Horses and people

Unfortunately I can't say that our trip to Folkestone yesterday was a successful one. Hotfoot (seen, number three, arriving at the start under Emily Jones) ran no sort of race whatsoever: she showed up for a fair way and looked to be travelling very easily going into the last turn, but coming out of it she was going nowhere. By the time she crossed the line she had last place all to herself. She's now run in five handicaps and has run deplorably in three of them, so she's clearly going to have to pull her socks up if she's going to make the grade. There are few things more soul-destroying than persevering with a horse who is never going to do anything, and we'll have to be careful that we don't end up doing that, as it's an expensive and futile occupation. However, she has shown a little bit of promise and it's only one run since she finished third at Epsom, so I think that we would be wrong to draw stumps just yet. However, clearly, one wouldn't want too many more poor runs. So we'll just see what happens next. And, by the way, we certainly can't say that she failed for lack of homework by those around her: I like to walk the tracks, especially if I've got Gus with me, and was very pleased to bump into Emily doing the same thing as I went around Folkestone's typically well-maintained and idiosyncratically rural circuit before racing.

Still, there's usually some form of pleasure at any day at the races. Yesterday, while the result of the first race gave me not much pleasure, I did enjoy the result of the second, when the Khalid Abdullah-owned and -bred, and Michael Stoute-trained, Dynaformer four-year-old Direct Answer (pictured on top of Long Hill on a wet morning a couple of weeks ago, and then pictured after his victory yesterday) justified hot favouritism in a maiden race. I really like Dynaformer as a stallion, and I've enjoyed watching this horse go about his business on the Heath, ridden by the very good lad who looks after him, Umar Saleem (who used to look after the St Leger and Breeders' Cup Turf winner Conduit). This horse, like most Dynaformers, apparently had a tendencey towards fieriness, but wandering around on his own seems to suit him. He must have had his problems as he hadn't run for a year, but he resumed yesterday and I was delighted to be there to see his run. And I was even more pleased when he did indeed prove that the wait had been worthwhile. Whether he'll progress from here remains to be seen because, when it comes to reaching the top of the tree in any competitive sport, many are called and few are chosen. But at least he's got this far.

On the subject of winners to have given me pleasure recently, it should not have gone unremarked that a winner came out of this property in the middle of last week: Dave Morris' Zaheeb (pictured before a maiden race at Yarmouth earlier this season) got his head in front at Yarmouth. This horse had just failed earlier in the season, going down by a short-head to William Haggas' exceptionally well handicapped Dubai Dancer (who has subsequently won off a mark about 20lb higher). He hadn't been sighted since then, but Dave dropped him back down in distance again last week and he duly won by a couple of lengths. Dave plays his cards pretty close to his chest, but I'd say that that was a very satisfactory result for the horse's connections. Another Yarmouth winner who deserves a pat on the back is Dannios, who has now credited Ed Walker's first-season stable with three victories. That's very good for a horse who had previously been relegated to the role of stable hack. On his first win (in a race which Hotfoot contested) he provided Hayley Burton, who is apprenticed to Luca, with a win on her first race-ride, but more recently he has benefitted from two very polished rides from one of the most experienced 7lb claimers around, Michael Murphy (pictured in Ed's string yesterday morning). Michael, son of the former Middleham-based jumps jockey Mick, is probably best remembered for being the first jockey to win on the subsequent top-liner Presvis. He was apprenticed to Luca at the time, but he's done a lot of travelling since then and is now a fully seasoned and experienced horseman, thus exposing the paradox that, while the time for young jockeys to prove themselves is supposedly when they are young, they'll actually be far more proficient horsemen a few years down the track. Not all change is for the better (in fact, very little of it is) but I'd say that the alteration to the rules to allow older riders to claim is a very good thing: there's no harm at all in allowing those like Michael (and Laura Pike, a very good apprentice who falls into exactly the same category) the chance to prove themselves as jockeys after they have had several years in the game building up a really solid grounding of horsemanship. Previously, if you didn't get going when you were young, you'd missed the boat, irrespective of how talented a rider you ended up becoming.

To move from the theoretical to the here and now, we should be off to Sandown tomorrow with Silken Thoughts. It'll only be six days since she ran such a fine race at Newbury, but she seems to have come out of the race extremely well, and tomorrow's race looks suitable. So she can run, weather permitting: there has been a lot of rain today, and I think that a slog in the mud up the Sandown hill wouldn't be her go, so we'll just have to take a raincheck in the morning before setting off.