Glorious & perfect

Goodwood.  Or Glorious Goodwood.  Or the Qatar Goodwood Festival.  It's easy enough to work out when Glorious Goodwood became the Qatar Goodwood Festival, because it was when (maybe two years ago) Qatar became the headline sponsor of the meeting with a huge injection of cash; harder to work out when Goodwood became Glorious Goodwood.  It is hard to see that the term would have been used prior to 1965, because until that year Goodwood only held one meeting a year; and there would be little need for a prefix to differentiate a racecourse's principal meeting from its lesser ones if it did not have any lesser ones.

Anyway, we have no runners this week, so I wouldn't be heading away to the races any day and so I was really looking forward to watching plenty of the races from Glorious Goodwood at home on television.  It hasn't worked out that way, of course.  The time just seems to fill itself.  I called into the Memorial Hall (ie town hall) on Monday afternoon and my fellow councillor Rachel Hood, our current mayor, was in there so I wished her luck for Goodwood Cup runner Stradivarius and Sussex Stakes runner Without Parole, both trained by her husband John Gosden.

I enthused about the two horses at what was probably greater length than was necessary because I think that they are both terrific and have a real soft spot for them both (as I do for two of Without Parole's principal rivals, Expert Eye and the horse who ended up winning the race, Lightning Spear) and I banged on enthusiastically about what good races they would be.  Rachel asked me if I was going, and I replied that I wasn't, but that I would be "glued to the television for those two races."  And I genuinely believed what I was saying, because that was the definite plan.

Yes, you've guessed it: I missed them both!  I have subsequently seen a replay of the Sussex Stakes, but I still haven't seen the Goodwood Cup!  (Although I have seen a clip of the last two furlongs of it on the internet).  It just happens that there's always more than enough work to be done, very often outside, in the gap between morning and evening stables - even at the moment when the gap is a long one because morning stables are usually finished quite early as we are still starting at 5.30 to 'beat the heat'- so that organising oneself to be sitting down in front of the television at, say, 3.35 is easier said than done.

Next week will be different, though: God willing we'll be heading to the races three times, ie to Yarmouth on Wednesday with Sussex Girl, to Yarmouth on Thursday with Solitary Sister and to Brighton on Friday with Roy.  That's the plan anyway, but plans do have an unfortunate habit of changing.  If you had asked me the plans for that week a week ago I would have said that Hope Is High would have been going to Yarmouth the same day as Sussex Girl, but that isn't happening - but I hope that she'll be OK to go to Chepstow (where that day's Bath fixture will be held) on 18th August instead, so, God willing, that'll only be a minor rearrangement of her schedule.

Talking about Hope, I think that reflections her most recent run at Doncaster featured in the last chapter.  After writing that I remembered that the chapter before that had been written the day before Sussex Girl had run at Newmarket, and that I hadn't given any post-race report on that run.  That was a good one: third at 33/1, extremely well ridden by John Fahy.  That was very promising, giving us plenty of encouragement to look forward to her next race (ie at Yarmouth next week).  I did particularly want to touch upon that run at Newmarket simply because it's worth pointing out well she was ridden.

The importance of my doing so was reinforced by one of the few races of the Qatar Goodwood Festival which I have seen, one which was won by Solo Sizzler, trained by William Knight and extremely well ridden by Jimmy Quinn, who needed to give the horse plenty of help at pretty much every stage of the race.  Jimmy, rightly was praised for the ride on TV, but it is worth mentioning that if it had been, say, Ryan Moore in the saddle, we would probably have been treated to a replay where the horse was highlighted throughout, with the pundits sagely telling us that this was a perfect illustration of Ryan's unrivalled talents because only he could have won on the horse.

That's the thing.  It must drive unfashionable jockeys mad with irritation and frustration when they read the endless paeans of praise of the skills of their more fashionable colleagues whose opportunities to shine are light-years ahead of the ones which they receive, just as unfashionable trainers find themselves beating their heads against a similar wall.  If you are ever tempted to fall into the trap of believing that the high-profile superstars are in a league of their own, watch from start to finish John Fahy's ride on Sussex Girl into third place at Newmarket, or Jimmy Quinn's ride on Solo Sizzler into first place at Goodwood, and reflect that the gap in effectiveness between those at the top of the ladder and those many rungs below is generally tiny, if it exists at all.

Just in case, incidentally, anyone reads this and uses the fact that the champion jockey's name, rather than John Fahy's name, is down next to Sussex Girl among the entries at Yarmouth to question my sincerity in the previous paragraph, I should point out that the first thing I did when looking at the entries yesterday afternoon was investigate the likely whereabouts next Wednesday of both John Fahy (who has ridden Sussex Girl once for that one third place) and Nicola Currie (who has ridden her four times, I think, for two wins).

It would have made things easy had one been set to go to Yarmouth and one set to go elsewhere.  As it turned out, though, both are set to go to Brighton that afternoon.  Having established that consequently neither would be available to ride her, my next step was to see who was likely to be at Yarmouth but did not have an engagement for that race - and the name Silvestre De Sousa jumped straight off the page at me, which is great as he is a superb jockey with whom we have been very lucky in the past.  I imagine that he will ride her perfectly - but I doubt that he will ride her any better than John did last time or Nicola did last autumn.  A perfect ride is a perfect ride, and it can't be improved on, irrespective of the identity of profile or popularity of the individuals concerned.