Batgirl did well at an intermittenly-rainy Yarmouth yesterday when matching Douchkirk's feat of two days previously by finishing third. For whatever reason (well, we know the reason: the track is straight and flat, and that seems to suit a relatively ungainly mare) she always seems to run well at Yarmouth, and she certainly enhanced her impressive course record there yesterday. She was racing off a career-high mark and went down by only a head and a neck - and the winner is another course specialist, Rough Rock, who is a really good horse in that grade when right and who had looked to be running into form recently, particularly when running two excellent races in competitive sprints at Newmarket on his two most recent previous outings. So that was all good - not least because it was a close defeat which I didn't find vexatious: not only am I always happy in defeat as long as the horse has run well,
which she definitely did, but also because I am never unhappy to be placed when the race is won by a Chris Dwyer-trained horse. Chris, as you might have gathered from the occasional previous chapter in which he has cropped up (and who is pictured on the Heath this morning with Matt Crawley), is a man whom I respect and like in equal measure, and any race of which he trains the winner is a victory deservedly won. He actually came close to having a double yesterday, his stable star Mia's Boy running yet another cracking race to fail in a photo-finish in a very hot conditions race at Newbury's evening meeting on his first outing since suffering a setback in the winter. I'd seen Chris' wife Shelley riding Mia's Boy on the Heath last Saturday
and he'd really caught my eye as a horse who was ready to run really well, so I was doubly delighted by his bold showing yesterday. So that was all good - and what was even better was that Batgirl was as relaxed at the start and in the stalls as I've ever known her. I'd led her and Tom McLaughlin in and then left them to their own devices only when there were just two more horses still to go in - but then one played up really badly and soon there were five horses out the back, three of the runners having been taken out (two of which were re-installed and one of which was scratched). So she had plenty of time to get toey if she'd wanted to - but instead she stood nice and calmly in her blindford as I watched from my vantage point above her in the adjacent stall, as this picture shows. She's earned the right to have a run at the July Meeting, so we'll enter her for a handicap there next Friday, and she can run if she gets in.
From any subjective point of view, one's own horses are the most special - but even I've got to admit that the star of the show at Yarmouth yesterday wasn't Batgirl. Or Rough Rock. Or the pictured Franciscan, a horse whom I like and who initiated a Luca Cumani double (and completed a Kirsty Milczarek double) when winning the second last race and thus doing his bit to help Camilla Trotter (formerly Milbank) for whose benefit Luca and Sara are racing him. This horse was always going to be a nice horse from the day on the July Course last summer when he defied being just about the fattest and greenest debutant I've seen to show a glimmer of ability on debut - and he's now won two races. Yesterday
he beat (pictured here) another interesting horse: the five-year-old mare Flame Of Hestia, who remains a maiden despite having some ability and a lovely pedigree (she's by Giant's Causeway from the immediate family of Sleepytime, Croco Rouge, Ali-Royal and Taipan, hence her having cost a million guineas as a yearling). Flame Of Hestia (red and yellow colours) actually did well to go close yesterday as it was only two days short of two years since her most recent start. Fingers crossed she can build on this now that she is finally back on track. No, interesting though those two competitors were, outright star of the show was the
14-year-old former King's Stand Stakes winner The Tatling, who completed a Hayley Turner treble by taking his record to 170-17-27-25. Few horses have ever won on the Flat at the age of 14 and few horses have finished in the first three 69 times - but very possibly no horse had ever won a race at a track at which he had won a race TWELVE YEARS PREVIOUSLY. Yes, that's what happened: The Tatling won a maiden race at Yarmouth in July 1999 and then he won a handicap there yesterday, on the last day of June 2011. Nowadays very few things are without precedent, but that might possibly have been an unprecedented achievement, and for it he was justifiably given a tremendous ovation on his return. And giving him a pat on his way back to the truck to head home an hour later was a lovely little highlight of the day for me.
I then saw another very special horse this morning, as I will now relate. As regards the story, though - what does this tell you about the nation's journos? If there is a public gallop of a top-class horse laid on and the press are invited, with the opportunity to have a free breakfast thrown in, you'd find dozens of journos 'chasing the story'. There was a press release sent out a couple of days ago to the nation's journos stating that River Jetez, one of the very best racemares in the world and one whom European racegoers have never had the opportunity to admire, would
gallop on the July Course at 8.00 this morning. There was no mention of any free food or drink - and I was ONE OF ONLY TWO scribes to show up! Unbelievable. The other one, incidentally, was the excellent Paul Binfield, formerly of Cheltenham Festival Radio fame (before that station was directed badly off course and consequently ceased to benefit from his wit and wisdom) and currently the most acceptable of the many acceptable faces of Paddy Power
bookmakers. (Just in case you've never come across Paul - after whom, of course, a Brendan Powell-trained horse was named a few years ago - I include a photograph, above, of him and his friend and former colleague Ed Prosser in the Jockey Club rooms last month, on a very well-attended junket for which food and drink were thrown in). Anyway, about this morning - few others might have been excited about the opportunity to admire the lovely Jet Master mare River Jetez, but I was. To refresh your memory, she won South Africa's premier weight-for-age race, the J&B Met, last year,
thus ending the three-year reign in that race of her full-brother Pocket Power. She's a genuine champion, and now she's in the UK. And it was a real pleasure to watch her galloping, ridden by Pat Cosgrave, this morning. It would have been good enough just to see her workmate, a celebrity in her own right: Raihana, whom Iva rode in the gallop and who is an Australian-bred daughter of Elusive Quality and who won last year's UAE Oaks. Still, I suppose it's an age-old truism that you can tell people that the water is there and that it's good water, but you can't make them drink it!
Batgirl did well at an intermittenly-rainy Yarmouth yesterday when matching Douchkirk's feat of two days previously by finishing third. For whatever reason (well, we know the reason: the track is straight and flat, and that seems to suit a relatively ungainly mare) she always seems to run well at Yarmouth, and she certainly enhanced her impressive course record there yesterday. She was racing off a career-high mark and went down by only a head and a neck - and the winner is another course specialist, Rough Rock, who is a really good horse in that grade when right and who had looked to be running into form recently, particularly when running two excellent races in competitive sprints at Newmarket on his two most recent previous outings. So that was all good - not least because it was a close defeat which I didn't find vexatious: not only am I always happy in defeat as long as the horse has run well, 
which she definitely did, but also because I am never unhappy to be placed when the race is won by a Chris Dwyer-trained horse. Chris, as you might have gathered from the occasional previous chapter in which he has cropped up (and who is pictured on the Heath this morning with Matt Crawley), is a man whom I respect and like in equal measure, and any race of which he trains the winner is a victory deservedly won. He actually came close to having a double yesterday, his stable star Mia's Boy running yet another cracking race to fail in a photo-finish in a very hot conditions race at Newbury's evening meeting on his first outing since suffering a setback in the winter. I'd seen Chris' wife Shelley riding Mia's Boy on the Heath last Saturday 
and he'd really caught my eye as a horse who was ready to run really well, so I was doubly delighted by his bold showing yesterday. So that was all good - and what was even better was that Batgirl was as relaxed at the start and in the stalls as I've ever known her. I'd led her and Tom McLaughlin in and then left them to their own devices only when there were just two more horses still to go in - but then one played up really badly and soon there were five horses out the back, three of the runners having been taken out (two of which were re-installed and one of which was scratched). So she had plenty of time to get toey if she'd wanted to - but instead she stood nice and calmly in her blindford as I watched from my vantage point above her in the adjacent stall, as this picture shows. She's earned the right to have a run at the July Meeting, so we'll enter her for a handicap there next Friday, and she can run if she gets in.
From any subjective point of view, one's own horses are the most special - but even I've got to admit that the star of the show at Yarmouth yesterday wasn't Batgirl. Or Rough Rock. Or the pictured Franciscan, a horse whom I like and who initiated a Luca Cumani double (and completed a Kirsty Milczarek double) when winning the second last race and thus doing his bit to help Camilla Trotter (formerly Milbank) for whose benefit Luca and Sara are racing him. This horse was always going to be a nice horse from the day on the July Course last summer when he defied being just about the fattest and greenest debutant I've seen to show a glimmer of ability on debut - and he's now won two races. Yesterday 
he beat (pictured here) another interesting horse: the five-year-old mare Flame Of Hestia, who remains a maiden despite having some ability and a lovely pedigree (she's by Giant's Causeway from the immediate family of Sleepytime, Croco Rouge, Ali-Royal and Taipan, hence her having cost a million guineas as a yearling). Flame Of Hestia (red and yellow colours) actually did well to go close yesterday as it was only two days short of two years since her most recent start. Fingers crossed she can build on this now that she is finally back on track. No, interesting though those two competitors were, outright star of the show was the 
14-year-old former King's Stand Stakes winner The Tatling, who completed a Hayley Turner treble by taking his record to 170-17-27-25. Few horses have ever won on the Flat at the age of 14 and few horses have finished in the first three 69 times - but very possibly no horse had ever won a race at a track at which he had won a race TWELVE YEARS PREVIOUSLY. Yes, that's what happened: The Tatling won a maiden race at Yarmouth in July 1999 and then he won a handicap there yesterday, on the last day of June 2011. Nowadays very few things are without precedent, but that might possibly have been an unprecedented achievement, and for it he was justifiably given a tremendous ovation on his return. And giving him a pat on his way back to the truck to head home an hour later was a lovely little highlight of the day for me.
I then saw another very special horse this morning, as I will now relate. As regards the story, though - what does this tell you about the nation's journos? If there is a public gallop of a top-class horse laid on and the press are invited, with the opportunity to have a free breakfast thrown in, you'd find dozens of journos 'chasing the story'. There was a press release sent out a couple of days ago to the nation's journos stating that River Jetez, one of the very best racemares in the world and one whom European racegoers have never had the opportunity to admire, would 
gallop on the July Course at 8.00 this morning. There was no mention of any free food or drink - and I was ONE OF ONLY TWO scribes to show up! Unbelievable. The other one, incidentally, was the excellent Paul Binfield, formerly of Cheltenham Festival Radio fame (before that station was directed badly off course and consequently ceased to benefit from his wit and wisdom) and currently the most acceptable of the many acceptable faces of Paddy Power
bookmakers. (Just in case you've never come across Paul - after whom, of course, a Brendan Powell-trained horse was named a few years ago - I include a photograph, above, of him and his friend and former colleague Ed Prosser in the Jockey Club rooms last month, on a very well-attended junket for which food and drink were thrown in). Anyway, about this morning - few others might have been excited about the opportunity to admire the lovely Jet Master mare River Jetez, but I was. To refresh your memory, she won South Africa's premier weight-for-age race, the J&B Met, last year, 
thus ending the three-year reign in that race of her full-brother Pocket Power. She's a genuine champion, and now she's in the UK. And it was a real pleasure to watch her galloping, ridden by Pat Cosgrave, this morning. It would have been good enough just to see her workmate, a celebrity in her own right: Raihana, whom Iva rode in the gallop and who is an Australian-bred daughter of Elusive Quality and who won last year's UAE Oaks. Still, I suppose it's an age-old truism that you can tell people that the water is there and that it's good water, but you can't make them drink it!
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