A nice weekend

We're clinging on to some nice weather. Both days this weekend have been pleasantly warm and bright. Yesterday (Saturday) dawned spectacularly, as these first two photographs both show. They are the views which I and Alcalde had following Emma and Jamie (on Panto and Ethics Girl) onto Long Hill shortly after daybreak. As they imply, we had Jamie in for the morning, which was good - for us, if not for him, because he was sporting a new pair of boots which seemed not yet to have moulded to the shape of his foot and leg, which proabably meant that he would have been becoming painfully aware of their newness by the time that he had finished his fourth lot. Still, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, so no doubt he'll have taken some benefit from the morning. Shortly after these photographs were taken, we passed Chris Wall while we were homeward bound. This was good because I was able to salute him on the fact that his string appeared to have struck form with a vengeance. After making that observation, I was going to say that I was hoping that, with his charges running out of their skin at present, I hoped that he had a race in the near future for his admirable stable star Premio Loco, who has been a marvel over the past couple of years but who had yet to get his head in front this season. As it turned out, it was lucky that I didn't have time to get that observation in, because once the morning had ended and I finally got around to perusing the Racing Post, I realised that Premio Loco was due to run later that same day, in the Group Two Park Stakes at Doncaster, something which I probably should have known. And, of course, the obvious result came to pass: Premio Loco (seen here leading part of Chris' string off the first sand a couple of months ago, ridden by his regular partner Billy Lord) duly won the race, the second Group Two triumph of his career, thus making a good contribution to an exciting day's racing notable for the fact that it featured some very pleasing results.

Most obvious among the pleasing results were the one and a half St Leger triumphs recorded by John Gosden's stable, headed of course by the victory in THE St Leger by Masked Marvel, a mighty horse who looks as if he could be hard to beat in any race from one and a half miles to two and a half miles - in fact, if he were mine, my ambitious aim with him now would be to win next June both the Coronation Cup and the Ascot Gold Cup (something which probably has been achieved previously, so this week's questions is 'By whom?'). Hard to say whether the one-and-a-half-St-Legers feat had ever previously been recorded. One would straightaway say that it hadn't, but when one bears in mind that the practice in days of yore if the judge couldn't separate the first two home was to send them back for a re-run, I suppose that it's possible that, in one sense, a trainer might previously have sent out the winner of one and a half St Legers in the same day. But John is surely the first to win one and a half St Legers in the same day with two different horses. His is a stable which I like very much, and not only for the facts that it is an uncommonly good source of both Dalmatians (such as the ever-so-tired one who has managed to sneak into the last photograph of this chapter) and councillors. It's a stable full of really nice horses (many/most of which are the best type of horse, ie stayers) looked after by some excellent lads, so John's is a string which I always enjoy passing in the mornings. One of its many brahmas is the fact that it contains both a human and an equine Duncan. One looks after the other (and I'll leave it to you to work out who looks after whom) and this means that the equine Duncan is even more of a legend in these parts than he otherwise would be - which meant that, while Jukebox Jury is a horse whom I hugely admire, I was delighted to see Duncan (the horse, pictured above being shadowed one Sunday morning in July by his human namesake) grab a share of the glory in the Irish St Leger. Duncan didn't appear to be accompanied by his human namesake yesterday, and I don't know what the story was there. But that meant that he was instead in the hands of my former colleague David Mooney (pictured here on the high-class three-year-old stayer Thimaar) who has worked for John for quite a few years now and who seems to have fitted in really well there. The fact that David was the one who had the pleasure of leading this special horse into the winner's enclosure was yet another reason to be cheerful on an afternoon of cheering results. Moving away from the major meetings, another race which I enjoyed watching yesterday was one at Kempton on the AW in which Michael Murphy, recently featured on this blog, gave his William Knight-trained mount a peach of a ride to record a narrow victory. Michael's riding really is considerably more accomplished than one could ever expect to see from a 7-lb claimer so he has to be in any notebook of up-and-coming young riders. So, of course, does our Hannah, who is streets ahead of what one would expect of someone who has just turned 17 - and so is Chris Wall's apprentice Danny Brock, recently returned to Chris' stable after a stint over at Royston with John Jenkins. Danny (pictured above cantering up Warren Hill AW yesterday) has contributed to Chris' run of form because he partnered Ulla to a narrow victory at Wolverhampton during the week - and the filly would not have won had his ride been anything other than spot-on. Good on 'im.