Unsung heroes - reappeared and continued

A really strange thing happened. The previous chapter disappeared for 24 hours, which really pissed me off at the time, but thankfully it has reappeared. Thankfully for me, anyway (if not for the faithful few who have found it and felt obliged to wade through it) as it means that I don't feel moved to repeat myself. However, had I repeated myself, I would certainly have added to it by hailing Tom McLaughlin (seen in his main job, riding out for Ed Dunlop, crossing the Severals just behind Snow Fairy's attendant Lynsey Hannah last autumn) on riding the winner of the Listed race at Hamilton last night, Red Cadeaux in the Braveheart Stakes. Tom is a cracking jockey whose career has not been nearly as fruitful as he deserves, and for no obvious reason. The all-weather has always traditionally been his best hunting ground - he was easily the leading jockey at Wolverhampon during the days when he used to ride for Nick Littmoden, when Nick was based on the track and used to clean up on there and on the other AW tracks - so I suppose that he hasn't helped himself by heading for warmer climes over the past couple of winters. However, plenty of other jockeys do that and don't seem to find it hard to get going again during the summer. Tom (in the second picture returning to the winner's enclosure at Yarmouth last September on Batgirl) seems, though, to find things sticky. But now that he has a stakes win under his belt for the season, fingers crossed things will start to pick up again for him. They should do, anyway, if there are plenty of meetings at Bath and/or Chepstow coming up, as he always seems to make hay in the west country sunshine there, notwithstanding the distance from his home in Newmarket. Anyway, that win last night was well deserved, and merits applause. So it will get that here, if nowhere else.

Let's hope that our perennial unsung hero, William, can ride a winner tomorrow - particularly because, if he can, it will be on Kadouchski, who is (predictably) his only ride at Market Rasen. Kadou is moving up from his usual two miles to two miles and five furlongs, but I don't foresee that being a problem. He has stepped nicely into the role temporarily vacated by Ethics Girl, of running every two weeks and getting fatter and fatter, which is good. He's happy as a sandboy at present (the fact that he was content to stand still enough for me to take this long-distance shot of the fillies by Tiger Hill, Barathea and Beat Hollow - ridden by Hugh, Hannah and Adam respectively - setting off up the canter on Long Hill this morning suggests that he's fairly chilled out) so I hope that he will run well. The Dr. Newland-trained Wake Board might be a bigger problem than Kadou's condition, though: he won with his head in his chest today and, as that victory was in a steeplechase, he'll be unpenalized tomorrow, and should win if in similar form (which cannot, of course, be guaranteed). As that photograph shows, it was a really beautiful morning today, which was something of a surprise: not that lovely mornings are uncommon at present, but yesterday the radio told me that rain would cover the whole country, arriving into south east England during the night. It was, therefore, a pleasant surprise to find that the day dawned thus, with the picture of the two-year-olds being taken during second lot and with the sky having been even clearer earlier in the day when Hugh (on Asterisk) and I had been out, as the next three photographs demonstrate. Let's hope that some of the good form of John Gosden's string (the back of part of which is seen in the final photograph) will have rubbed off on us, with it having come up with winners at all three Grade One afternoon meetings yesterday (York, Newbury and Newmarket). Tomorrow afternoon will tell us.