Holding back the cars

I'm rather tired today as it was a late night yesterday. It was, though, a pleasant evening at Bath, notwithstanding the inclement weather and the fact that Ethics Girl was unplaced. She was not disgraced though, finishing fifth in a competitive race, beaten just over three lengths. She didn't totally have the run of the race but I couldn't say that we were unlucky. Pat Dobbs, whom I liked already, raised himself farther in my esteem by being unnecessarily self-critical afterwards, saying that he hadn't given her a good ride and apologising for it, but really he had nothing to apologise about, because I can't see she could have finished more than a length closer however the race had panned out. It was, though, a pleasure to find a jockey so candid and ready to turn the spotlight of constructive criticism on himself: we've had too many instances of jockeys riding far worse than he did yesterday and then acting as if nothing untoward had happened. No names, no pack-drill - but we even had an instance of one idiot last year losing an iron coming out of the stalls and spending the first 50m trying to get his foot back in, with the result that the filly ended up settling in last position when she should have been up with the leaders. Seemingly believing that I wouldn't have noticed, he gave me a long spiel afterwards about her jumping slowly (which she hadn't) without once mentioning the lost iron. When he eventually paused for breath, he was rather taken aback when I said, "Did you lose an iron coming out of the stalls?", which prompted him to mumble rather shamefacedly that indeed he had. But even then there was no apology either for the ineptitude of his riding, or for his deliberately misleading report of what had happened. Compare and contrast with Pat Dobbs' unnecessarily frank self-criticism - but that's why Pat has a long-term future as a jockey and the other lad probably hasn't.

It was great to see Lawrence Wadey, Ethics' part-owner, at Bath, because he doesn't get too many opportunities to see his horses run. He part-owned a winner about twelve hours later, but understandably he wasn't able to be present for that one as it was at Kembla Grange (NSW). We had a good turn-out of stable patrons, as Richard Jones (Ex Con) and Louise Parry (Rhythm Stick) were there too, so it was rather jolly all round. We had a good drive home until we got to the July Course. Arriving in Six Mile Bottom at 11.45 pm, I was stunned to find a solid queue of cars and coaches heading away from town on the London Road, and when we got to the July Course roundabout it turned out that, amazingly, the traffic was still at a virtual stand-still with the muzak-lovers leaving the post-racing Simply Red concert. It would be a dull world if we all liked the same things, but it is a complete mystery to me that one could find so many people to whom the idea of standing out on the Heath in the middle of the night listening to Simply Red's wailing is an appealing prospect. I'd have thought that a crowd of 20 would have been good, but apparently they found 20,000! Rather than sit in the queue of traffic along the Cambridge Road, I took a diversion via Stetchworth Toll so it merely added a couple of miles and ten minutes on to the trip, but it was rather hard to swallow that, at the end of a day of 350 miles of driving around the country on a Friday afternoon, we should find the worst traffic jam at home at midnight.

Goodwood has been really good this week. It's such a special racecourse that the big meeting - which of course until about the '60s was the only meeting - is a special occasion, even if, as in my case this year, one isn't able to pay that much attention to it. It was, of course, preceded by Michael Stoute's tremendous achievement of saddling the trifecta in the King George, headed by the wonderful Conduit whom we had enjoyed following down the side of Bury Hill a couple of days beforehand, and there have been some lovely moments during Goodwood too. James Fanshawe's winner was good, and his interview with Lydia Hislop afterwards was even better. I've been pleased this afternoon to see him having a race-to-race double at Doncaster, particularly as the first one, the winning juvenile debutant Bagamoyo, is a half-brother to dear old Brief Goodbye. I'd have loved to see the admirable Rainbow View win the Nassau just now, but one can never begrudge Henry Cecil a big winner, while it was very nice to see the good young jockey Tom Queally win a Group One race at Glorious Goodwood, having already done so at both Royal Ascot and the July Meeting. It's also been nice to see Godolphin and Mark Johnston enjoy a successful week (which for each is the norm for Goodwood week), with Schiaparelli's Goodwood Cup being particularly a sight to enjoy (even though I'd have preferred to see Judgethemoment salute). Schiaparelli (built and marked like Risky Cry!) is a lovely horse, but it could turn out that the Dubawi colt Poet's Voice, easy winner of a two-year-olds' conditions race at Newmarket last night, is the best horse whom Godolphin have run this week.
As I'm otherwise struggling to find a photograph to illustrate this chapter, I'll just end by again putting up a recent photograph, taken by Emma, of Risky Cry pretending to be Schiaparelli on the first sand (with Douchkette and Rhythm Stick), with my royal blue sweat-shirt completing the Godolphin disguise. See the resemblance? It is, of course, about a million to one that Risky Cry will ever win a Goodwood Cup - but the glory of racing is that one never knows!

And I can't close without mentioning that a Group One winner makes his debut in the two-year-old maiden at Goodwood today. Music Maestro, winner of the 1977 Flying Childers Stakes (when it was still a Group One) before (I think) becoming a stallion, rolls back the years today. Remarkable!