Humanity

Yes, 11 days since the last post.  It actually seems longer, funnily enough.  The problem (although I'm not sure that 'problem' is the right word) is that under normal circumstances I don't have a social life but in the first half of June I usually do.  One always finds that plenty of Aussies make their way to the UK at this time of year, and many of them tend to make their way to Newmarket in the period immediately prior to Royal Ascot.  And I tend to meet up with quite a few of them, which I always enjoy.  But there goes the blog-writing!

We've had three runners since I last posted.  All ran well: all placed, all running as if they might have a chance of winning next time.  I wrote a chapter of this blog on the Wednesday (June 6th).  The next day was my birthday.  Then I went to Brighton on the Friday where Roy ran well to finish third.  One of my colleagues, Carl Di Iorio, on the Australian newspaper Winning Post (for which I have written a weekly column for the past 26 years) is in Europe, and he made his way from London to Brighton on the train and came home with me after racing.

Carl stayed here until Tuesday, fitting in two more days at the races in that time: Newmarket on the Saturday (where, by happy chance, the possibly Melbourne Cup-bound Amazing Red, a half-brother to three-time Melbourne Cup runner-up Red Cadeaux, won) and Nottingham on the Sunday, where our second runner of the period, Hope Is High, finished second.  We also fitted in the usual visitors' things such as watching horses work on the Heath and having a good tour round all the training grounds, going to the racing museum in Palace House, and having a look round Cambridge.  We were also lucky enough to be allowed to pay a visit to Dalham Hall Stud and pay homage to Dubawi, Golden Horn, Farrh and New Approach.

Since Carl has moved on, he's had two more days at the races (Aintree Friday and York Saturday - and he'll be going to Windsor on Monday night before going to Ascot all five days, which is impressive!).  I've had one more day at the races: Yarmouth on Wednesday, where Sussex Girl ran a good race to finish third, suggesting that she's working her way back to form after disappointing me on her first two runs of the season.  I've enjoyed the company of several more of his compatriots, including spending time with two tour groups which are both including Newmarket on the itinerary before heading to Ascot, and annoying Redkirk Warrior's connections on a couple of occasions.

I've also enjoyed making the acquaintance of Nash Rawiller's 17-year-old son Campbell, who is in town for a week with Jane Chapple-Hyam and who seems to have the potential to become as successful a jockey (and is definitely as nice a person) as he is bred to be.  So that's that.  A question of time: getting all the usual daily work-load done plus enjoying the company of other people has been pretty much a full-time job!  (It's actually not true to say that I usually don't have a social life, rather that I don't have a social life outside work: when your work means that you exchange friendly greetings and banter with, say, 200 people by 9.00 each morning, as is the case when we're riding out, you don't feel starved of social interaction, however the rest of the day pans out).

Plus one can have too much of a good thing as regards one's contact with one's fellow humans.  We were reminded of that when Hope Is High finished second at Nottingham.  The betting on this race was so weird.  I thought that we had a good chance with maybe three of our rivals also being live chances.  Oliver Greenall ran a horse called Fort Jefferson who was having his first Flat start of the year.  He had won his final race last season and had been running well over hurdles in the interim, most recently winning a 14-runner maiden hurdle at Bangor three weeks previously.  Horses who do well when put over hurdles usually show improved form when put back on the Flat, particularly if they are clearly at the top of their game when they do so.

Fort Jefferson arguably should have been favourite, but my amateur attempt at pricing the race up would have been something like Hope Is High 2/1 favourite, Fort Jefferson 3/1 second favourite, 9/2 bar.  As the horses went down to the start, I was taken aback to see that Hope Is High was 7/4 favourite and Fort Jefferson 18/1, and as they jumped I was scratching my head at how my form analyis could be so badly wrong.  Anyway, Silvestre rode Hope perfectly, switching her off under her 9 stone 10lb and from her outside stall, getting her to relax perfectly to give her every chance to run out the mile and six.

It was copybook and she duly worked home dourly to overhaul all her rivals - bar Fort Jefferson, who turned out to have at least a stone in hand, skipping clear at the top of the straight to win, eased down, by seven lengths.  I was very proud of Hope's run and very happy, as always, with Silvestre's ride: he had clearly given her every chance of achieving her best possible placing, and she had clearly achieved it.  She recorded the joint-second highest Postmark of her whole career (75), a figure beaten only by the 79 which she recorded when winning under an identical ride from the same jockey at Yarmouth last September.  And I was kicking myself for my stupidity at having failed to back the most blatantly over-priced winner of the season.  (Well, Fort Jefferson probably shared that honour with Masar in the Derby).

What was the post-script?  Some idiot posted a foul-mouthed, disgustingly abusive tweet accusing Silvestre of being paid by the bookmakers to stop her.  And another idiot sent us a similarly horrible email expressing similar sentiments but working on the assumption that I was behind the supposed crime.  What's wrong with people?  What's wrong with this country?  Leaving aside that the x-rated tirades were both based on a misapprehension, how can anyone bring up a child so badly or any school so completely fail to educate a child that the child reaches adulthood believing that it is in any way acceptable to publish a tweet or email a stranger expressing such hate-filled sentiments in such revoltingly offensive language.  To quote Alan Partridge, "This country!".

Oh yes, and the other post-script was that Fort Jefferson ran again four days later at Chester.  Carrying a 6lb penalty he started the odds-on favourite and won even more easily this time, eased right down by four lengths.  I would imagine that that might have given the conspiracy theorists some cause for introspection - and in fairness I ought to point out that the emailer sent a total apology the next day (in response to Emma's reply to his first email) and the tweeter took down his tweet (after I and several others had pointed out some of its flaws).  Presumably both had sobered up by that time.  So it's nice to have contact with other humans once in a while - but maybe not indiscriminately!