and with his enthusiasm and jumping ability he'll surely do alright. In fact, the only debacle of the day concerned a brainstorm of mine, and even with that no harm was done. I knew perfectly well the time of the race (12.40) but for some reason at some point in the morning my brain got hold of the idea that it was 1.00. I'd have been alright at any other track, but at Fontwell, with the pre-parade ring being just a circle outside the saddling boxes, we had established that the parade ring would be the pre-parade ring for the first race. So I wandered into the stable yard at 12.15, aiming to give Terri a hand to put the finishing touches to him before she pulled him out - and was most impressed to see that she had been diligent enough already to have pulled out, three quarters of an hour before the race (as I believed). I wandered over to the parade ring, which contained Dr Darcey and most of the other runners. The others were all wearing sheets, which covered the saddles which they were wearing, so I just assumed that they were all as yet unsaddled. John Flint was saddling his horse and I just assumed that he was saddling earlier than everyone else, little realising that everyone else had already finished saddling. It did strike me that there was a surprisingly large number of people in the parade ring, but I let that one go through to the keeper. I wandered around aimlessly for a few minutes, and then thought that we would have reached a time by which William would probably have weighed out. I was approaching the weighing room at 12.28 (ie 12 minutes before the race, but in my mind 32 minutes before the race) when I was rather surprised to be telephoned by the clerk of the scales (who did at least know that I had arrived, as I'd been chatting to him in the weighing room about two and a half hours previously) asking me whether I was coming to collect my saddle. I assured him that I was on my way, wondering what all the fuss was about - and then the penny dropped only when I entered the weighing room and saw a puzzled-looking William, carrying the only saddle in the room and already wearing his crash helmet and looking ready to walk out to the parade ring. Oh, sh*t! Well, all was well that ended well: I saddled Dr Darcey quicker than I've ever saddled anything, and he had re-entered the parade ring before the jockeys got there, so no harm was done. And I was able to console myself that, even if I had delayed the start, I would, presumably, have been safe from a fine for having the horse late into the parade ring, because he had, of course, already spent half an hour in the parade ring, only without a saddle.

I can't, of course, mention William without remarking on his bad news, which you will probably have read in today's Racing Post. I am referring, of course, to the fact that he is no longer Time For Rupert's jockey, which is a shame as Rupert is easily the best horse he has been riding. Time For Rupert didn't run well last time, but he had no business taking on Kauto Star and Long Run at level weights, so I don't think that the run was as below-par as being beaten 25 lengths would suggest. However, his connections must have been disappointed - and it is understandable that if one has a good horse who one feels is not doing well, one might be tempted to change either the trainer or the jockey - and any trainer with any instinct for self-preservation will try to ensure that the option taken is not the former. This is neither the first time nor the last for something like this, and life goes on. Even though one couldn't have watched any of Rupert's races and have felt that William was doing anything wrong, the temptation to try something different is understandable. In cases such as these, it generally becomes plain that, even with a different jockey, the horse is still the same horse, and that the change has not had the effect of waving a magic wand. But basically no harm is done - and, of course, the fact that a jockey has ridden a horse in the past, or even ridden him in in all his previous races as is the case here, implies no obligation on anyone's part to ensure that he rides him in all his future races. Neither the connections nor the jockey are obligated in this respect: just as a jockey can and will decline a mount if his interests dictate that he go elsewhere, so are the connections at liberty to look elsewhere if they feel that it is the right thing for them to do. Anyway, William is a top-class jockey who will bounce back - not least because he now appears to be getting rides for JP McManus on occasions when AP McCoy cannot do the weight or has to go elsewhere - and Rupert will survive without him, even if he won't be improved by William's absence (notwithstanding the fact that he might well win his next race, simply because it will be the weakest race he has contested for ages). But I can't help feeling that fate now owes William a good turn or two.

We've had a similar disappointment recently in this neck of the woods, with Ted Spread leaving Mark Tompkins' Rayes Lane stable. Ted Spread is a good horse, even if not as good as some of the races which he has contested (he ran in both the Derby and the St Leger last year after having been particularly well placed to land a substandard Chester Vase by a head) would imply. He has run on the Flat five times this year, running consistently well to record Postmarks of 107, 100, 99, 100 and 99. He finished fourth to Cirrus Des Aigles in a Group Two race in Deauville and fourth, beaten only a length, to Watar in a Group Two race at Longchamp, and he was beaten only a nose in a Listed race at Pontefract, a race which I thought that he would have been awarded by the stewards had Kieren Fallon lodged an objection. Anyway, he made his hurdles debut about three weeks ago, finishing fourth of 11 in a good novices' hurdle at Ascot. It was a most encouraging jumping bow, particularly as he jumped impeccably all the way round, and it was clear that he was on his way to a fruitful career over jumps. However, it has also transpired that it meant that he was on his way to Paul Nicholls' stable. That's a shame. It is clear to me that he was going to do well over jumps where he was - but, again, if his owners felt that they had a potential top-liner on their hands who would only achieve his potential if trained by Paul Nicholls, then nobody could blame them for moving the horse. The only sad thing is that, to my mind, the decision was based on a misconception: he didn't need to move to develop into a high-class hurdler because while Paul Nicholls, like Mark, is a very good trainer, he isn't a magician - all he can do is what Mark (who sent out Akula to win a good handicap hurdle at Wetherby on Saturday and who is pictured here beside the Moulton Road in the summer in one of his stable's trademark red jackets) would have done, ie to get the horse to do be as good as he can be. Ted Spread's jumping was superb at Ascot, as good as it would have been had he done his schooling on any other schooling ground - and similarly he'll race as well as he can, whether trained by Paul Nicholls, by Mark, or indeed by any one of a dozen dozen good trainers. Paul Nicholls can't make him any better than he is, and I just hope that it isn't forgotten if this horse goes on to do very well (which he is likely to do) that he would have done that whether or not he'd moved. Horses move stables all the time. I've had horses arrive here from other stables and I've had horses leave here to go to other stables; and I haven't lost any sleep over it in either instance. It is, though, a shame to see a horse move house simply because of a misconception: it is, after all, all too easy to forget each spring that, when Paul Nicholls has half a dozen horses win at the Cheltenham Festival, he has another 250 or so at home who don't.

Early start ahead

2011-12-05T20:40:00.008Z

We (ie Terri, Dr Darcey, Gus and myself) will be on the road cold, dark and early in the morning as the Doctor (pictured with Terri on the Severals this morning after the frost had been dispersed by the sun) runs in the first at Fontwell, which at this time of year, just two weeks shy of the shortest day, is early. And, of course, when the journey involves heading around part of the M25 before the morning rush has subsided, one needs to allow plenty of time. So best to get on the road early and join the queues - and if the journey runs smoothly and we find ourselves at Fontwell in time for breakfast, then there's no harm in that. It'll just mean that Gus' walk around the track will be particularly good. Unfortunately we'll be heading off on a trip which is very unlikely to result in victory. Well, the majority of them, of course, end in defeat - even if one had a 33% strike rate, which would be unthinkable, never mind unattainable, one would still be saddling two losers for every winner - but this one has little prospect of victory from the outset, simply because it is very hard to look beyond the first two in the betting. However, I think that we have a chance of getting into the frame in an 8-runner race, and it should be a worthwhile trip whatever happens. Dr Darcey (pictured in the second picture, in the field yesterday with his mini-me, Karma Chameleon, who happens to be the only other horse in the stable who holds an entry this week, having been entered for a nursery at Southwell on Saturday) is still inexperienced over hurdles so the outing will do him good, and it will do us good too: at this early stage of winter, we face the likelihood of very wet tracks being pretty much ubiquitous for 10 weeks or so, so it's about time that we found out how he'll go in a bog, as that's information which we will be useful in planning his future programme. He's well anyway, and will be doing his best, so let's hope for a share of the prize money. The third, fourth and fifth illustrations in this chapter, by the way, are, like the second, of some of the horses enjoying their Sunday in the field yesterday. In the third photograph we have Kadouchski and Asterisk indulging in a spot of synchronized rolling while Frankie frolics in the background, while the fourth picture sees Alcalde having a roll with Frankie, Asterisk and Kadouchski in the background. Finally we have Frankie having his own roll once the crowd had dispersed and the coast was clear. It's not a bad life, is it?

The week

2011-12-03T19:06:00.014Z

Our two trips to the races during the week yielded differing outcomes. Alcalde, disappointingly, ran very poorly at Uttoxeter, but Kadou put in his usual fine effort to finish third at Market Rasen. Alcalde seemed fine before the race (as I think that this photograph suggests) and fine after it, but during it he only seemed fine for the first half. Still, we are accustomed to disappointment, and there are plenty of worse things than a disappointing run from which horse and rider come home undamaged. He remains a lovely horse, so we just plug on towards his next race undaunted. Kadou's effort was typically sterling. It was a 0-130 (novice) handicap steeplechase, and that ratings band theoretically equates to 0-95 on the Flat, so finishing third, even off a light weight, is a very respectable effort. William rode Kadou (pictured in the parade ring) very patiently and he came there with every chance between the last two fences, but sadly the effort which he puts in at his fences inevitably took its toll: after the last fence he could do no more and third was the best he could manage. But that's grand. He'll probably eventually learn to fly his fences in the same way that he flies hurdles, but he is only small and being slightly too ponderous at them is not a bad fault to have, as he is only small and it would rash for a horse of his size to treat them as if they were not significant obstacles. Anyway, it was another terrific effort and, as usual, I came away from the race really proud of him - and Gus enjoyed the day too, as you can see. Kadou's a proper trouper who tries his hardest every time and that's as much as one can ask. He has now run 16 times (including his Town Plate victory) during 2011 and finished in the first three on 13 of those runs, and that tells us all we need to know about his honesty. What a horse.

Other than that, it's been a fairly unremarkable week. We're descending into winter, of course, but the descent remains a gentle one. Yesterday morning was cold, but the frost came with the consolation of some splendid sunshine. By second lot, the sun was up, the slight frost had dispersed from the ground, and conditions were truly splendid. You can get an idea of how magnificent was our setting from these photographs of Hugh and Hannah, firstly riding Oscar and Alcalde along the side of the Heath and then a bit later letting those same two horses pick a bit of the small amount of grass which remains in the yard. And conditions which are good for man and horse are good for dog and cat too, as we can see with the greyhounds mooching around and with Natagora sunning herself on the window-sill. We didn't have nearly such splendid conditions this morning, but then again it was much milder so again we had no cause for complaints. And today was a relatively easy, as well as mild, Saturday morning, with all the work finished in good time for the start of a great afternoon of televised racing. I'd have to say that the Grand Sefton Chase over the National fences provided a bit of food for thought. The heavy ground made for very gruelling racing, and one had to marvel at the courage shown by Stewarts House and Linnel, who each gave their all in a real slow-motion slog to the line, the former getting home by a neck. It transpired that Paul Carberry on the runner-up had kept within his whip quota while Aidan Coleman on the winner had exceeded the limit, for which he received a 7-day suspension. Under the circumstances, I think that I would have been very, very disgruntled had Linnel been my horse; and, while I am aware that the arguments in favour of not disqualifying horses whose riders breach the rules are strong, I think that I would have found their validity very hard to accept had that been the case. I just hope that we don't get a repeat of this in a really big race - and I'd be disappointed if we do, because the jockeys really should see that, on the high-profile occasions, by breaking the whip rules they really are opening up massive cans of worms which, for the general good, really would be better remaining closed.

I can't let this week end without wishing Josh Quinn a happy 16th birthday. I rode past Jane Chapple-Hyam's during first lot on, I think, Wednesday morning and on saluting Josh (who was riding out before school) I learned that it was his 16th birthday. He's an excellent lad who rides really well. As he's already taller than his father Jimmy (which is understandable as his mother is considerably the taller of his two parents, and boys almost invariably end up taller than their mothers, irrespective of the height of their fathers) Josh (pictured on one of Jane's horses during the summer) is probably going to struggle to make a career as a Flat jockey, but I am sure that he would excel under National Hunt rules were he to head in that direction. In the last chapter, I might have seemed a bit down on the yoof of today, but that's far from the case - so I might as well prove that by saying nice things about a few of them here. And when there are youngsters around like Josh, it's easy to find nice things to say about them. Ditto our Hannah, who gave the Peter Salmon-trained Hydrant a very nice ride to finish third at Wolverhampton yesterday, her second ride of the week, which was good. The winner (the Tommy Keddy-trained Archie Rice, pictured up at the Links on a particularly fine winter morning last February preparing for a hurdles schooling session) of that race yesterday was given a remarkably polished ride by another of our best local apprentices, Michael Murphy, son of the former Middleham-based jumps jockey Mick and someone who has appeared in this blog previously. And, on the subject of good young riders, I can't close without mentioning the town's next pop star (perhaps). You might have read in the paper that Jamie Hamblett seems to be in the process of being head-hunted to join a 'boy band'. Jamie was a good apprentice (as was his elder brother Ashley) although he hasn't had a ride for a year or two now. (And their father Paul was also a jockey, best remembered for finishing third in the 1989 1,000 Guineas on Aldbourne). Jamie was apprenticed to Michael Stoute but now works for John Gosden (in whose string he is pictured here in May, although you might need a magnifying glass to spot him in third place). But, it seems, his future might lie in a different sphere if this pop thing comes off. Nobody could begrudge him any success which he might achieve, because he's a really nice lad, so if he follows in the footsteps of George Formby and the Monkees' Davy Jones (both racing lads, I believe) on the road to fame and fortune in show business, good on 'im. And, finally, happy 70th birthday to Brian Proctor (seen cantering a Godolphin horse up the first sand earlier this year) - a master horseman and a true gentleman.

Doing things right, or doing them wrong

2011-11-29T15:00:00.006Z

Conditions remain dry on this side of the country, which statement must provide cold comfort for those on the west: Ffos Las was vergeing on unraceably heavy yesterday, Ayr is abandoned because of water-logging today, while the M74, if I heard the radio correctly, is just about impassable in Lanarkshire because of flooding. Not so at Leicester, where the ground remains very quick on the hurdles track and where the steeplechase course remains, presumably, unraceably firm, the steeplechases having been abandoned for this week's meeting again. I was contemplating running Alcalde (whose ears are seen on a splendid morning on the Severals on Sunday) there on Thursday, but that fast ground wouldn't be his go, so he can instead go to Uttoxeter tomorrow, where the ground should be slightly on the soft side of good, which is OK. The Leicester race did arguably look more appealing, but the ground has taken the decision for us - which is not a bad thing from the point of view of my convenience, as Kadouchski (pictured lairizing in the field a couple of weeks ago) is set to run at Market Rasen on Thursday, and having runners at two meetings on the same day is rarely ideal. Anyway, let's hope for two good runs. Both horses seem well (which should go without saying, of course, as one oughtn't to be running horses unless one can say that about them).

I note that one of the jockeys in opposition to Alcalde tomorrow is Robert McCarth (7). I hope that he doesn't do to us what he did to one of his rivals at Sedgefield last week. I know that there is an unwritten rule about not pushing up the inside - and that this can cause problems on tracks where the inside running rail is intermittent, but that didn't apply here. Harry Haynes jumped a hurdle on the inside with McCarth next to him. The rail ended for about 80 yards, and McCarth appeared to steer so that he would be hard up against the inside rail when it resumed. The result, of course, was that Harry Haynes' horse was forced off the track and had a very nasty fall. The subsequent stewards' enquiry showed how out of touch I am with contemporary views on crime and punishment: I'd assumed that McCarth would be found guilty of either intentional interference or foul riding and be rubbed out for around six months, with his mount disqualified. I could hardly have been more wrong: I don't know what he was found guilty of, but he was suspended for either five or six days (I can't remember which) and his mount retained second position. It's hard to understand what he could have been found guilty of that could have carried such a punishment (and he must have been found guilty of something to have received any suspension): the interference clearly seemed neither accidental nor careless but intentional, and I can't see what category of intentional interference can bring such a lenient suspension when the interference has caused a fall. Still, ours not to reason why - but I just hope that he doesn't pull the same stunt tomorrow against our horse. And you couldn't be sure that he wouldn't, because the punishment has hardly been designed to get the message across that that kind of behaviour is beyond the pale.

That's the problem with youngsters nowadays: nobody tells them that what they're doing is wrong. Take, for instance, Kieran Fox, about whom a sob-story was written in the Racing Post last week. We were told that Kieran Fox is a freelance jockey who lives in Carshalton in Surrey and whose supply of rides has inexplicably dried up to such an extent that he is so short of money that he cannot afford to ride trackwork for any trainer, as he can't afford the petrol. So he just sits at home getting even poorer. This, of course, is totally misleading. He is not a freelance jockey: he is an apprentice, apprenticed to John Best, who trains in Kent, ie nowhere near Carshalton. Best used to give him plenty of rides, but doesn't do so any longer - and it's not hard to guess why: if the lad is not turning up for work, he's hardly going to give him any more rides. And if it's plain that his own stable has stopped using him (which it has) then he's not going to get any rides for anyone else either, particularly if he isn't riding out for anyone. The Racing Post probably thought that it was doing Fox a favour by highlighting his supposed plight, but in reality it was doing nothing of the sort. If it had said, "No, we're not going to write about how people should feel sorry for you. We're going to tell you to pull your finger out, move back so that you're living in the stable you're working in, and turn up for work every day. You'll find that your boss starts using you again, then other trainers will start doing so, and in another six months we'll be writing an article about how you've pulled yourself together and are doing well again." Kieran Fox is a talented young rider, but if nobody tells him what to do he'll remain a rudderless ship adrift. Compare and contrast Richard Callendar's wake-up call in last week's Winning Post to Josh Parr and Taylor Lovelock-Wiggins, two talented young riders in Sydney who, like Fox, seem to be sending their careers in the wrong direction through stupidity: "Josh Parr is no kid anymore and he must not continue to make dumb mistakes that cost him, owners and punters money. He is a better rider than the opportunities he is currently getting. Last Thursday at Hawkesbury, Josh rode Kiev for Peter Snowden and he must have been the only person who was at Hawkesbury or watching the program on television who didn't know the area hard up against in the inside fence was a no-go area. Kathy O'Hara partnered the winner Breeze Up, who had only won one from 21 heading into the race. O'Hara steered several horses away from the inside and even though Breeze Up didn't seem to want to win, he did. Meanwhile Parr and Kiev were on the worst ground near the fence. Then, two days later at Rosehill, Parr was fined $500 by the stewards for failing to ride out his mount , Sea Lord, over the final 100m. Josh, you are a good rider who I continually praise. But that will stop, as may the rides, if you don't pull up your socks and be more careful. Speaking of riders who seem to find drama wherever they go, Taylor Lovelock-Wiggins was also fined ($400) by the Rosehill stewards for failing to ride his mount, Mentality, to the line. The gelding finished seventh, but only a neck behind fifth placegetter Fitness Fanatic. Racing is full of trainers or jockeys who could have or should have. But you know what? So is every other sport and life in general. And nobody cares, so you need to make the most of your opportunities." Wise words - and kind ones too, because to tell youngsters that irresponsible or just plain stupid behaviour is anything less than totally unacceptable is to do them no favours at all.

On the subject of pointing youngsters in the right direction, I was delighted last week to gallop with an ex-jockey whom I greatly respect and who spends quite a lot of time doing just that nowadays. Michael Tebbutt was never a high-profile jockey, but he enjoyed a long career because of his professionalism, a large part of which involved keeping his weight in check. He's probably more a jumps jockey's size, but after he'd ridden a few bumper winners and in one hurdle race in his youth, he decided that he'd rather stay hungry and on the Flat. When I arrived in Newmarket 24 years ago, he'd only just come down from Middleham, where he'd been apprenticed to Chris Thornton, to join William Jarvis' stable. And I think that he only packed up race-riding four years ago, his final career-ending bad injury coming not from a racing fall, but when Cockney Rebel reared over with him in the yard a few weeks before winning the 2,000 Guineas. Anyway, I've always liked and respected Michael, and I was very pleased a year ago tomorrow when Hannah had her first ride at Kempton in a hands-and-heels apprentice race to find that he was the ex-jockey charged with briefing and de-briefing the riders, which is what happens in such races. Hannah is riding in the same race again tomorrow (for Julia Feilden) so I'd imagine that Michael might be on duty there again. And I was pleased also last week when I galloped Asterisk with one of Michael Wigham's horses on the Al Bahathri to find that Michael was on board. As these photographs show, he's lost none of his poise. Good on 'im - he's a man from whom these youngsters could learn plenty if they opened their eyes.

Hennessy Day

2011-11-27T18:22:00.011Z

I really enjoyed the trip yesterday to that most rurally English of all tracks, Towcester. The weather was good, even if the wind, being strong, was chilly enough on an otherwise mild and benign day. Gus (seen before the race) did too, as did Asterisk, who is really thriving on her National Hunt racing. She ran a good race to finish third. She was beaten a fair way and wasn't as good as the two mares who finished a reasonable distance ahead of her, but that's no disgrace. And, because of the course's stiff finish, the margins tend to be quite exaggerated there anyway. Asterisk (seen before the race, during the final furlong, in the unsaddling enclosure, and then doing today what she loves best, ie rolling in the mud) is a different horse now that she is running over jumps and away from tape starts, rather than out of starting stalls. She was really content and relaxed both before and after the race, and during it she jumped well and tried hard. And you can't ask for more than that. As we were in an early race, we were off home before the best races were run elsewhere, but I watched them in the evening and really enjoyed the Hennessy. There's not really a lot that can be said about that splendid result which has not already been said, but even so it would be wrong to touch upon yesterday's racing without mentioning how lovely it was to see that splendid horse Carruthers winning for his owner/breeder, the hugely respected Lord Oaksey. It is probably fair to say that, in truth, there are very few participants in any sport who give more to their sport than they take from it - but I'd say that Lord Oaksey has been the exception to this rule, as he has hugely enhanced racing, and National Hunt racing in particular, by his presence in it in various roles over the past sixty years. If you haven't read his book 'Mince Pie for starters', then you should do so - and that's a rare piece of good advice handed out on this blog. It's lovely; and it ends with him remarking that he has a home-bred yearling by Kayf Tara from his old steeplechasing mare Plaid Maid who will in time join the stable of his son-in-law Mark Bradstock with the aim of giving him one last shot at the big steeplechases in the twilight of his life. That horse, of course, is Carruthers, who has now won the Hennessy aged eight, giving his owner/breeder victory in the race which he won as an amateur rider in 1958. Lord Oaksey clearly is in bad health and could not be there yesterday, but I hope that he will have been able to learn of the horse's victory and to rejoice in it, because the rest of the racing community is certainly rejoicing in it on his behalf. So that was grand - as was the fact that Carruthers was (extremely well) ridden by the excellent Mattie Batchelor, one of our several grossly under-rated jockeys. That was only Mattie's third win of the season, which is remarkable as the season is now seven months old. He's as popular as he is effective, so that was grand. I can't help recalling and chuckling over his response when a journalist, when Paul Nicholls was going to have several runners in one big steeplechase and might have been looking for a jockey, asked him whether he thought that he might be in line to get the ride on Denman: "Ride him? I'd be 33/1 to lead him up!". With self-effacing humour like that, it's no wonder that the fact that Mattie (pictured on Douchkette at Uttoxeter early last year) was the jockey made a special win even more special.

Another chapter begins

2011-11-25T18:19:00.014Z

It's been a(nother) busy week, but a good one. The highlight has been the arrival of a lovely horse, who emerged from the first day of the December Sale (Monday) which is the day of the sale given over to yearlings. We'd looked at several on the Sunday and of, the ones who passed muster on inspection, the one to find his way here was a very well-bred and very handsome colt. He's by a very good stallion (Nayef) and is closely related to quite a few decent horses, most obviously his half-brother The Geezer, who was second to Scorpion in the St Leger six years ago after winning a Listed race at Haydock and the Gordon Stakes at Glorious Goodwood. You might recall that The Geezer then formed part of a multi-million-pound package sold by Jeff Smith to Godolphin, which also included the Prix Jean-Luc Lagadere runner-up Opera Cape. It transpired that Jeff Smith got substantially the better part of that deal, but at the time The Geezer did look like a realistic Gold Cup candidate for 2006 and beyond. So that's really good, and I hope that these photographs of him being taken off for his post-sale wind test make it easy to understand our excitement at his arrival. In case, by the way, the man leading him looks vaguely familiar, you might be interested to know that that is Dickie McCabe, whose claims to fame are that he was a multiple stable lads' boxing champion and that he did the Derby winner 30 years ago. And as the Derby winner 30 years ago was Shergar, you can understand why Dickie's place in Newmarket's folklore is secure.

This horse when he arrived here was, of course, a colt. He's no longer, which is great as it maximises the chance of his fulfilling whatever potential he has as a racehorse, as well as ensuring that his life while he does so will be as enjoyable as possible. (And that latter aspect, of course, helps us to achieve the former, as horses are no different to humans: you function best when you're enjoying your life). Of all the horses we looked at, this seemed arguably the least biddable, but one can't read much into that as horses who seem very docile at the sales can end up quite fiery, and vice versa. So that's not an issue - we just go back to an area upon I've touched previously, in that as I see things horses should be gelded at the first opportunity rather than the last. Basically, the arguments in favour are that it is much easier for geldings to focus on their work, for obvious reasons. There is an argument to say that it's easier to keep geldings sound, but I'm not sure about that and I'm not really that bothered in agonising over that one. But basically, the geldings can have a much more enjoyable life while in training: they can go out in the field every day with other geldings and with fillies, but the life of a colt in training is really rather wretched. In practice, colts have to be confined at all times other than when they are exercising as you just can't allow them to socialize with other horses. It's obvious why you can't let them socialize with female horses, and if you let them socialize with other males you usually end up with fights on your hands. So the colt doesn't have a nice life in training at all. And so he gets frustrated; and you very often find that he's harder to handle because of it, so finds himself at odds with his captors, which just makes his life even less pleasant. So it's a no-brainer as far as I can see.

There is, of course, one reason for keeping colts as colts, and that is because gelding them takes away the chance of their becoming stallions at studs. But, in practice, the chances of that coming to pass are, even at the outset, so miniscule that if you're living in the real world, you shouldn't be factoring this into your equation. I think and hope that this horse will be very good. But good enough to become a stallion? Well, his half-brother The Geezer wasn't. He won a Listed race and a Group Three race as a three-year-old and was second in a Group One, but he couldn't be found a place at stud, and was instead gelded and given away on the Darley re-homing programme. So this horse would need to be considerably better than The Geezer to be considered for stud. He's going to be a stayer, and basically there is just so little demand for stayers at stud that we'd be kidding ourselves if we said that he was at all likely to develop into a stud prospect - which is, of course, a view universally shared, because he would have fetched considerably more than 24,000 gns (or would have been unsold at that figure) if either other bidders or his breeder had felt that he was a realistic stallion prospect. And, if by some miracle he does end up considerably better than The Geezer and we are ruing his lack of testicles, then I'll silently be contemplating the fact that that lack of testicles has probably been a major factor in helping him to achieve as much as he has achieved. There is, of course, a more general point that, if everyone maximizes their chances of turning their colts into durable and successful racehorses by gelding them, then you can get into the situation that the breeding industry in general finds itself bereft of stallions to keep the lines going, as has happened on occasions in New Zealand when they've found that many of their best sires (eg Star Way, Noble Bijou, Zabeel - and it was probably just lucky that two of the best sons of Sir Tristram - Marauding and Zabeel -were owned by Robert Sangster and Sheikh Hamdan respectively, as otherwise they'd have been geldings and, although they would have enjoyed more fruitful racing careers, they wouldn't have become stallions) don't become noted sires of sires simply because their best sons are all geldings. That, though, isn't an issue in this side of the world, where the vast majority of nice colts remain colts until they've proved that they are not potential stallions, so we needn't be worrying about that and I thus don't think that we need to be losing any sleep about not doing our bit to keep the Mr Prospector sire-line alive!

Anyway, that's our latest recruit. We'll get him broken shortly and then turned back out again to get a bit older before we ask him to do very much, but he's already off at Colton Stud to spend a week or so unwinding from the sale and getting used to being a gelding before we bring him back and break him in. There wasn't going to be a suitable mate for him there so I've sent my own yearling Roy (another gelding) off to keep him company, which is lovely for Roy. As these photographs show, the two already look the best of friends, which is great as I'm sure that they'll be spending a lot of time together over the forthcoming weeks, months and years. And they look more than happy with their lot. I'm delighted that this horse is here and delighted to be able to say that we're giving him the best chance both to achieve his utmost and to enjoy his life as he does.

In the meantime, we'll go to Towcester tomorrow to see if Asterisk can build on the glimmer of promise which she showed on her hurdles debut at Lingfield a couple of weeks ago.

Mentioned in dispatches

2011-11-20T18:43:00.004Z

We had another pleasing trip yesterday. Admittedly finishing 11th of 13 isn't pleasing under all (many!) circumstances, but yesterday such a run represented a heartening outcome. The racecard yesterday kindly and sensibly pointed out that Zarosa (pictured coming back in after yesterday's race) had "showed nothing but greenness" on her debut at Newmarket, so it was very pleasing to see a much more polished performance yesterday on her second run. On the day, she wasn't fast enough, but that was no surprise; but the race was as competitive as one would expect to find in maiden company at any Grade One track on the turf, and she showed plenty of grit to run into the kick-back and pass the post just behind the mid-fielders, with well-bred colts from stables such as Cecil and Fanshawe just ahead of her. She really seemed to thrive on the experience, looking very much in her element at every stage of the outing, and she showed that, physically and mentally, she has now got to the stage where we can say that she has had a very worthwhile grounding from her first season in training. She's really been thriving recently and has really learned to relish her work, and I am sure that she is set to develop into a lovely tough, genuine and consistent filly/mare. So that was good; as was the fact that the second division of the same race was won by the Toby Coles-trained Lycidas (pictured with his jockey Stevie Donohoe, being led in by Toby after the race) . That was the second winner in two days for Toby, who is doing really well with his small string. Lycidas, a Zamindar half-brother to the Group One winner Lady Marian, seems to have the potential to become his stable's star - which would no doubt please Lycidas, who has quite a high opinion of himself. We were trotting up through the trees along the edge of Southfields on Racecourse Side a couple of months ago, and trotted past Toby on a brown horse who was standing bolt upright on his hind legs most elegantly. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to swap places with Toby, but fortunately he's an extremely good rider as well as a most diligent horseman, so he was just sitting there, calm as you like. I'd say that Lycidas is in very good hands, so let's hope he can progress from here.

I can't end the report of Saturday night without saying how typically helpful Zarosa's jockey Jimmy Quinn was. He gave her just the positive ride I sought, ensuring that she ran as well as she could and learned as much as possible from the race. He remains one of the weighing rooms most conscientious and respected professionals, and predictably has been continuing through the summer and autumn to do his job well despite the worry of a BHA enquiry hanging over him. I'm sure that there was a reason for charging the jockeys months before the case was going to be heard, just as I'm sure that there's a reason why we're now more than two weeks since the case's hearing was finished, and yet there is still no sign of a verdict. On the face of it, that does not suggest the rule of law being applied well, because it has ensured that the jockeys have already suffered a stiff penalty (in the form of lost patronage) irrespective of whether they are found innocent or guilty. That is not right, and Jimmy for one (a man in whom I remain more than happy to place my trust) has deserved better. It was good to be able to use him on this occasion, just as it was good to see him ride two winners (at 40/1 and 12/1) earlier in the day.

Salutations also from Saturday for local conditional jockey Mark Marris (pictured here on one of Neil King's horses a couple of winters ago) who rode his first winner in the UK (having already ridden one earlier this year in the south island of New Zealand when on a working holiday over there). Mark's an excellent lad who is in a very good stable (that of Sarah Humphrey). I haven't seen the race yet, but I will; but I'm told that he rode very well, so hopefully he will be able to move onwards and upwards from here. Salutations also to Chloe Madgin, who had ridden her first winner earlier in the week. Chloe has worked for James Eustace for years now, and she put that experience to good use when giving stable stalwart Baan an extremely well-judged ride to win an amateurs' race at Lingfield by a head. It would have been a good ride whether or not the horse won - and that he did was the icing on the cake. That was a victory which she really deserved.

Another local boy (sort of) who had a first winner in the week was Tom Symonds. He isn't, of course, a local boy at all, but he worked for James Fanshawe for a while and made a very good impression while he was in town. I was delighted to see him send out his first winner at Hereford on Thursday. I'm sure that that will be the first of many. And finally, another former James Fanshawe-employee who deserves a pat on the back is Colin Bolger. Colin remains one of the most under-rated jumps jockeys, a fact of which we were reminded when we were at Folkestone on Tuesday with Dr Darcey. We were amused to note that an hour after our race there was a steeplechaser running called Master Darcy. We thought that that set up the potential for a nice double. Unfortunately, the Doctor scuppered whatever chance there was of that happening, but Master Darcy landed the second leg, which was remarkable as he was a 16/1 shot in a three-horse race. The AP McCoy-ridden favourite fell early on, and that left the door open for Colin to get young Master Darcy home by a head. If you ever see Colin (pictured earlier this year in Rayes Lane on a horse trained by Mark Tompkins, to school for whom Colin comes up to Newmarket regularly) down to ride a long-priced horse (which is pretty much any horse he rides) you can always be assured that the horse will be ridden as positively and as well as if he were the favourite. And you can't say more than that.

A good run and good weather

2011-11-19T13:50:00.009Z

Our trip to Kempton was indeed a pleasant one, largely thanks to the fact that Karma Chameleon ran really well on his first run for us, finishing second behind a horse who clearly was fairly well handicapped. It would be wrong to go overboard about the Baby Doctor's run as we were well beaten and only beat the third horse in a photograph, but even so it was very pleasing and encouraging. Furthermore, over and above where he finished, he confirmed the very positive impression which he had made on his in everything he had been doing at home, all of which had suggested that he is just a wonderfully honest, straightforward and willing little horse. That, of course, reflects very well not just on the horse himself, but also on the way he had been brought up in his previous stable. I can't overstate how important it is that a racehorse should have a willing and calm nature: if they just get on with things and try to do well, they should fulfill whatever potential they have, but if they don't, they are very unlikely to do so. Soundness, of course, is the key, and he's a sound horse - and it's obviously much easier for a sound horse to be genuine than an unsound horse. So when one's got a sound, genuine horse, you've always got half a chance. And getting hold of sound, durable horses, funnily enough, can at times seem easier said than done, because a frighteningly high proportion of thoroughbreds really aren't as resilient and sound as they ought to be. So that was good, as was the weather: you wouldn't have known it from these benighted photographs, night having fallen well before our 5.20 post time, but it had been yet another lovely warm sunny day. Similarly tonight (Saturday) we'll be racing under lights with Zarosa at 7.50, but it's a lovely sunny afternoon now, as this photograph (of the view which I enjoyed going up Long Hill AW at the back of a string of four at 9.00 this morning) clearly suggested might be going to be the case.

I wouldn't say that the horses are enjoying this lovely week of weather as much as I am, simply because that would be hard, but they're enjoying it a lot. It's the best of every world for them: as we're into autumn and have had a good amount of rain in the past two or three weeks, the surface of the field is damp soil, rather than dry dirt. So that's great for them as they love it to be muddy for their rolling - but, of course, with muddy ground usually comes miserable conditions above. Not so at present, though: mud on the ground, warm sunshine above, so they have been in seventh heaven in the afternoons: rolling, rolling, frolicking and rolling again, and then just enjoying the pleasantly warm, sunny conditions. I could bore on about this for ages, but pictures say a thousand words, so these shots of Asterisk (with Kadouchski in the background), Kadouchski and Dr Darcey enjoying themselves in the field yesterday afternoon say it all. When the horses are rolling in the mud like this every day, it's neither feasible nor sensible to try to ensure that they become spotless every evening, only to get filthy again the following day. The fact that we'd have horses go out at exercise still with some of the previous day's mud in their coats used to raise a few eyebrows, but it's become an accepted fact of Heath life now. And, seeing these photographs, who would wish to deny these horses what is clearly a very special and valued source of daily pleasure?

Here comes the night

2011-11-17T08:38:00.007Z

We'll be back this evening to the routine of racing at night with which we became so familiar last winter. Thankfully, common sense is again prevailing and the winter midweek evening meetings are being run at a sensible time. For too long they persisted with a last-race time of 9.20, which made no sense from any point of view: after all, it isn't only the participants who have to be up for work the next day, but potential racegoers and punters too. Those winter late evening meetings used to attract virtually no spectators, and it's easy to see why. Plus, from an off-course point of view, there was no sense in having a massive hiatus between the end of the afternoon racing and the start of the evening meeting. So now procedings start shortly after the afternoon fixtures end, wind up at a civilized hour, and I'm sure that any audience is (nearly) as pleased by this time-table as are those who put on the show. So tonight we'll be running Karma Chameleon (pictured following Dr Darcey around Side Hill AW on Monday) at 5.20, which will be the third race on a 7-race card which starts at 4.20 and ends at 7.20, which is grand. The day's last afternoon race, incidentally is at 4.00 (at Hereford) so all works well - not having the first evening race until 6.20, as would formerly have been the case, would have been madness.

Let's hope that it's an enjoyable trip, like our visit to Folkestone on Tuesday. Monday was a pretty grim day - dark, damp and cold - but Tuesday and Wednesday (ie yesterday) were lovely days, with warm sunshine after a very foggy start. Admittedly on Tuesday the murk had reappeared by the time that racing was run, but the second half of the morning had been truly glorious, allowing Gus to enjoy his inspection of the course in lovely sunshine. Dr Darcey ran well. He'd finished miles behind the Seamus Mullins-trained Hi Samana at Kempton last month when they made their debuts in the same race, with Hi Samana finishing a close second and Dr Darcey finishing a distant fifth. The margin between them was massively reduced this time as Hi Samana, unsurprisingly, won, while Dr Darcey (pictured heading out boldly towards the track before the race) finished third. He jumped much more positively and did everything right, being very calm but perky before the race, travelling and jumping with enthusiasm in it, and looking very content afterwards. His run at Kempton had been a bit of a let-down as (largely because of circumstances out of our control, ie a horse falling in front of him at the second) his performance was much less polished than I'd have liked it to have been. However, this was a massive step in the right direction - and when a horse puts in one of those, one has to be pleased. Let's hope that he can continue to progress from here, that his mini-me (ie Karma Chameleon) can run well on his first run from the stable, and then that Zarosa (seen here yesterday morning through Asterisk's ears at around 9.15 just as the fog was starting to lift) can be inspired by the Doctor to follow in his foosteps by running an awful lot better at Wolverhampton (late) on Saturday night than she did on her debut at Newmarket last month.

Sunshine and sadness

2011-11-14T19:50:00.005Z

We're continuing our creep towards winter, with the temperatures gradually falling and the incidence of damp, grey days rising. Friday was a particular offender in this respect, but we had some respite over the weekend, with yesterday (Sunday) in particular being a lovely springlike day. I had three horses to ride and these three photographs, taken through the ears of each of them in turn, give you some idea of how the morning progressed. I'm rarely in a hurry on a Sunday so I didn't get out on the first one, Dr Darcey, until around 8.00, by which time the sun was properly above the horizon and was beginning to poke through the mist as we trotted around the Severals. An hour or so later, the day had really brightened up as Frankie (Douchkirk) and I came up the Al Bahathri. And then conditions were even balmier by the time I took Karma Chameleon onto the bottom of Long Hill for a canter along the side of the Heath. As I think that this triptych of photographs indicate, it was a fairly pleasant way to start the day. The next three days, though, will tell us whether it was a worthwhile way: two of those three horses are running, with Dr Darcey heading to Folkestone tomorrow and Karma Chameleon (aka Baby Doctor, on account of him being Dr Darcey's mini-me) to Kempton on Thursday. I'd like to think that both can run well. The doctor didn't run particularly well on his hurdles debut, but it's a weaker race tomorrow, and horses often improve from their first to their second runs anyway. Let's hope that he'll be one of them. As regards the baby doctor, it's hard to know what to expect on his first run for us, but he has a good run over seven furlongs to his name from his days in Richard Guest's stable, but he seems well and a seven-furlong nursery is clearly the obvious place for us to start him off.

The pleasant conditions of yesterday were, I'm afraid, in marked contrast to the mood of a couple of recent events. You might recall that nearly a year ago tragedy knocked on our door when Chris Watson, a lovely man who rode as an amateur, suffered a fatal fall when riding out in this string. In what was a shocking reminder that freak accidents can and do occur, Chris lost his stirrup while cantering around Side Hill (either through the pin coming out of the hole or through the stirrup leather becoming detached from the saddle) and consequently lost control of a horse whom he used regularly to ride with no problems. Last Friday, the 11th day of the 11th month, saw the inquest into Chris' death, held, strangely enough, in the magnificence of the Athenaeum Club in the main square in Bury St Edmunds. The bleakness of the occasion was matched by the day's weather, but if I can say anything positive about a day which did at least bring some element of 'closure' (if there is such a thing) to an awful event, it is that the way things were handled by officialdom was exemplary. Those in charge of sorting things out - including the police and PC Nik Chapman in particular, the HSE officers Steve Gill and Martin Kneebone, and finally the coroner presiding on Friday - have all handled things throughout with dignity, sensitivity, consideration and kindness, and that really was much appreciated as it helped to make an awful saga no more awful than it had to be.

A more recent tragedy which has appeared on our radar was the death at the weekend of Corey Gilby. You might have read that Corey suffered a fatal fall at Julia Creek racecourse in northern Queensland on Saturday, galloping a horse after racing. Corey will be forever remembered by me as rider of Somewhere Safer, the mare whom Michael Tidmarsh and I own together and whom Michael, when he was living in Deagon in the northern suburbs of Brisbane, trained to win six races. Corey was in Deagon at the time, used to ride some trackwork for Michael, became particularly friendly with Michael's eldest son Liam, and rode Dolly (who recently gave birth to her first foal, a colt by All Bar One) in a few of her races, including in her final victory at the Gold Coast. Since then, Michael has moved back to New Zealand and Corey had moved farther north, but he'd remained in our thoughts. There's nothing which one can say to lessen the tragedy of the life of a good man cut short way too soon. All one can do is to remember that death will claim us all sooner rather than later. We can't defeat it by avoiding it, but we can defeat it by ensuring that whatever time we have while we are alive is well spent, and by being remembered fondly after we have gone. Chris and Corey both spent their time well, died doing what they loved, and are both remembered with great affection; and that, at least, is something.

A good twelfth!

2011-11-10T19:13:00.009Z

I enjoyed my trip to Lingfield on Tuesday, even though it was a gloomy, wet day. And I'm pleased to say that Asterisk seemed to enjoy it too, which was great as she hadn't really enjoyed her previous visits to the races. Mind you, this was easier for her: what she hadn't enjoyed in the past had been the starting stalls, and of course there were no stalls for her hurdle race, hence her being aimed at it. Unfortunately she had developed a massive aversion to starting stalls before she arrived here two and a half years ago, an aversion which we have never been able completely to overcome. However, when we took her to Newmarket in the summer I was pleasantly surprised by how relaxed and settled she was in the preliminaries while being saddled and while walking around the parade ring - but when she got down to the start and saw the stalls she become a different, and far less relaxed, horse. After that it was an easy decision to wait for the autumn and send her hurdling - and I'm delighted to say that on Tuesday she was ever so relaxed being saddled and in the parade ring, and still ever so relaxed when she arrived at the stalls-less start. We could see her on the TV walking around perkily at the start, rather than jig-jogging nervously, and she really looked in her element. And she was very unstressed afterwards too, so that was all good. And the most important part, the race? Well, she ran OK. (In fact, by the standards of horses who finish 12th, beaten 50 lengths, she ran very, very well!). She wasn't far away from the leaders, and still going OK, when a horse fell in front of her at the second last hurdle. She was nearly brought down and that ended her chances of finishing close to the place-getters. So no harm was done. It was actually something of a low act by the horse (the favourite) who nearly brought her down: she cut in front of Asterisk approaching the hurdle, which wasn't a very nice thing to do - and then fell, causing even more (considerably more) interference to Asterisk than she already had. Still, that horse is owned by one of my favourite musicians/singers, Roger Waters, so all is forgiven. If I were going to make a weak pun, I'd say that this horse's jockey, when waiting beside the track afterwards for his lift back to the weighing room, was picked up by the ambulance so promptly that he didn't have time to consider the pros and cons of hitch-hiking; but I'm not, so I won't. And I won't mention that, when he got back to the weighing room and wanted to find out exactly what had happened, he did so by watching TV.

So that was Tuesday, a damp, dreary, drizzly day - which was at least an improvement on Monday, which was a very wet one indeed. But the good news is that, having in a few days gone a long way towards catching up on our rainfall quota after the prolonged dry period, we've returned to more pleasant conditions today. It was like a spring day, which was lovely, and a couple more like this should dry the place out a bit. I happened to be up at the far end of Waterhall at around 3.50 this afternoon, and as you can see, from under an oak tree which is doing remarkably well at retaining its leaves this far into autumn, we were getting set for a magnificent autumn sunset at the time. Let's hope that we see as much of the sun again tomorrow.

I can't finish, by the way, without saluting a couple of recent winners. I wasn't still at Lingfield by the time the last race was run on Tuesday (in fact, I was probably considerably closer to Newmarket than to Lingfield by that time, being keen to get home expeditiously as it was the Town Meeting at 6.30 that evening and, as a councillor, I wanted to be home in good time for that; so, having run in the first race, we left shortly after the third) but, had I still been there, I would have watched a very good Newmarket-based conditional jockey, Trevor Whelan, ride a winner for his boss Neil King. Trevor (pictured in Neil's string at the bottom of Warren Hill a few months ago, behind Alex Merriam, and also riding the Toby Coles-trained Dear Maurice at Huntingdon last month, just ahead of AP McCoy) arrived in Newmarket in the summer, having previously worked for George Baker (and Ian Williams before him, I believe). He's working for Neil, as mentioned above, so we see him every day; and, while I haven't watched him ride that many races, he seems a very good rider indeed, and a very switched-on, professional and diligent young jockey. Let's hope that that victory will help him on his way, because I'd say that he deserves to get on. Anyway, I was pleased to see that horse win - and another horse I was pleased to see win recently was a sprinter trained in the same part of town. Unbelievably, Dunaden, who cost 1,500 euros as a foal, was not the least expensive Group race winner on Melbourne Cup day: Iver Bridge Lad, whom John Ryan bought for 1,000 gns as a yearling, won a Group Three race in France the same day. That was excellent. The horse (pictured in the summer with Kirsty Milczarket at the bottom of Long Hill) had been running consistently well all year and he really deserved a Group win, as did his trainer. So I was delighted to see that come to pass.

Sequence ended

2011-11-07T16:26:00.010Z

Kadouchski finishing second on the last day of October meant that we reached the end of that month winless, which was a shame as we had enjoyed at least one success in the each of the preceding 11 months. We had a good summer and early autumn last year, but October was winless before we resumed the sequence in November. And that sequence, happily, continued for 11 months, but sadly we couldn't make it 12 consecutive successful months, which was a shame as I'd have liked us to have done that. Still, it wasn't the end of the world - and, realistically, it would not really have been something for which it would have been realistic to hope. We average around 80 runners per year, which is something between seven and eight a month. A busy month might see us having 10 or more runners, a quiet month only three or four. And when one's going to have several months with no more than one runner a week, it's not realistic to think that one can keep getting a win a month (although ironically our winless month saw us having 10 runners, with only three of those finishing in the first four). So now we must try to get a new sequence going, and our second attempt to get off the mark for November will come tomorrow when Asterisk (pictured being schooled by William back in July) runs at Lingfield. It's hard to know what to expect as she has achieved very little so far; but, then again, she is only lightly-raced, she hasn't run for ages, and she has never run over hurdles. So it's a real shot in the dark - but I can say that she jumps very well. We will, unfortunately, be without the bang-in-form William (three wins in the past seven days) as he has to go to Huntingdon, but - funnily enough - our record when William's unavailable is surprisingly good, and Rhys Flint (who rides her) has won on two of the three occasions he has ridden for us. William would always be my first choice, but I'm never unhappy to leg Rhys aboard. Let's see what happens.

This is probably a good time to mention a few other young riders. There are plenty of good ones knocking around, some of whom have crossed our path. Most immediately we should mention poor Joe Akehurst, who rode so well for us at Sandown two days ago. Yesterday Joe called me around noon to say that he'd just broken his collar bone. He seemed to have taken this painful setback quite well, but it must have been a big disappointment to pick up an injury at this time of year. Otherwise, local amateur Jack Quinlan is very much the man of the moment. Jack rode yet another winner today for John Ferguson, who has put together a string of Sheikh Mohammed's former horses, all now owned and trained by John. Jack went to work for John full-time in the summer and the rides seem to be split between him and Paul Moloney, which is great as the horses are very good and a large proportion of the runners win. Jack (pictured here at Stratford in June winning on Peader Miguel, trained by his father Noel - and then after the race alongside Noel and Richard Pitman) is a young lad of the highest calibre, both as a rider and as a person, and I am ever so pleased to see fortune thus smiling on him. Otherwise, the jockey who deserves to be mentioned in dispatches is Elliot Canal, whom I wouldn't know from a bar of soap but whose name caught my eye when I was reading the results from Saint-Cloud last Thursday. Dick Francis always used to come up with some splendidly unlikely names for the characters in his novels, but this one is good even by his standards. And on the subject of great names, I was ever so pleased to see one of my favouritely-named (if that makes sense) horses finally salute the judge at Wolverhampton on Thursdsay (under November Handicap-winning hoop Robert Havlin, pictured on Ethics Girl): Whey Sauce, a filly like Ethics Girl whose name is best appreciated when heard rather than read.

Sandown on Breeders' Cup weekend

2011-11-05T19:46:00.010Z

Our dry spell duly broke on Thursday night when we had 30mm of rainfall from dusk to dawn, and a fair bit more during the morning on Friday (yesterday). But it's remained warm so we can't complain, and rainfall was what I was banking on earlier in the week when making plans to run Alcalde at Sandown today. He duly went there and duly ran well. These big-field handicaps at Grade One tracks, flat or jumping, are always tough races, so his close fourth today in an 18-runner handicap hurdle represents a very creditable effort. I went there feeling that he was in great nick and that two and a half miles around Sandown on a wet track would be ideal, with the only drawback being that the race was fiercely competitive. So, all in all, he ran extremely well - and again was very well ridden by Joe Akehurst, who had ridden him nicely too at Cheltenham on his previous run. It's amazing that Joe has only ridden five winners, because he rides with much more maturity and polish than such a total would imply. There is always a brahma, and today's was my escaping a fine for being late into the parade ring. If you look at these photographs closely, you'll see that the breast-plate which we usually use on National Hunt runners has been replaced by a breast-girth which isn't ours. Our breast-plate had been in Gibsons (the saddlers up by Tattersalls) for re-stitching and this was its first use since that operation. I started to saddle Alcalde today at the usual time - and found that the way I'd put the breast-girth on wasn't right. So I tried another way around. And another. And it slowly dawned on me that whichever way I tried the breast-girth, it still wasn't right. I finally worked out that the breast-girth must have been dismantled and then reassembled by the saddler back to front, as elementary a mistake as one would ever see. It had never occurred to me that Gibsons' man could have made such a complete f**k-up of what is basically a very simple job, so by the time I'd worked out why I couldn't get the breast-girth to fit right, five minutes had elapsed. And by the time I'd hotfooted it off to the weighing room to borrow a breast-girth from the valets and had returned to the saddling boxes, another five minutes had gone. Hence Alcalde only arriving in the parade ring after the majority of the jockeys were already on their horses. I was duly quizzed by the stipendiary steward, but it was plain that I had a genuine excuse (added to the facts that Alcalde did walk a complete lap of the parade ring and the race was still off on time anyway) so no further action was taken.

So, all in all, that was a very pleasing trip - and for Anthony too. He's really getting into racing now, his enthusiasm having largely been fired by the superhorse Frankel. I didn't start to follow racing until I was aged 10, so he's ahead of me in becoming interested at the age of eight. At the last Newmarket meeting Anthony asked Tom Queally to sign his picture of Tom riding "the best horse in the world", and Tom, as one would expect from such a decent man, took all the time in the world to chat to him. So that was Anthony's favourite Flat jockey met - and today Anthony took the opportunity to ask his favourite National Hunt jockey, his namesake Anthony McCoy (pictured at Market Rasen in the summer in the colours he most frequently wears), to sign his race-book; and again the victim was courtesy and friendliness personified. There is an awful lot wrong with British racing, but while it has ambassadors such as these two jockeys, who have both gone well beyond the call of duty in helping to fire the enthusiasm of one youngster, it's not doing too badly.

It's certainly doing better than its American counterpart, with the current Breeders' Cup meeting having outdone both Gibsons and the implementation of the whip rules as regards getting things badly wrong. It was bad enough that the Churchill Downs management told the British trainers to have their horses ready to work at 9.30 on Thursday morning, and then closed the track bang on the dot of 9.30; but the scratching of the Andre Fabre-trained Announce yesterday took the biscuit. You might have seen Announce playing up on the way to the start yesterday and sidling into the horse ambulance which, bizarrely, was parked on the track; and then being scratched by the vet at the start because of this incident. You might also have seen the senior vet Larry Bramlage being interviewed and saying that, while Announce probably hadn't sustained any significant damage in the incident, it had happened such a short time before the start that there was not time to make a thorough assessment, so they had erred on the side of caution and scratched her! If I'd been Fabre, I'd have gone the roof, but I dare say that the great man kept his cool far better than I would have done. But, even so, I trust that he would have pointed out the supreme irony that, if the vets had really been erring on the side of caution, Announce might have been the only runner in the race: Fabre never runs his Breeders' Cup horses on bute, whereas I would guess that a large amount of her rivals would have been on it (the Breeders' Cup rules permit it to be administered to a horse up to 24 hours before the post time of the race) - and, if one works on the (fair) assumption that one would only put a horse on bute who had something wrong with him/her and that it is not possible to make a worthwhile judgement of a horse's soundness who has bute in his/her system, then Bramlage, who had authorized the scratching of Announce on the basis that it was not possible to make a worthwhile judgement of the filly's soundness, might have ordered the scratching of most of Announce's rivals before he'd even got around to thinking about scratching Announce. Cock-eyed governance doesn't come any more screwed up than that decision.

On the subject of governance, I see that the whip debacle continues. Now that it's rained and the ground has become more testing, we're predictably getting even more transgressions (I think that we had five or six yesterday) so now might be the time to make the observation that the problems came not from the old rules themselves, but on the occasions when they were broken. We are all agreed that after Maguire's ride in the Grand National, and the negative publicity which it brought to racing, something had to be done. The problem was two-fold: the ride was, apparently, visually off-putting for many viewers, and also the fact that the jockey incurred a whip ban was seeming proof that how he'd ridden was unacceptable. But - and this is the point - there never seemed to be any perceived problems when jockeys rode within the rules. Would it not, therefore, have been more sensible to have worked out that the problem lay not within the letter of the rules, but in the fact that they were being broken? As the solution chosen has not been to do what was needed (ie find a way of ensuring that jockeys do not break the whip rules) but to rewrite the rules in such a way that has led to their being broken more often, one would have to say that, even if we are still way ahead of our American counterparts as regards common sense in legislation, we still have a long way to go.

Up for some sleep

2011-11-02T19:11:00.008Z

I enjoyed my overnight stint in the ATR studio with Matt Chapman, who miraculously managed to avoid saying "Up for the Cup", arguably one of Racing Post's most over-used headlines (which was duly dragooned into print yet again on this occasion). Matt was at his brahmatic best, and seemed to enjoy the night as much as I did. And he coped very well with my contradicting pretty much everything he said! I was, as seems to happen every year, surprised and relieved to find how easy it was to get through the night, even with my stamina being particularly tested by the fact that I'd prepared for the night with a trip to Kempton. Mind you, I recall that last year I went to Kempton on the Tuesday, having been up all night, which is probably over all a more taxing way of doing things. So, by comparison, a trip there on the Monday wasn't making things too hard. We're still enjoying some unseasonably pleasant weather, but recalling last year's trip to Kempton I remember revelling in the fact that I was walking around the racecourse in shirt-sleeves in November, which is what I was doing again this year - so perhaps conditions are not unseasonal at all: something ceases to be unusual if it becomes the norm. You'll have seen the Kadou ran well again at Kempton, finishing second again. He was actually flattered to be second as the leader and seemingly certain winner fell at the last, and he was well beaten by the horse who became a lucky winner. Still, it was a race contested solely by horses with form, so second of the seven finishers was far from a disgrace. He did seem to find some of the fences a bit of a struggle: he's only very small by steeplechasing standards, and the little bit of extra size (as Gus observed when inspecting the track) which fences on Grade One tracks seem to have probably isn't ideal for him. Still, despite finding things hard work, he ran his usual brave race and didn't let his evident tiredness (which is clear in the after-race photograph) deter him. I'll try to keep him to lesser tracks henceforth and I remain hopeful that he might achieve an ambition for me by adding a steeplechase victory to the Flat and hurdles wins on his CV. He truly is a very, very special horse.

I'm sure that the weather is going to spoil shortly, but it really is lovely while these mild conditions last. October was a vintage edition of that month, and November has started mild, sunny and dry. It was lovely this morning, conditions being ones in which man, horse and dog alike could revel. In such lovely weather, it was inevitable that my camera wouldn't stay in my pocket for long, and Dr Darcey's friendly face made an obvious subject for some sunny-morning snaps. The Dr is entered at Sandown on Saturday, but there look to be some very promising French imports in the race, so I think that we'd be well advised to wait awhile, probably until Folkestone ten days later. Alcalde will run at Sandown, but the Dr can stay at home and spend some quality time with his mates, as we can see him doing in these after-work pictures this morning of him saying "G'day" firstly to Gus and then to his mini-me, Karma Chameleon. I hope that my energy levels will be back to normal by Saturday; they are a bit low at present after my sleepless night, but I'll turn in now, and I hope that nine hours in bed might help get me back to normal.

Leaving home

2011-10-30T19:29:00.010Z

I've had a couple of days off since I last posted on this blog. As it was half-term, I took Anthony down to Devon to stay with his grandfather for two days (Wednesday to Friday) and all three Berrys seemed to have a mighty time. We let the train take the strain, which is always an enjoyable (but not inexpensive) way of travelling. Still, I suppose that the cost of fuel makes all travelling very costly, but even so running a railway ought to be a license to print money, as tickets are very dear and all trains nowadays seem to be full or nearly full. But train travel is such fun: it's an adventure, as well as a very easy way to go. We only had one full day down there, and that day was one of pretty much constant rain, but the rain didn't dampen the enjoyment - despite the fact that the highlight of the day consisted of standing on Exmoor, which is an activity which is much more enjoyable in dry weather than wet. Happily, the rain was only light at the time, so we really were able to enjoy spending an hour in the company of a man called Nigel Penfold and of his two Harris hawks, Cassius and Lady Macbeth (whose names would appear to suggest that Nigel is an enthusiast of Shakespeare as well as of hawks). This was really good fun, even if Anthony's comment halfway through that he was "living the dream" suggests that perhaps he doesn't take the English language quite as seriously as he should. Mind you, he is only eight, so that's forgivable. This treat took place out on the moor above Withypool, and the getting there was also a delight: a drive to and over the moor is always a pleasure whatever the weather, and this drive was made all the more pleasurable by the sighting of a couple of herds of magnificent Exmoor ponies.

Although our full day down in Devon was one of inclement weather, this month's weather is largely remaining very good right until the end of October (which ends tomorrow). Our train journey down from Paddington to Tiverton Parkway had taken place on a lovely golden sunny autumn dusk, and the day on which we departed was even more special. We really did see the Devon countryside at its best as we left it, all the more spectacular for the heavy mist resultant from a day of rain having fallen on warm soil being followed by strong morning sunshine. I'm not at all good at leaving home (I think that those two nights represented only the second and third nights which I have spent away from home this year, their predecessor having been when I stayed at Aintree after Alcalde had run there in the last race at an evening meeting in the spring, and on that occasion I'd been home by about 8.30 the next morning, so that hardly counted as an extended absence from home) but I always surprise myself by finding that I do actually enjoy being away, however much I dread it in advance. I think it's the leaving home which I so dislike, rather than the being away from home.

I'll next be leaving home tomorrow, but then I'll only be away for six hours of so: Kadouchski (pictured enjoying his roll in his stable after exercise this morning) is set to contest his second steeplechase when he runs in the third race at Kempton tomorrow afternoon. Fingers crossed he ought to run well, as he did in his first steeplechase nearly three weeks ago when he finished second at Huntingdon. Tomorrow's field looks very similar, so I would imagine that he should be one of several chances in the race. On my return I will leave home a second time for the day: that will be to head to London for ATR's overnight coverage of the Melbourne Cup, when Matt Chapman and I will brahmaize the night away while Flemington's 10-race (or possibly 9-race, I haven't yet checked) card takes place. So tomorrow night will be my fourth night away from home of the year, although again I'll be back in the yard by 8.30 the following morning. Regarding the mildness of the weather, I've clipped (admittedly only trace-clipped, as that's as much as I ever do) Kadou in advance of his race tomorrow. I don't like clipping horses any more than necessary as I think that they appreciate a long coat when it's cold, but it's so mild at present - still shirt-sleeves weather, which is amazing - that I think that Kadou would get too warm on the journey down and in the preliminaries tomorrow with his long coat, and I don't like to see a horse sweating before his race. So he's had some of his hair removed, and I think that I'll also clip Alcalde (pictured yesterday ridden by our visitor from Stockholm, the trainer/jockey Annika Kallse, who was over for the Horses-in-Training sale) before his outing at Sandown on Saturday, as his coat is even longer than Kadou's.

This week

2011-10-26T10:43:00.013+01:00

We're still getting more than our fair share of magnificent mornings (such as Monday, as seen here, looking over Long Hill and then the Severals) and warm sunny days this week. So far, anyway. However, before I move on to this week, I should just revert to last week. No review of last weekend should have concluded without my saying how much pleasure I received from two victories at Doncaster on Saturday. Well, three really, because everyone loves to see a really good horse; and Camelot certainly is that. Most likely he won't win the Triple Crown, but we can use the thought that he might to keep us warm over the winter. There has been a Triple Crown winner in my lifetime, but I hadn't yet started to pay attention to racing in 1970, so within my conscious racing lifetime there has been none. And I really hope that that omission will be rectified before it's too late. Anyway, leaving Camelot aside, I was delighted by the victories of Mia's Boy and Direct Answer. Mia's Boy is a grand horse, as admirable as his trainer and owner, Chris and Shelley Dwyer (pictured on him early last month). He hadn't won for a couple of years (in fact, not since that same race two years ago, I believe) but he races at a very competitive level, and he'd run some terrific races in the interim. He really deserved that victory, and so did his connections. I'd been very pleased too earlier in the afternoon to see Direct Answer, a horse who has featured in this blog in the past, win a handicap. He's a son of one of my favourite stallions (Dynaformer) and I'm always pleased to see him and his lad Umar Saleem on the Heath (as here on Long Hill in a wet week in August) - well, almost always. I'd had a cock-up a couple of weeks previously when Kadouchski and I had overtaken him on the Al Bahathri when we were galloping and he was, to my surprise, doing pacework. Everyone involved had got their wires crossed, particularly me, so I was pleased when I waited at the end for Umar to apologise and explain that I hadn't meant to muck his exercise up, to find that he didn't mind and said that the exercise hadn't been spoiled anyway. Because all three people involved (Umar, Michael Stoute and Tony Crombie, the head lad who had been at the bottom of the gallop) are people whom I like and respect, I emailed Michael Stoute to reiterate the apology which I'd given to Umar. The reply was a brahma: that it was good of me to have written, that I had nothing to apologise for, that the misunderstanding hadn't been my fault, and that "anyway it was good to see you ride another winner in such a short space of time"! The fact, of course, that I was on Kadouchski made this brahma particularly good.

Moving on to this week, the most note-worthy event has, unfortunately, been the departure of Rhythm Stick. It's a fact of life that horses don't stay here forever, so there's no good in worrying about it. And we had reached the obvious time for Rhythm Stick's breeders (who had bred him to sell him, but hadn't done so when he was a yearling, as had been the plan, because he was still too backward then to be offered for sale) to sell him - and, while they would have loved to have kept such a lovely horse and found it a wrench to make the decision to do so, it was an economic fact of life that it behoved them to do so, as long as they were offered a good price. So he headed up to Tattersalls' Horses in Training Sale yesterday, where he duly fetched a very good price (35,000 gns). It was a sad moment for us all to bid him farewell, but there's no reason to suppose that he won't be in safe hands with his new keepers. He leaves us with many happy memories, and he departs with our very best wishes. Life goes on - and in this particular case the circle continues as we've recently welcomed a lovely Tiger Hill yearling filly (pictured being lunged by the photographer on the Severals on Monday) from his breeders Louise and Peter. She, too, was too backward to attract a buyer at the yearling sale, but she too surely has potential. So let's hope for lightning to strike twice. If she is as obliging a horse as he proved himself to be, I'm sure that she'll do very well. She has big shoes to fill. More immediately, we must hope for a good result at Kempton this evening when Hotfoot (pictured in the field a few weeks ago) runs at 6.05. It's hard to be too optimistic about a horse who has disappointed sorely in the past, as she has done on three occasions, but she seems well - and seems to be in a suitable race, bearing in mind that, despite her poor record, the Racing Post has put her in as the second favourite. She'll (like all our runners) be doing her best, so let's hope that her best is good enough.

Looking elsewhere, there's one happy story and one very sad one, each concerning one of Newmarket's finest horsemen and nicest people. Ray McGhin's tale is a good one. Ray (pictured early in the summer on Lucy Wadham's stakes-winning filly Dorcas Lane) had a terrible fall at the bottom of Long Hill a few weeks ago. We saw him lying there receiving attention from the medics on our outward journey one lot, and he was still there on our return, not having moved at all in the interim. That didn't bode at all well, and it turned out that his injuries were indeed severe. Anyway, the happiest sight for me this week was bumping into him and his wife Lynn in the High Street a couple of days ago. They had just got off the 'bus from the airport, having returned from a holiday in Ibiza, where his convalescence had clearly continued apace. Other than having lost a little bit of weight, Ray looked pretty much back to normal, which was as cheering a sight as I could have asked for. At the other end of the scale, the saddest news of the week was the death of George Winsor. Look at any photograph of a Henry Cecil horse returning to the winner's enclosure in that stable's golden era, and George will be alongside in his role as travelling head lad. He left Henry's stable when Julie started training. He served as Julie's head lad throughout her training career (which was when I first got to know him well, as I was training for a time - 1995 and '96 - in the neighbouring stable) and subsequently worked for Nick Littmoden and Jeremy Noseda. Anyway, George had a terrible fall on the Al Bahathri last year when the horse he was galloping, I think, dropped dead. When the surgeons were investigating his many injuries, they found, shockingly, that his battered body also contained fairly advanced, but still undetected, terminal cancer. I'd say that it was only George's toughness which kept him alive for as long as he did, but sadly he finally lost the unwinnable battle a couple of days ago. There will have been more famous men move on during the past year, but no better one.

Could do better

2011-10-22T17:56:00.016+01:00

We've had three runners over the past week, and the reports have to read, 'Could do better'. And, I hope, they can read, 'Will do better'. I hadn't really been expecting Dr Darcey (pictured enjoying the Kempton afternoon sunshine prior to heading home after his race) to be beaten nearly as far as he was, but under the circumstances his run was very excusable: he took a while to find his feet, in which respect he certainly wasn't helped by a horse falling in front of him at the second hurdle. But his confidence seemed to pick up again as the race progressed, and it certainly wasn't a dispiriting National Hunt debut. Kempton, incidentally, deserve high praise for having produced very good ground (albeit ground which, by National Hunt standards, one would have to call good fast ground) and certainly did considerably better in this respect than Cheltenham had done a couple of days previously. Conditions had and have been dry and bright (and, earlier in the month, extremely warm) so it certainly has not been easy for these courses. Certainly Gus was happy enough with Kempton's circuit - and all the more so for bumping into William running around it before racing, as this photograph shows.

After Kempton, our show rolled on to Newmarket on Wednesday. As mentioned in the previous chapter, I never expect much from horses in their early races, but I must say that I did expect a bit more from Zarosa than she showed on her debut. Grand Liaison (pictured before the race) had run adequately earlier in the afternoon when finishing towards the back of the main pack in what was probably a very hot maiden race, contested largely by horses who are more forward than she is and who, ultimately, will prove to be less unsuited by shorter-distance races than she. She'd clearly progressed from her debut, so is evidently going the right way. Let's hope now that Zarosa will also progress from her debut, as her debut showed no immediate promise. That, though, is actually no surprise at all. She's such a baby in her head as well as in her body, and her babiness was evident before the race, never mind in it. She can be a bit of a livewire, who 12 months ago was a real handful to break in, so I had it in my mind that she might play up in the parade ring, notwithstanding the fact that she'd had a dress rehearsal visit to the races for her stalls test last month and hadn't put a foot wrong. With this in mind, I voiced a cautionary, "Just watch out that she doesn't jump around" prior to legging Hannah aboard - and within a few seconds both Hannah and Terri (who was leading her) were rolling around on the ground, Hannah having spent about two seconds on the filly's back in the interim. No harm was done, but this meant that by the time the partnership was ready to head out onto the track, there were no other horses around. Still, she made her way to the start, albeit hesitantly and inelegantly, on her own (second picture in this paragraph) - and then was still, unfortunately, on her own as she passed the post (third photograph in this paragraph) a few minutes later in the other direction, her fellow competitors again having left her behind! Still, it was a start and, looking to the future, I'd still be very happy to say, "She'll be right, mate".

Other than that, what's been happening? Well, we've had some magnificent weather still, as this photograph of some of Luca's horses at the bottom of Long Hill yesterday morning shows. It is starting to get quite cold, and it's going to be a struggle to maintain my shorts dress code until the end of the month, but we've had some lovely skies with plenty of sunshine, and we're still getting a few days like today of more or less unbroken blue skies. Clear skies, of course, can mean low temperatures, and Gemma's first morning (Thursday) of riding out since giving birth a couple of months ago coincided with the first proper frost of the autumn, which was hardly the perfect welcome-back gift from the weather gods. Still, I'm sure that she would have been pleased to get back in the saddle, and it was certainly great to have her back in the string. This photograph of her and Rhythm Stick cantering up Long Hill is far from a good one, but that was simply because it was still quite dark (considerably darker than one would guess from the photograph) but the one thing which it does show is the frost.

It was still dark enough when we headed up to the Links this morning, but it was a very clear morning so visibility was improving by the second, and by the time the horses which we took up there (Kadouchski, Dr Darcey, Frankie, Asterisk) started jumping, everything was grand. Unbelievably, there were three jumps meetings today and William didn't have a single ride, so he called in here which was very good of him. (Things aren't actually as dire as that implies because William was meant to be riding at Aintree, but he got the message at midday yesterday that he'd been 'jocked off' his mount there, leaving him with no chance of picking up any rides elsewhere as it was already a couple of hours after declaration time - but even so William's lack of patronage never ceases to baffle me). William's nephew Jamie jumped Asterisk (pictured here walking back from the hurdles alongside William on Dr Darcey) and William jumped the other three, and all went very well. Anyway, that was a lovely start to the day, and one enabling us to continue to travel full of hope. This was the first time that Kadouchski and Dr Darcey had jumped since their chasing and hurdling debuts respectively, so it was very good to see that they are thriving for the experience. (Hard to believe, incidentally, that the second and third photographs in this chapter were taken ten minutes AFTER the first, but there you are: Dr Darcey, Asterisk and Kadouchski, ridden by Terri, Jamie and William, cantering home after the schooling session, the fourth horse involved in the session, Frankie, obviously not featuring in the photograph as he was the photographer's mount).

Otherwise, one of the week's highlights (over and above these lovely morning skies, two more pictures of which adorn this chapter) has been the series in the Racing Post of great bookmakers. These articles were really well written and very entertaining. One came away with great admiration for the subjects, in particular my hero Freddie Williams, who always got along so well with the late Joe McCarthy at the Scottish tracks. The only disappointment was the Victor Chandler article, which posed more questions than it answered, and overall was as anodyne as those awful Victor Chandler ads on Racing UK. It was remarkable that the move offshore could have been so prominent a part of the article without any mention of the issue of levy being paid or not being paid by offshore bookmakers - while a really tantalizing wasted opportunity was the partially-told tale of the man who'd apparently won eight million pounds off Victor in one afternoon and then put it all on the favourite in the concluding novice hurdle who duly got turned over at four to one on. A bit more detail on that saga really would have been interesting, particularly bearing in mind that someone of a cynical frame of mind might suggest that the true odds about a horse in a novice hurdle on whom there had been a bet of eight million pounds would be something like 33/1 against rather than 4/1 on!

Looking ahead

2011-10-19T11:32:00.007+01:00

It's another lovely day (albeit a lovely autumn day which started cold and dark) and it's an exciting one too, as we run two two-year-olds at Newmarket this arvo. Grand Liaison will go first (1.30). She's already had a run, but for our second runner (Zarosa, 4.45) it will be a debut. I never expect a lot of horses in their early races, particularly not when they are aged just two, and I'm sure that we won't be catching any eyes today, but they are both fillies who ought to have a nice future in front of them, so I hope that things will run smoothly and that they won't disgrace themselves. It'll be particularly exciting for Roger Vicarage, owner of Zarosa, as he will see his colours carried for the first time, which is an occasion which he has anticipated for a long, long time. So it's lovely that this occasion is happening at Newmarket, and lovely that it will be doing so under blue skies. One never knows what the weather is going to do from one hour to the next, but the day was brightening up nicely earlier this morning when Kadouchski and I followed (left to right) Asterisk, Karma Chameleon and Rhythm Stick on to Long Hill AW, and it was bright when Gus was doing his little-prince-in-the-tower act wishing that he could be coming out to the Heath too. So, fingers crossed, it ought to remain bright through the afternoon.

I must get ready to head up the Rowley Mile shortly, but I can't end without saying how much I enjoyed doing the International Review Show on ATR yesterday. It's always a pleasure to be on that, but particularly at this time of year when the racing in Melbourne is so good. If you saw it, you'll have heard that I believe that Bauer can win the Melbourne Cup - if only he can get a start in the race. His Geelong Cup run this morning has done nothing to shake my confidence in his potential - but sadly it has also done nothing to alter my fears that he won't get in the race. Let's hope that he does. If he doesn't, the Geelong Cup winner Dunaden will do for me at this stage.

"Embarrassed for British racing"

2011-10-15T20:21:00.021+01:00

If there's one thing which really pisses off racing's professionals, it is the fact that the authorities are so quick to dish out stern punishments for minor misdemeanours (such as the trigger for my most recent three-figure fine, which came from my having presented a horse at the races whose vaccination records were out of order by the fact that a vaccination which should have come within 215 days of the previous one had actually come 217 days after the previous one, the result of an innocent miscalculation on my part - so that's the type of crime and punishment we're dealing with) while making far worse blunders themselves. This a particularly appropriate observation this week, which has been one of the most blunder-strewn weeks in the history of racing administration and which has been highlighted not by a tremendous day of racing at Ascot, as should have been the case, but by the fact that the Ascot stewards were obliged to give Christophe Soumillon what I believe amounts to easily the highest fine ever issued by the British authorities, and for a virtually non-existent offence.

I was in the At The Races studio when the new whip rules were announced, and I had a minute or so to digest them before giving my views. At first glance, they appeared sensible and I said as such on the TV. However, a more detailed perusal has revealed a major flaw in them. I welcomed the new rules for their seeming clarity, their black-and-white lack of grey areas. However, it turns out that for those trying to adhere to them, their clarity is much less easy to establish. While I stick to my basic precept that it is up to the competitors to learn the rules and play by them, it transpires that playing by this new rule is easier said than done. The problem comes that not only is there a maximum number of strokes per race, but there is also a maximum number in the last furlong. So what this means is that a jockey has to start counting when he hits the horse for the first time, but then has to start another count as he passes the furlong pole, the problem being that he has to recalculate the total below which he has to keep on this second count, a total which will vary dependent on how many times he has hit the horse thus far. There is a further complication that knowing exactly when to start this second count is not easy: if he is on the rail it should be fairly straightforward, but if he is out in the middle of the track with a bunch of horses between him and the furlong pole, knowing the exact split second in which he passes the furlong pole is difficult. The stewards, in establishing whether a stroke was applied a metre before the furlong pole or a metre after it, have the benefit of video replays, repeated as often as they wish and run in slow-motion if desired, while the jockey only has one stab at it, in real time and in the heat of battle. Any reflection on the subject at all makes it clear that what the rider is being asked to do is very much easier said than done.

The upshot of this - which would have been apparent in advance as an inevitable consequence of the new legislation to anyone who had given any thought to the subject - is that jockeys who are riding responsibly and clearly making a serious effort to stick to the new rules are copping serious punishments. And they are understandably really pissed off by this. Richard Hughes, while riding within both the spirit and the letter of the law in every other respect, has fallen foul of the final-furlong booby-trap on two occasions, thus earning 15 days of suspensions. Hughes is one of the sport's greatest ambassadors (as anyone who has read his weekly Racing Post column will know), is a wonderfully sympathetic rider, a true horseman and a perfect role model for any budding jockey - and yet he has felt obliged to surrender his riding license, feeling that the regime as it stands is one under which he has no wish to ply his trade. That fact alone should cause some serious soul-searching among those responsible for the creation of this ill-thought-out rule.

This lamentable situation would be bad enough had it happened in just any old week. But it hasn't: it has happened in the week of QIPCO Champion Day, the day for which the racing calendar has been restructured with the aim of making a flagship day for racing to take us from oblivion onto the front pages and into the mainstream of public consciousness. Well, we've got there alright, but no thanks to Champions' Day. In fact, the timing of the introduction of the new rules has totally undermined Champions' Day: we're on the front pages but Champions' Day isn't, and we aren't there for hosting a wonderful sporting event, but for being a sport in disarray. To give you an example of what I mean, I was contacted today by a woman called Laura Makin-Isherwood, a producer with Anglia TV. Her company is set to run a feature on racing on Monday. This is great, you might feel, just what Champions' Day was meant to achieve: two days after Champions' Day and there's going to be a racing slot on the TV news. The only problem, of course, is that the programme isn't going to be about Champions' Day; it's going to be about the debacle of the new whip rules.

Wait, though - it gets worse. Champions' Day, unfortunately, probably will feature on the show after all. Not, though, for its sporting glory, but for the fact that Christophe Soumillon picked up a five-day ban (at a time when he is contention for the French jockeys' premiership) and copped what amounts to a fine of nearly 50,000 pounds (and, before you ask, I have not added three extra zeroes onto that figure - he has forfeited his percentage for riding the winner, which is quite a forfeit as the race was the most valuable ever run in Britain) for trying and narrowly failing to stick to the new rules. His ride on Cirrus Des Aigles to win the Champion Stakes was a beauty. He was clearly trying to use the whip sparingly, hitting the horse six times. The first of these, as inspection of video replays revealed, came a couple of metres after the furlong pole. Had it come a couple of metres earlier, he would have been innocent; as it was, he was guilty, so has picked up a suspension which might cost him the French jockeys' championship plus what amounts to a colossal fine. His interview on ATR after the race was admirably measured, in which he explained that he'd believed that he had ridden within the rules, but because he'd had So You Think, a massive horse, on his inner and because there were so many QIPCO advertising hoardings along the rails, and because he was riding at a track which he doesn't visit very often, he had misjudged exactly where the furlong pole was. He didn't rant and rave, and when he said, "I am embarrassed for British racing", he wasn't just striking out in petulance because he had been punished; he was echoing the opinions of anyone who cares for our sport. In one stroke, I'm afraid, we have been made the racing equivalent of some banana republic where no one would go because you'd be frightened that if you inadvertently stepped out of line, the cops would lock you up and throw away the key. What foreign sportsmen would come here if that's the potential welcome that awaits? What future for the Shergar Cup, for instance?

I'd have to say, though, in defence of our rulers that they aren't guilty of all the crimes with which they have been charged. Bruce Millington in the Racing Post today was unduly harsh on Paul Roy. At least Paul Roy, having realised that the BHA which he rules has made a blunder, has had the humility to admit the possibility that he might be in the wrong, and has ordered that the case be re-opened, which shows an admirable ability to eat humble pie - and yet Bruce Millington is slating him for it. Furthermore, Millington has accused the BHA of inconsistency in that its veterinary adviser Tim Morris had said that the rules would not be reviewed one day and that Paul Roy had the next day said that they would; that, though, is not a case of inconsistency as I can't see that the whip rules should have anything to do with Tim Morris, whose brief is equine welfare. The whip rules, of course, have nothing to do with equine welfare at all, but are a PR exercise, designed not for the horses' benefit but to ensure that the man who has alighted from the Clapham omnibus, when he gets home and switches on his TV, doesn't find the sight of racing off-putting. And don't you feel sorry for the Ascot stewards, who were put in an impossible position? Either fail in their duty to implement the rules, or bring racing into disrepute by smacking an absurdly over-the-top punishment on a visiting foreigner, thus bringing international embarrassment to British racing. That would have been a Hobson's choice which I wouldn't have wished on any steward.

However, it's not all bad. The weather's been lovely. When that wonderful spell of glorious weather ended early last week, I thought that we would have had our lot until the second quarter of next year. Not so: the past couple of days have been heavenly. Of course, this far into October means that clear skies brought our first ground frost of the autumn last night, but that was a very small price to pay for wonderful days on either side of that night. I went to Cheltenham yesterday where we saw a sun-beaten Prestbury Park which you'd never expect to find on any day when it was hosting National Hunt racing. The drawback, of course, was that the ground was extremely fast, much faster than I would have expected. It was considerably quicker than it had been at Huntingdon (which had been accurately described as good to firm, good in places) four days previously, and despite walking all the way around I didn't find any of the good patches which supposedly existed - but I judged it to be safe enough so Alcalde ran, and ran well too, even if the lightning fast conditions probably meant that the two miles might not have been enough of a test of stamina for him. I've been to Cheltenham Festivals and found that the supposedly good ground has been what I'd call good to soft, so I was rather taken aback yesterday; and there would certainly be an outcry if they were ever to produce ground as firm as it was yesterday for the Festival. But no harm was done, and the result was that some of Alcalde's owners and his trainer were able to enjoy a heavenly day at the home of steeplechasing, some of the photographs of which adorn this chapter - as do some taken today of scenes on the Severals and the Heath, in the yard and on the market place, where shoppers were treated to a display of falcons and owls. I loved that, and so would Alan Partridge had he been there too.

Akehursts and others

2011-10-13T19:29:00.009+01:00

I'm pleased to be giving Joe Akehurst (pictured in these two photographs on Frankie, ie Douchkirk, about three weeks ago) the ride on Alcalde at Cheltenham tomorrow. Joe's been very good to us over the past year or so. He's from this area, but he works down south now for Gary Moore. But when he's back home, he usually pops in and gives us a hand, whether that be schooling or otherwise. He's a very good rider, but jockeying is a competitive business, and it's probably not that easy getting rides in Gary Moore's stable: although there are plenty of horses there, there are plenty of jockeys too, some of them being some of Gary's children. So it's worked out well tomorrow: it's a conditionals' race so we need to look elsewhere than William, and Joe is an obvious candidate as he rides well and comes with the benefit of a 5lb claim under the race's conditions. It's rather confusing as he is J. Akehurst the jumps jockey, son of J. Akehurst the jumps jockey (Jim the father, rather than Joe the son) but no relation of J. Akehurst (John) the trainer. It was formerly confusing because Jim rode down in the south east on the Plumpton/Fontwell/Folkestone/Lingfield circuit in the '70s and early '80s when Reg Akehurst was a leading trainer in Epsom, and it would have been an easy mistake to make to guess that they were related. Particularly if one knew that Reg had a son called J. Akehurst. Jim is now primarily a flying groom for, I think, Godolphin, but he also has a livery yard, somewhere near Mildenhall I think, and has done some box-driving at various times; in fact, I've been in a box driven to the races by him a few times over the years. So it's good that Joe is riding the horse (who is pictured here early last month looking more summery than is the case now, although his coat isn't yet quite long enough to justify my clipping some of it off).

Someone else who rides for this stable who deserves to be mentioned in these dispatches is Cathy Gannon, but not for good reasons, unfortunately: she broke her leg at Nottingham a couple of days ago, which means that her extremely successful season has been brought to a painful, premature and sudden close. It's ironic that Britain's two most successful female jockeys, Cathy (pictured on Silken Thoughts) and Hayley Turner, should both be nursing broken legs at present, but that does not alter the fact that each has enjoyed a tremendous season with many winners well deserved. The one consolation, I suppose, for each of them in sustaining an injury which will keep them out of action for a few months is that they are both now well enough established to be able to miss a few months and still find plentiful support on their come-backs. For Cathy, in particular, that would have been far from the case a couple of years ago, but happily now she will find once she is mended that all the many stables which had been patronising her before the hiatus, this one included, will be doing so after her resumption.

Someone, understandably, finding it harder to get going is Tony Whelan (pictured a couple of months ago outside Green Lodge on the Severals). Tony (who, I think, served his time with the aforementioned Reg Akehurst, funnily enough - I could be wrong on that one, but it was definitely somewhere down south, I think in Epsom) is a good jockey, but it's understandable that his profile here currently is very low as he's been riding overseas, mainly in Macau, for most of the past 15 years. However, he's been settled back in the UK for a while now and his ever-smiling face (in Rae Guest's string) is a welcome addition to the Heath. I think that he's taken out a jockey's license again and so I think that we should give him a little plug on this blog. It's a recurring theme that there are many more good jockeys than there are successful ones, and that all most of the good riders require is the opportunity to be successful. Tony definitely comes into this category, so if you see him down for a ride on a horse who looks to have a chance, certainly don't be put off by the fact that the jockey is an obscure one.

Jumping thoughts

2011-10-12T19:44:00.009+01:00

Good to have got that out of the way: Kadouchski's steeplechasing debut went really well yesterday, much to my relief. He's always jumped hurdles very well (although I was told yesterday that Timeform has him down as a bad jumper, which is bizarre) and his schooling over fences had been plentiful and good, so there was no reason to suppose that he would jump anything other than proficiently when finally he did run in a steeplechase. Even so, it was still a weight off my mind seeing him do so, particularly as when Gus and I had walked the track beforehand we were reminded, on inspecting the fences, that they are nearly as big as Kadouchski, who is fairly small by National Hunt standards. He was sensible and safe, and he put in some mighty leaps as well, and it was certainly no disgrace to finish second, giving weight to the nice steeplechasing mare who beat him. He should become more fluent for the experience, and he should come on as regards fitness for the run too, not having run for a few weeks (although his absence had been shorter than the racecard suggested, his most recent run, in the Town Plate, obviously not having been recorded in the form book). Kadouchski was his usual self - enthusiastic beforehand and tired but happy afterwards (before and after photographs shown) - and the track was in good shape: I'd have liked the ground to have been softer, but that would have been unrealistic after the warm, dry weather, and basically it was a lovely surface for the horses to race on, even if by National Hunt standards one would have to have called it marginally firmer than good.

Let's now hope for similarly safe outings for the week's two remaining National Hunt runners. (Well, correctly one of them will be this week and one will be next week, but the Racing Calendar publishes its meetings Monday to Sunday, so we'll call Sunday the last day of this week, rather than describe it correctly). Alcalde is set to run at Cheltenham on Friday and then Dr Darcey at Kempton on Sunday. I'm looking forward to those two outings. It's always a pleasure to go to Cheltenham, so going there with such a lovely horse as Alcalde, for a race in which he ought to run well, is a recipe for a trip to look forward to. Let's also, of course, hope that it isn't a recipe for disappointment, but time will tell on that one. All the horses are in very relaxed frames of mind, which is just the way it should be. We've welcomed a new inmate (the formerly Richard Guest-trained Karma Chameleon, whom I collected yesterday from his former home after Kadouchski had run yesterday and who seems a lovely horse - and a horse with a bit of form too, which is just as well as I think that one would struggle to do much with a horse who came from Richard who had no form, because it would be a very special horseman indeed who could improve one from the stable of that master-horseman) and Alcalde is pictured at the start of this paragraph getting to know him in the field today, following him around with Frankie completing the trio; Dr Darcey is then shown looking similarly calm, as Gus passes on a few tips after work this morning. And, to complete this morning's photo-essay, Kadouchski's showing that, while you have to get cleaned up to go to the races, you don't have to stay clean, just as long as there's a mud-patch to be found in the field on your return.

In amongst our jumps runners, we'll also have Hotfoot going round at Wolverhampton on Saturday night if she gets a run, which she either will do or won't do. We'll find out tomorrow. I hope that she will do as she's doing everything right and galloped well this morning, so it would be good to see her have another chance to show that her form so far does her less than justice.

Main talking point of the week, of course, remains the whip rules. We're told that the jockeys don't like them, so we'll find out in the next few days the extent of their dislike, because it is, of course, up to the jockeys collectively to decide the fate of these rules: if they all were to carry on as if the rules have not been changed, then the new rules would have to be repealed because within a fortnight there would be no racing as all the jockeys would be suspended. And, as the BHA's aim in framing the rules is to ensure the continuation of racing, then it would have no option but to repeal the rules, unless it were to wish to bring racing to a halt: the jockeys wouldn't be on strike, but if they were all permanently suspended, there could be no racing. As you know, I don't see what all the fuss is about, but it seems that many of the jockeys don't see it that way. This brings us back to a subject on which I was going to touch a while back, prompted by a lovely photograph which the Racing Post carried in the summer of the finish of a race at Hurst Park in, I would guess, the '50s. As the field neared the line, every jockey had both hands on the reins, which brings us back to my point that it is only a recent phenomenon that we have been led to believe that it is essential to hit a horse frequently behind the saddle to make him go as fast as he can. If one watches old films or looks at old photographs, or even digs back into one's memory, one is reminded that many of the great jockeys in history (eg Sir Gordon Richards, Scobie Breasley, Ron Hutchinson, Joe Mercer, Willie Carson, Richard Quinn, Kieren Fallon, John Francome, Richard Dunwoody) relied on the whip to only a very small degree. And I'm afraid that I have to lay the blame on the change in emphasis squarely on the door of the press, which collectively has rammed home the myth of the "strong" jockey: time and again we'll hear and read about the credit for victory going to the strength of such and such a jockey proving decisive, simply because he has visually been very active in the final two furlongs, without any reference at all to how the first 80% of the race had panned out, or even whether this supposedly strong jockey had happened to be on the best horse anyway. The result has been, of course, that jockeys have realised that to win praise from the pundits (which they must do to further their careers) they have to be seen to be active with the whip. Sad, but true. I think if we'd had a better class of pundit over the years we wouldn't be in the jam we are in now - in just the same way that if a more polished rider (eg Dunwoody or Francome, or Fred Winter) had ridden Ballabriggs (pictured) in the National, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in now, because he would still have won the race but he wouldn't have been ridden in a way to incite the supposed ire of the man on the Clapham omnibus in the process.

Salisbury and Huntingdon

2011-10-11T11:07:00.006+01:00

I enjoyed the trip to Salisbury yesterday, as did Gus. I'd imagine that Ethics Girl enjoyed it too as she seems thoroughly content at the races. She ran well although her fifth position was ultimately a slight let-down as she looked as if she could win with just over a furlong to go. The highlight of the trip for me was bumping into Veronica Kirby and her daughter Caroline, widow and daughter of my late friend and mentor John Kirby. The last horse whom John broke in, Bill and Shirley Robbins' Billy Buttons, was a disappointing unplaced favourite in Ethics' race, weakening badly in the closing stages. However, he's only a youngster still so I believe and hope that he will win in due course; and when he does, it will be yet another occasion to cast one's mind back to John's patient and kind horsemanship. If that was my highlight of the day, the general consensus would be that the day was most memorable for the first major breach of the new whip rules, which only had only come in at the start of the day's play. Predictably, one apprentice rode as if he was unaware that the rules had changed, although as he would probably have copped a ban even under the old system it would be hard to say that it was ignorance of the change that caused his transgression. Still, that's day one of the new system out of the way, so the acclimatization process can now move on to day two.

Day two, as you can see here, began memorably, with such a glow in the eastern sky that my view of it from Alcalde's back might have led one to believe that the wood at the top of Bury Hill was on fire. Having begun thus, day two will next see me head off to Huntingdon for Kadouchski's first steeplechase. I suppose that I'm looking forward to it, although really I'm looking forward to it having taken place, assuming that he comes home safely. He ought to do so as he has been very well prepared, but one can't take anything for granted. I hope that he can be inspired by the achievement last weekend by one of his former riders, Clare Lindop (pictured on him at Kempton in June) who on Saturday at Morphettville rode the 999th and the 1,000th winners of her very successful career. It's great that ATR now show a feed from Australia which features the main meeting from all the mainland states (plus some racing from New Zealand) rather than just two meetings because it means that on a Saturday we'll see the racing in Adelaide too, rather than , generally, just what's happening in Melbourne and Sydney. That meant that we were able to watch her reaching her milestone, which was great; and also to see her interview, which made a refreshing contrast to the standard Racing UK interview, which in general is characterised by the fact that the words in the questions easily outnumber the words in the answer. This certainly wasn't the case with Clare: David Bridgeland only had to ask his first (one-sentence) question and that was the only contribution he was required to make to the dialogue!

A new era?

2011-10-10T10:51:00.004+01:00

I'm just off to Salisbury. I hope that it will be a nice day for heading down to that lovely part of the world: it's very mild, it's dry and it's bright enough. I hope that those conditions should also ensure that the ground is on the fast side, which is Ethics Girl's preferred surface, although, to give her her due, she (pictured three weeks ago) tends to run well whatever the conditions. It'll be one of those Flat races without stalls; they usually see about a third of the field lose their chance in the first few seconds, so we'll have to hope that she isn't one of them. As well as staying alert at the start, the jockeys will have to stay alert at the finish: today is the first day of the new whip regulations which are causing so much angst. I can't say that I'm particularly exercised on the subject. The whip rules have changed a few times in recent years and we've coped in the past; and at least they are easy to understand now, which hasn't always been the case. No doubt we'll discuss the subject more fully anon, but basically one of the principal objections - that the results of some races will be different as a result of the changes - leaves me completely unmoved: there's still going to be a winner come what may, and if it's a different one because of a rule change, does that matter? One could make the same point about rules on numerous subjects - eg interference, medication - and I just take the view that it's up to us to learn what the rules are and play within them. We'll just have to see how things pan out, starting today.

Turning to the jumps

2011-10-07T17:03:00.009+01:00

There have been a few short showers tormenting me over the past day: having decided not to declare Alcalde (pictured) for the Cesarewitch, I really didn't want to find that the forecast had been radically wrong and that we'd get plenty of rain. However, the short showers might have amounted to more than a millimetre, but not significantly more, so the ground will indeed be faster than would have been any of use to us. As I probably mentioned previously, I would really have liked to have declared him in the hope of rain and kept our options open until Saturday morning, and then scratched him if and when the rain hadn't arrived in significant quantities, but that really wouldn't have been playing the game as regards those on the borderline of getting a run and desperately hoping that they would make the cut. As it is, several horses from our little coterie of local stables (including last year's place-getter Ocean's Minstrel and Dayia, trained by John Ryan and Lydia Pearce respectively) have ended up not declared because of the very firm ground, which is a shame as all three would have been live chances with some cut in the ground, but really there's nothing one can do about that. The going stick provides as much proof as one could require: at the Cambridgeshire meeting, where two track records were broken on the first day and where quite a lot of horses went amiss on the very firm ground, the going stick reading was 8.3; now it is 8.6 (with the higher the reading, the firmer the ground). That tells us all that we need to know.

As that photograph of Alcalde, taken this morning, shows, we're now looking at his jumping options: that picture was taken up at the Links with William on him. He'd just put him over some hurdles, along with Jamie on Asterisk. Also pictured in the first paragraph is Kadouchksi, whom William had just schooled over fences; while he also schooled Dr Darcey this morning (over hurdles). You'll note the autumnal feel to the photographs. But, relatively cold and relatively bleak though the morning was, it was good to be up there seeing these horses all jump well. And then there were two interesting sightings to brighten it further. Firstly Vince 'Smudger' Smith hove into view on horseback (riding the horse pictured here in blinkers), which has been a rare enough sight in recent years since he swapped his jockey's license for a trainer's license (although currently he holds neither). Vince had the distinction in the '90s of riding two 50/1 hurdle race winners for me, so it was great to see him back in the saddle and back over jumps. Whether this will lead to a comeback can't be guaranteed, of course, but stranger things have happened. And then, no sooner had Vince ridden away, than three of Jim Bolger's horses (Parish Hall, Whip Rule and Janey Muddles) appeared out of the racecourse stables, which of course are situated up at the Links. They'd clearly arrived a couple of days ahead of Future Champions' Day. That is a stable which I really admire, so I really enjoyed seeing them set off for their exercise. Their participation tomorrow (in the Dewhurst, the Autumn Stakes and the Rockfel Stakes) will thus give Newmarket's excellent card an extra dimension of interest for me.

Slow change

2011-10-05T21:14:00.013+01:00

Monday did indeed sort of prove to be the last day of the Indian summer, but happily the good weather still hasn't disappeared altogether. I think that we got up to something like 27 on Monday which was lovely, but we've still managed the low 20s in the couple of days since then. And warm nights too, although with a wind blowing I have put the rugs on the horses again tonight as I think that it will end up a bit cooler. The wind seems to be bringing in a change with some clouds starting to appear in the sky as of yesterday (as these first two photographs show) but the change, happily, is only coming slowly. We're very dry still and today's warm wind will have made things even drier. I see that the ground is likely to be firm at tomorrow's meeting at Towcester, and jumps meetings tend to try to move heaven and earth rather than have to announce a firm track. But the strong warm wind today will have made moistening soil very, very difficult - as was confirmed to me when I cycled over to inspect the Rowley Mile this afternoon, where I took the third and fourth photographs in this paragraph. The side of the track on which Saturday's inaugural 'Future Champions' Day', including the Cesarewitch, will be run is fresh ground so there is a very thick covering of grass on it, and that grass will provide a certain degree of cushioning - but take the grass away and one would have to call the ground firm, which sadly means that we won't be running Alcalde in the Cesarewitch on Saturday. It is hard with these early-closing races because Alcalde's owners have paid 800 pounds for him to be in the Cesarewitch, so under the circumstances one feels almost obliged to run if at all possible - but basically running on that ground would make no sense at all. There will be 34 runners and there's only really a point in running if one can finish in the top four - and the top four in a field of 34 means that one would need to have everything in one's favour. So one would be risking jarring the horse up - and I have no doubt that several of the runners will come home jarred up - to run in a race in which it is almost certain that one would finish unplaced. So he will probably run in a hurdle race at Cheltenham six days later instead (assuming some cut in the ground, which seems a fair assumption).

We could have three jumps runners next week as Kadouchski is entered at Huntingdon and Dr Darcey will have some entries too. I'd imagine that the Dr will run somewhere, but rain will have to reach Huntingdon before Tuesday for Kadou (pictured in the field yesterday) to make his long-awaited and oft-postponed steeplechasing debut there. Before that, Ethics Girl might run at Salisbury on Monday. She seems to have come out of her race at Warwick last Thursday as well as she generally comes out of races (ie very well). We were back at Warwick four days later, ie on Monday, for Grand Liaison's debut (after which she and Adrian McCarthy are pictured in the dazzling sunshine). I'd be lying if I said that she ran well, as she finished last, but I wasn't unhappy with the run. She was one of only two debutantes and she finished just behind the other one, the pair of them both showing their inexperience by getting a bit lost from the outset. She's unlikely to scale the heights achieved by some of the horses who finished last on debut (eg Kingston Town or Dulcify - and this can be today's project, coming up with other champions to finish last first time out) but she'll do OK. The funny thing about this race was that I was stupid enough not to realise until the next day that I had trained the dam, maternal grandsire and grand-dam of the winner (La Gessa, Largesse, En Grisaille). I can't believe that I missed that, particularly as I'd done the form closely enough to have taken on board that this horse was by Monsieur Bond, was trained by Peter Makin and had run well enough at Newbury on his most recent outing to make him a likely winner of the race. And I'd looked at him as a yearling in Tattersalls last October. I suppose that it just demonstrates that when you have a runner in a race, that one horse can dominate your attention. But, even so, how dozy can I get?

The best week

2011-10-02T16:56:00.017+01:00

The past seven days really have been the best week of weather of the entire year, which really is remarkable as today is Sunday 2nd October. I believe that yesterday was the hottest October day ever recorded in the UK (three days after, apparently, the wettest September day ever recorded in Melbourne, to give a nice piece of dual-hemisphere symmetry) and really the weather has been perfect. We haven't quite managed the hottest day of the year, but for consistently and pleasantly high temperatures (in the upper 20s) for consistently unbroken sunshine and consistently blue sky, and for consistently warm nights, the past week has taken the prize. And that's been lovely - which will be a memory which can comfort us on the cold and wet days and nights which lie ahead. It was great that we were able to share our lovely weather with visitors from down under: as their home-town of Ballarat shivered in the rain, we took Peter and Anita up to the north coast of Norfolk on Wednesday afternoon to enjoy the splendour of Holcombe, where these lovely photographs were taken. I'm not sure that it's true to say that we went to the coast because the shore-line's gradient is very gradual there and when the tide's out (as it was when we were there) one stands on the shore and acknowledges that the sea is out of sight about two miles away, as is illustrated here. (Also illustrated are a few of the many geese who seem to fly over Holcombe as dusk looms). But that's just a minor quibble: our afternoon up there was about as idyllic as one can have, an outing whose memory I shall treasure forever.

Peter and Anita then accompanied us to Warwick the next day, where Ethics Girl (pictured about to enter the stalls) ran her usual bold race. Fourth in a decent staying handicap would have represented a decent run come what may, but she actually ran a bit better than that position would imply. Tom Queally rode her beautifully, and could hardly be held responsible for the fact that some of the jockeys around her (one of whom copped a suspension for the interference caused to her) didn't seem able to make their mounts gallop in a straight line. She would have gone close had they ridden better, but as we were beaten over four lengths it might be stretching things to claim, "We woz robbed". She'd have completed a nice double had she won because our friends Chris and Shelley Dwyer (the latter seen below leading their filly in after the race) had already been represented by a winner: Imperial Fong, who overhauled in the dying strides a horse who seemed home and hosed (I was standing about 230m from home when I took this photograph and Imperial Fong is the horse in second) to win the mile and six seller as the complete outsider of the field, confounding the racecard's assessment, "Established as a poor maiden for several trainers" (and she's still only three!) "and opposable again with latest effort at Lingfield woeful"! It is worth my saying, incidentally, that the ground at Warwick was much better than I'd expected, even if they had done a rather strange thing: up the straight, the quarter of the track nearest to the stands' rail was watered much less than the remainder, which means that the water put on the watered section was completely wasted as all the runners just came wide and up the stands' rail, which was an odd sight on fast ground.

Similarly summery was Fontwell yesterday, which too provided ground better than one could have expected at the end of such a hot week. I was told that it was genuinely nice fast ground there on Friday, but yesterday there was proper cut in the ground after the staff had watered again in the morning, leaving a surface which could genuinely be described only as good jumping ground - in fact, had it been a Flat meeting, there would probably have been a few horses taken out because the ground had been watered too much. So that was great, and we were able to run Frankie (pictured) in the bumper with a completely clear conscience - I do worry about running at National Hunt meetings in very hot, dry weather. He didn't run quite as well as one might have hoped when finishing fourth (in a race which, as you can see, was at times hard to see because of the deliciously glaring late afternoon sun, light which ended the day as gloriously as it had begun - its beginning being shown by the photograph at the end of this paragraph of Kadouchski staring into the dawn while unwinding after his early-morning exercise) but that wasn't the end of the world. Frankie can go over hurdles now, and I'd imagine he should make his hurdles debut sometime around the end of the month. On an enjoyable day, one of the pleasures was seeing Mark Marris for the first time since his return from New Zealand, where he'd spent six months and had ridden his first winner over jumps. Mark (whose head can be seen in the second photograph as he leads the horse following Frankie around the parade ring) is an excellent young rider who was formerly an amateur with Neil King and is now a conditional with Sarah Humphrey. He spent the first half of his stint in NZ working for a trainer at Dunedin and the second half working of the north island for the redoubtable Kevin 'Dummy' Myers and he found his trip as enjoyable as it was educational. And I really enjoyed hearing about it. So that was good - as was the fact that another local rider had his photograph in yesterday's Racing Post. Dominic Fox should have featured in this blog after he rode a winner for Alan Bailey on his first race-ride for several years at Ayr's Western Meeting, not long after the death of his hugely popular father Richard. However, I failed to salute him on that occasion, so I'll make up for it now by saying how amused I was to see his photograph in yesterday's Racing Post. It was, mind you, captioned 'Kieren Fox' - whereas a less misleading caption might have been 'Kieren Fox doing his Dominic Fox impression'.

I believe that tomorrow will be the final day of this Indian summer. It won't be quite as hot, but it's still forecast to get to 26, and that's not to be sniffed at. We'll spend it at Warwick where we are set to have our first two-year-old runner of the season, Grand Liaison, who remains 'Sir Percy' in my mind. She ought to run adequately, although it's rarely wise to hold out high expectations for two-year-old debutantes from this stable. However she runs, she's a lovely filly who ought to have a nice future - and she's a well-mannered, kind filly too, so fingers crossed she won't blot her copy-book at all. She's very good in the stalls (and is seen here jumping out on Friday morning on the far side of Zarosa, with Hannah and Terri being the two riders). The lovely weather in that photograph - and in the second photograph of this paragraph, taken the following lot while we were cantering around Side Hill all-weather - is just so typical of the week we've just had. It's surely going to be a long, cold, wet winter, so the fact that we have been able to end September and begin October with such idyllic conditions really is a bonus.

A full week

2011-09-30T20:39:00.005+01:00

This weather keeps getting better and better. Lovely dawns (such as this one on Tuesday) give way to wonderfully hot sunny days with not a cloud in the sky. This week would be special even in the middle of summer, but coming as it does once we are well ensconced in autumn, it is very special indeed. The one drawback is that I am currently extremely busy indeed, hence my not having yet found time to say anything about a really pleasant trip to Warwick yesterday which was marred only by the interference which Ethics Girl copped which meant that she failed to finish in the first three, interference which neither she nor her jockey (Tom Queally, who gave her a lovely ride) deserved. I took some great photographs yesterday but haven't yet downloaded them. I might have been going to Fontwell today, but I fought shy of sending Dr Darcey out over jumps on what had to be quite fast ground. However, while ground will inevitably be on the fast side in such good weather, William Kennedy rode there today and tells me that the track is actually in tremendous condition, so we should be safe sending Frankie/Douchkirk (pictured nine days ago, before the Indian summer had really settled in to dry out the field again) down there to contest the bumper - I'm never as worried running horses in flat races on dry ground as I am doing so in jumps races. It should be another lovely day, so let's hope for a good trip.

Indian summer

2011-09-29T11:17:00.004+01:00

Daytime top of 27 and night-time low of 14: not bad conditions with which to be ending September and heading into October. It will, of course, only be a handful of weeks - days, even -before we are looking back on mornings such as today's with wistful longing, so we'll enjoy them while we can. I'm just about to head off to Warwick. We have two runners declared in the Racing Post, but only one will run. The ground has (inevitably) firmed up since declaration time so I'm sure that there will be quite a handful of non-runners; and Zarosa will be one of them. (In fact, she is one of three already declared as such in her race alone, and I wouldn't be surprised if that total increased between now and 2.40). The good, good to firm in places on which we declared would have been nice enough for her debut, but I doubt she'd have enjoyed the firmer conditions which look set to come to pass, so it won't do her any harm to wait a week or two. She's in good shape, but, and instead galloped up the AW on Warren Hill this morning, as these two photographs show; or, rather, don't show, as she's on the far side of this group of three two-year-olds, so you'll have to take my word for it that is indeed she. Ethics Girl should relish the conditions, though, so let's hope that she puts up her usual bold show. And I'd imagine that her race will be a bit weaker than one might have expected: there is one non-runner declared in it already, and there could, of course, be more to come. Let's hope for the best.

End-of-weekend reflections

2011-09-25T20:30:00.008+01:00

My nomination for hero(ine) of the week is easy: Lanwades Stud principal Kirsten Rausing. I both like and respect Kirsten, who presides over a lovely, well-run stud at which she stands my favourite stallion Hernando (pictured last November, with Selkirk looking on) as well as the excellent Selkirk and the very promising young sires Sir Percy and Archipenko. She has also been the only breeder to stand a son of Sunday Silence in Britain, which raises her further in my estimation, and she has also bred some really good horses: one can pay no higher tribute to her than by saying that Alcalde, of whom I think the world, is far from the best horse she has bred, which is understandable when one considers that her proteges include the likes of the wonderful racemare Alborada, as well as Fame And Glory (whom she co-bred). Kirsten also does and has done great work in a lot of other areas, including for the TBA - and also in organising the Nell Gwyn sponsorship in memory of her and our late friend Leslie Harrison (who would have been even more saddened than we were last week that his lovely Derby-winning child Slip Anchor - pictured in May last year - had finally shuffled off this mortal coil at the grand old age of 29). However, Kirsten last week posted arguably her greatest achievement to date: she managed to brow-beat Sir Mark Prescott into running a 77-rated horse in a Group One race! I suspect that in the fullness of time her filly Albamara (who is by Galileo from Alborada's Group One-winning sister Albanova) will indeed prove up to Group One standard - but, even so, persuading Sir Mark that her filly should run in a Group One race while possessing a 77 rating really would have been easier said than done!

Which brings us nicely on to our trip to Haydock yesterday, where the aforementioned Alcalde (pictured after the race with Rab Havlin) ran a very nice race on his first start since the spring and in his first Flat race for this stable. I'd been happy with his work and his all-round development and demeanour, so I hoped that he'd run well. And he did: he wasn't placed, but he didn't finish too far behind the placed horses. If this lovely Indian summer (which seems to have settled over the south east, if not the rest of the country) does not make the track too firm, he can run in the Cesarewitch 13 days hence. But if the Rowley Mile is as firm for that as it was yesterday, then we probably ought to have a re-think, and he could either run in another Flat race in the turf season's dying weeks or go straight back over hurdles. Either way, his resumption was encouraging - which isn't a word one could use about Batgirl's run at Wolverhampton yesterday evening. Batgirl, pictured cantering to post on a pleasantly warm night under Tom McLaughlin, still looks tremendous (she won her third best-turned-out prize of the season yesterday, which is remarkable bearing in mind that, as far as I am aware, only three such prizes have been won by this stable in 17 seasons, those three being her prizes this season) but she's been up a long time now (she won first up in April) so I think that she can be excused for having decided that she is now due a break. So no harm was done, even if it was a very poor run.

No review of yesterday's racing would be complete without my saying how pleased I was to see that Marc Halford had ridden Dick Doughtywylie at Chester. There are many very good things about John Gosden's stable, one of them being the fact that he keeps his riding in-house wherever possible. He has an excellent stable jockey (William Buick) and excellent second jockey (Rab Havlin) and then Nicky Mackay, Saleem Golam and Marc Halford on the team too. He is very good to his lower-profile jockeys, whose job is principally work-riding, and he uses them whenever possible. He has completely resurrected Nicky's career, and now Marc (pictured, second left, alongside Nicky in the string back in the summer) can thank him for giving him a kick-start too: yesterday's victory was Marc's first of the season, and it would have been very easy for John to put a more obvious, outside rider on the horse (who is a half-brother to the stable's Lancashire Oaks winner Gertrude Bell, who is named after a relative of Lord Derby - strange but, I believe, true). So Marc is one low-profile jockey riding out for a stable down the far end of the Bury Road - and another who deserves to be mentioned in dispatches is Julian Gadsby, who I have been pleased to see appear in Clive Brittain's string. Julian (pictured on one of Clive's horses in the Bury Road last week) was in the UK a few years ago. I seem to remember him riding a bit for Lynda Ramsden when she was training in Yorkshire, and then he was in Newmarket for a while, riding for Ben Hanbury. He was starting to get going in a small way as a jockey, and I remember him getting very good reviews for winning on a horse trained by Stuart Williams in a decent handicap at Chester. However, he then headed overseas and I hadn't seen him for several years until he reappeared in Clive's string recently. Whether he's in the UK for good now I don't know (he is South African, I believe the son of the good jockey Paul Gadsby, who I believe was apprenticed to our late friend Fred Rickaby) and I don't know whether he'll be race-riding again, but it's good to see him back. As Marc proved yesterday, good riders can't be written off - they just need a break.

An interesting day

2011-09-23T22:32:00.011+01:00

I've had an interesting day. Having received notification that Henry Cecil's Champions Day runners (ie Frankel, Twice Over and Midday) would be galloping at 6.15 on the watered gallop by the racecourse and that the media would be welcome to watch, I felt that it would be wrong not to start my working day a bit later than usual. We see plenty of Frankel walking around, but our routine means that it's very rare indeed for us to catch sight of him going any faster, so this was too good an opportunity to miss. It was a lovely morning, but of course a good way of making sure that the proper media get good photographs (because proper photographers have good cameras) while the quasi-media (ie the Winning Post's correspondent with his box brownie stuffed in his pocket) takes unusable snaps is to gallop the horses before it's proper daylight. Hence all I can produce to prove that I was there is this first picture of Frankel (under Tom Queally) strolling leisurely clear of his half-brother Bullet Train and this second, only slightly better, photograph of Twice Over and Ian Mongan having (surprisingly) treated Midday with similar disdain. We had a bonus post-script as some of William Haggas' horses happened to come up the gallop after Henry's. The first pairing saw our Ben Morris outriding Richard Hills (well, I'm sure Ben would see it that way) but the real bonus came when Oaks and German Oaks heroine Dancing Rain was in the final group; again, she is a horse whom we frequently see walking but rarely see going any faster than that. As she wasn't in the script, I doubt whether too many of the onlookers picked up on that - and there were quite a lot of observers. I was initially surprised at how many there were, but then it became apparent that plenty of pressmen were staying up in the area for the current three-day meeting, at which point the surprise became not how many of them were present, but how few.

Having started the day by taking some of my worst ever photographs, I surprised myself by going from one extreme to the other when we went to the Links a couple of hours later. This isn't a great stable for jumps jockeys to be trying to pick up rides because we only have a few runners and William Kennedy is automatic first choice, which means that there aren't a great deal of opportunities to go round amongst the others. However, a couple of jumps hoops who are always kind enough to offer their services whenever they are in town are the locally-raised Joe Akehurst and Gerald Tumelty. Both were in town this morning, and both kindly gave us a hand this morning, the former riding Douchkirk and the latter Dr Darcey. Having earlier taken such terrible shots when I had my feet firmly rooted on the ground, I was stunned to find that from Kadouchski's back (and quite some distance) I got some really nice shots of the horses jumping, as I hope you'll agree. So that was all very satisfactory - and, as you can see, we were enjoying yet another day of lovely weather.

Preparations then went equally smoothly at the racecourse, where the fillies by Sir Percy and Barathea (who have been named Grand Liaison and Zarosa for quite a long time, only not in my mind) each had a stalls test. "Why?", you might ask, as neither had ever misbehaved at the racecourse, not having ever been to one. Well, a rule was introduced a handful of years ago which said that if a trainer had more than a set percentage of his individual runners misbehave at the stalls within a year, he would have to have all debutant(e)s take a stalls test before their intended debuts. This is a silly rule because applying percentages to small samples doesn't work, as with a small sample you will never get a representative figure. If you only have one runner, you can only have 0% or 100%, etc. Anyway, we had three miscreants last year so we have to have all the babies tested before their debuts, which isn't the end of the world as the racecourse is within walking distance and we shall probably only have three first-starters all year. But it's still silly - in just the same way as it would be silly to conclude that, because our figure this year is currently standing at 0%, we never have horses misbehave at the stalls. Anyway, the punishment is not for us much of a punishment at all, so there's no point in getting aggravated by it - but what did aggravate me was that both fillies were dope-tested afterwards. The history behind this is that horses having stalls tests were never dope-tested, but then the authorities woke up to the fact that some/many trainers gave their horses sedatives before the tests. Thus dope-tests were introduced - but then, of course, they realised that this was an appalling waste of money at a time when there is very little money to go around, particularly because, on account of the new rules, there are many more tests than there used to be because of all the ones which small trainers have to take unnecessarily, such as today. So the decision was taken not to test them all, but just enough so that there was always a possibility of the horse being tested, which would be enough to ensure that people wouldn't dope their horses - just as with runners in races (where on average something like eight horses per meeting are tested, which must be something like 10% of runners). Anyway, I've taken it quite badly that both our horses were tested, which really was a shocking waste of money. This merely highlights the deficiency of racing's intelligence services, because anyone who knows anything about me whatsoever would know that hell would freeze over before I would sedate a horse before a stalls test. And both being taken? On the basis that the stalls rules are currently framed on the assumption that one can draw worthwhile statisical findings from small samples, this leads me to conclude that 100% of horses who have stalls tests are dope-tested! Anyway, that's my moan for the day. But basically more good than harm was done, as these two fillies have had a nice gentle introduction to raceday procedure and have been able to enjoy a quiet canter up the splendour of the Rowley Mile (as you can see here, with their back views being almost visible). I'm just worried now that they'll be put out when they next discover that racecourses aren't holiday camps after all!

Anyway, that was today. And tomorrow sees us bound for Haydock and Wolverhampton, so let's hope for the best from that trip.

The kindest cut

2011-09-22T19:42:00.015+01:00

Whenever I have a horse castrated, I come away content and happy that I have done that horse the biggest favour I can do. It's worth making this point, because I often get the impression that many people do not appreciate just how wrong it is to keep a colt entire for any longer than is necessary. Horses are gregarious animals. They love each other's company, just as we humans do. I love the fact that here we allow the horses to socialise, so that the fillies and the geldings all get their turns, at various times of the day or night, of spending some time with their peers, just hanging out together and doing whatever they want to do, whether that's frolic together, nuzzle each other, or even ignore each other. Any colt, though, cannot be afforded that luxury. He obviously can't be turned out with any fillies, but even with other colts or geldings it often isn't feasible as some of them can fight - and just watch wildlife documentaries on the TV if you can't envisage that. So the colts live a life of solitary confinement: in the stable 23 hours a day (and even convicts nowadays aren't allowed to be given solitary) and even when out at exercise they have to be kept from getting too close to the horses around them. That's an awful life. But at least he's got his balls, you might say. And? What use are they to him? He's never going to be allowed to use them; in fact, he's never even going to be allowed to talk to a female horse, never mind touch one. Under those circumstances, how can a horse's testicles be anything to him other than a source of frustration and privileges denied? My yearling colt (by Layman ex Minnie's Mystery) arrived from France on the first Tuesday of this month, having been lucky enough to have spent his entire life thus far at Haras de la Cauviniere in Normandy, where his dam is privileged to lead a life of luxury. He was castrated two days later. A week later he joined the herd and he now mixes in with a bunch of fillies and geldings as happily as you like. No doubt you'll be hearing plenty of him in due course, but that's enough of an introduction to him for now. And here's his smiling little face. I've got a name selected for him but I haven't yet sent in the application form, so it might be tempting fate to tell you what it is. But as of now, he's a potential champion - and a gelding too, so that's a good start.

With dogs it's less straightforward. We had Gus castrated yesterday. I think that that's a good thing, as it's in neither the dog's interests nor his owner's for sexual thoughts to start taking over his brain. We had no aspirations to turn Gus into the Sadler's Wells of the dalmatian world, so castration was the obvious option. It will definitely make his life more straightforward and has no drawbacks at all apart from the small amount of discomfort in the immediate aftermath of the operation - discomfort which is being massively increased at the moment by the bucket which he has to wear around his head to prevent him from interfering with his private parts and thus hindering their healing. He has not taken to this well at all (and, just between you and me, I think that its hours are numbered, even though he is supposed to wear it for a week) but already he is back to his usual perky self, only 34 hours or so after the operation. So that's good too: the advantages aren't as massive as when one castrates a horse, but even so I think that it was still the right thing to do. With a horse, though, there is no doubt - and I'm glad that I've made that point, because the fact that so many people allow colts to remain uncastrated for far, far longer than is necessary is a constant bee in my bonnet. There are hundreds of colts going around Newmarket who are never going to be stallions, who are going to have to be castrated eventually and whose lives would be far happier had it been done x amount of months ago, rather than at some unspecified point in the future. So if I've changed the way even one person views castrating with these few sentences, then they won't have been written in vain. And the other benefit, of course, of having Gus castrated is that, with him having been slightly subdued over the past day or so, it has allowed the cats to curl up in their baskets safe in the knowledge that no one is going to blunder in and disturb them. (And, by the way, in outlining the advantages of castrating a horse as soon as possible, I've only discussed the increase in a horse's happiness, and haven't even touched on the additional benefit to his keepers that a gelding is far less likely to fail to fulfill his potential as a racehorse than a colt is).

Here endeth the lesson.

The show goes on

2011-09-21T19:09:00.013+01:00

Let's hope that plenty of good things happen to plenty of people this week, because that would go some small way towards balancing the books: racing has lost two of his most special people this week, with the deaths of Ginger McCain and Michael Jarvis looming large over our horizon. It's been business as usual in Kremlin House Stables and I presume that it will have been business as usual in Bank House Stables, as I believe that the McCain stable is called. The late, much lamented former principals of those yards would not have wanted it any other way, but even so it must have been a very sombre version of usual business.

So what has business as usual entailed here? Well, I had a pleasant trip to Catterick on Saturday with Ethics Girl, who fills me with pride and admiration every time she goes to the races. The outlook had suggested dry ground there for most of the week, but overnight and on race morning a total of about an inch of rain fell, leaving the track considerably wetter than one might once have said was her preferred ground. However, she is so brave that she doesn't really seem to have a preferred surface nowadays - or, rather, she is so brave that she copes admirably with whatever conditions are thrown at her. She did look to find things rather hard work, but even so she plugged on ever so bravely to finish a very creditable third under top weight of 9 stone 12lb, which is quite a burden for a little mare. Her efforts can't have exhausted her too much, though - and I say that not only because, a bit tired though she appears as she walks back to the unsaddling enclosure, she looks fresher in this photograph than Stevie Donohoe, but also because her usual Sunday display in the field the next day was very much in evidence as we can see here, suggesting that she had taken the race extremely well. Horses as tough as she is really are very, very special animals indeed.

No runners during the week for us, but we still have plenty to keep us occupied, with one landmark being a visit from William Kennedy on Monday. The two main schooling projects at present are the two aspiring hurdlers Douchkirk and Dr Darcey, who each should be going over hurdles in the relatively near future. The Dr (shown in this first picture) might run next week in a juvenile hurdle, while Frankie (Douchkirk, seen below) might also run next week - in another bumper, though, with the aim being that he should run over jumps fairly soon after that. Strangely, William's nephew Jamie was able to come here too on Monday morning when William was here, which was good as he could play a part in the schooling session as well, which was good news for us and good experience for him. One might wonder how he could do that as he's still at school and one might have thought that a Monday in term-time would count as a school day - but apparently Jamie's school regime is fairly flexible. That's great, with the only drawback being that one might presume that he would be likely to fail his A-levels - only he won't, thanks to the government's excellent initiative (for which we have admittedly to give the previous government the bulk of the credit) which has brought about a situation in which that nobody actually fails an exam nowadays. What a great way of ensuring that we live in a country of geniuses!

September morns

2011-09-16T20:19:00.008+01:00

It's been a really lovely week. As outlined in the previous chapter, it began with the tail-end of Hurricane Whatever passing us closely by, but since then we've had some idyllic days. Admittedly the sunshine hasn't been invariably as glaring as it was in these photographs taken when we were trotting up towards Side Hill on Wednesday morning and then when were cantering around the all-weather. But it's been just very, very pleasant, whether the skies have bene cloudless or whether there's been a bit of cover overhead. When I look back at some of the photographs which I've taken this year, I'm reminded that we have been blessed with some lovely weather; and this week deserves to rank up there with its better weeks. Let's hope that it remains that way, although I'm told that rain could be on the way. Ayr looked very bright (although I'm sure that it wouldn't have been hot) yesterday, but today's meeting there looked murky and wet. The worry is that the rain could be heading down to Catterick, where Ethics Girl is set to run tomorrow. It's currently good to firm there which would suit her perfectly, but obviously the ground could soften appreciably if the rain does indeed come. But, as she showed at Thirsk last time, now that she's a bit older and stronger, she can now show good form on a wet track too, so let's hope that we get a good run whatever the conditions. She's got 9 stone 12lb, which is quite a weight for a little one, but she's the best horse in the race and so she deserves top weight. One obviously needs a lot of luck in a 14-runner handicap around Catterick, but we've got a good jockey (Stevie Donohoe, seen here earlier this year at the top of Railway Land with Seb Sanders, the two of them waiting to gallop a pair of horses up the Al Bahathri for their boss Sir Mark Prescott) so, fingers crossed we should get a run for our money.

As regards the horses a bit farther away from a run, the two-year-olds are coming along nicely. As they get nearer to a run, it's good to get some practice at galloping on grass into them. Even though the Heath is fairly dry again now, we've used the peat moss gallop between the two dykes on Racecourse Side a couple of times over the past fortnight, which has been great experience for them on ground that is no firmer than a genuine good to firm surface. The fillies by Sir Percy, Cadeaux Genereux and Barathea are pictured here trotting down towards the start of the gallop on Wednesday. I'd like to think that all three of these fillies will run at least once this season, although we're more than halfway through September already now so it might not be until October that the first of them (whichever that proves to be) makes her debut, because I'd say that they could each do with having another couple of gallops before they have a race. But they are all doing very well, and the Tiger Hill filly has done a fair bit of work this summer too. The horses set to go over jumps this autumn are all coming along satisfactory too, so all in all it's been a very pleasant week, over and above Rhythm Stick's victory on Tuesday. Let's hope that this lovely weather, in which Silken Thoughts is shown having a post-exercise munch on Wednesday, can last a bit longer.