Better to travel hopefully

During the inevitable lulls when the stable is having fewer runners than one would ideally like to have winners, I am never suprised to be asked if I'm still training. However, it came as something of a surprise to discover that problemwalrus has found the Racing Post querying whether I even exist. So, there's nothing for it but to produce another diary entry, and tell of the fictitious events in this quasi Wathenworld, to prove that I am at least in some sort of cyberexistence. Not that I need to prove it, because I see that Signorinetta has kindly vouched for my reality - and hinted at what has to be the racing highlight of the day.

Yes, it was great to cheer Serpentaria home on tv in the first division of the mile median auction maiden at Lingfield today. Unfortunately I was unable to help anyone else to share the excitement, because I only woke up to the fact of who she is (she is Anis Etoile's Golden Snake three-year-old half-sister and was making her debut today) after they had gone about a furlong, so had no time to alert any of Anis Etoile's part-owners that we had someone to cheer for. But, if you missed it, believe me - it was really good. She was up there all the way, led into the straight, was challenged on both sides and lost the lead, but battled back (with Seb Sanders riding at nearly his hardest, which is a sight to behold) to regain the lead in the shadows of the post to win by a brave head. It was great. Of course, it doesn't really alter whether we do or don't have a good horse on our hands, but it certainly makes it even easier for us to travel hopefully. I think it was a good race. The runner-up Mutoon is, I think, a good horse: she is a half-sister to a Park Hill winner and Dave Huelin and I were keen to buy her at the sales last autumn, but she fetched too much (about 45,000 gns, I think), while the third (at least I think the horse was third) had been the subject of a monster plunge, something like 5/1 into 2/1. And the field also contained Araafa's Orpen half-brother, who had been placed in two of his three previous starts for Michael Bell. So that was good. We can watch Serpentaria's future with interest. She could be Golden Snake's best horse, which wouldn't be saying a great deal, although I've always felt he has the potential to be a better stallion than he is supposed to be; perhaps now that he is standing in Ireland he will be better patronized and thus better able to show what he can do.

As mentioned above, Seb Sanders' riding today, as so often, was pretty impressive, and I'm going to use that fairly nothing statement to bring us back to my end-of-year review, because names keep coming up who deserve a bit of a plug. Several of these are jockeys, and it would be remiss of me not to highlight that our street produced the champion apprentice last year: Stephen Donohoe, the latest young rider to thrive under the aegis of Willie Musson. He's been a very good rider for several year, but questionable motivation had sometimes seen him unfeasibly heavy and therefore inactive. However, he seems to have woken up now, and has added keenness to his talent, intelligence and natural decency. It was nice to see him being used frequently by his former boss David Evans, and he just kept riding more and more winners as the season went on. Including Jack Dawson at Yarmouth, which was nice. I don't know where he's been over the past couple of months, but he's just resuming riding the past couple of days, and rode an interesting horse today for David, a three-year-old gelding called Mick Is Back, by Diktat ex Classy Cleo. Classy Cleo was a grand filly in the same stable and Diktat is a good stallion (which I suspect I shall point out shortly) and this horse seems, after an unpromising start, to be running into some sort of form. He finished fourth today, wearing blinkers for the first time, and he's in the right stable to win a few races, which I predict he will do this year.

Another jockey whom David Evans is using quite a lot now is Cathy Gannon. She rode a winner for him at Wolverhampton this evening, having ridden one for his ex-wife Deborah yesterday. You've got to take your hat off to her, because she is an excellent rider, really on a par with the best men, who has found things a real struggle since coming over here (because she was finding things such a struggle since losing the claim which had helped her become champion apprentice in Ireland two or three years ago). She had one ride for us last year, on Lady Suffragette, who had achieved nothing up to that point, and she really woke the filly up to run a close fourth. Brett was available for Lady Suffragette on her only subsequent run, and rides her again tomorrow when she should run well, but I wouldn't hesitate to put Cathy back on her, or on anything else come to that. She really deserves the success which is slowly starting to come her way. On the subject of her winner yesterday, that was really weird, because she beat David Evans' runner, the 7/4 favourite ridden by Neil Callan, by a short head. Her mount was 22/1. What was weird was that first and second were both owned by the same people, and they claimed to have backed the second. How could you do that? If you had two runners in the same race, and one was 7/4 and the other was 22/1, how could you back the 7/4 shot? You couldn't. There's only one reason for running two horses in the same race, and that's because you think it is the right race for each horse and that, therefore, they both have a chance. So if one is 7/4 and the other is 22/1, your punting strategy would be a no-brainer (as Luca would say): you'd back the outsider. Well you would if you had any understanding of anything. Or maybe I'm missing something.

Returning to subjects closer to home, a thought that's been going through my head in the past few days has been that I must add Diktat (yes I said we'd get on to him) to the list of stallions who emerged from 2006 with credit. He had a cracking year, Rajeem's win in the Group One Falmouth Stakes (in fairness, Kerrin McEvoy probably deserves the lion's share for that one, but she still had to be nearly as good as her Group One class rivals to win it) being the highlight, although the excellent runs of Short Skirt, in particular her defeat of Alexandrova in the Musidora, rate very highly too. When we bought the little Diktat yearling in Fairyhouse in September, I did so having it in my mind that Diktat was doing well, particularly with his fillies, so it was nice to keep tabs on a real stream of winners which he enjoyed for the rest of the year. One of the most exciting was little Dixie Belle winning a Listed sprint at Newbury, keeping the ball rolling in an excellent year for the Quinlan brothers, who had another big day a few weeks later when Frank Sonata beat Scorpion in a Listed race at the Curragh. Good, I've got them in too, because they were the most glaring omission from my list of trainers who had enjoyed a notably and deservedly successful year in 2006. Anyway, the reason why Diktat has been buzzing around my brain is that, as mentioned in an earlier blog, our little filly has come back from Kerry's, and I'm very pleased with her. She looks to my eyes to be going physically in the direction I had hoped (and mentally she is great, very biddable and enthusiastic), and I think that now she is back in work she will just strengthen up week by week and month by month, and I anticipate her being quite a strong little horse by the middle of the year. Let's hope so. In fact, if she or one of the others can manage to win anything approaching a feature race, then maybe even the Racing Post will know I exist.

(Which they must do anyway, because I've sent them two letters this week - although as one was to nominate Vince Smith for Greatest Ride Ever, and the other was to criticise one of their columnists (Howard Wright, again), it's possible that they might just be filed on the cutting room floor.).