Thursday, January 28, 2021

Changing plans


Our trip to Wolverhampton the other night was rather pleasant, notwithstanding that it was unproductive.  Turn Of Phrase lost her chance at the start by jumping slowly.  She didn't do too badly to run on into mid-division, but that was as good as we could hope for after that beginning.  I don't know why she did it.  The horse drawn next to her on her inside was very badly behaved - to the extent that I was watching while she waited to go in and thinking, 'Christ, she's got to go in next to that; that's not good' - and that may have disconcerted her.  Whatever.  I'll probably run her over a bit farther next time, and give her a bit longer between races.


Our participation aside, there were plenty of good things going on.  Mark Loughnane trained a treble and it was really good to be there to see that.  Mark's been a great addition to the British training ranks since moving over from Ireland a few years ago.  He's a very good trainer and a very affable one too, and I was delighted to see him enjoy the best day of his career to date.  And the last race was interesting: Tom Queally rode the winner for David Evans and, to my eyes, that made it two wins for him in two days on two horses who ought not to have won, in the sense that they beat one or more superior rival(s) thanks to being so well ridden.


Tom's been out of fashion for a long time now, but on the evidence of that winning ride (on a horse who needed a lot of riding, over and above the fact that the ride was tactically superior) and his one at Kempton the previous evening for Gary Moore, he oughtn't to be.  Another pleasant part of the evening was that Alice Bond, who was mentioned in this blog a week or two ago, had a ride for her boss James Ferguson.  She was on the least experienced horse in the race and was drawn the worst, but she rode the horse very positively and got him to run well. (The photograph shows them coming in afterwards).  It's good to see James giving her so much well-deserved encouragement.


Looking ahead, we have three runners coming up; one of them when originally intended, the other two with slightly altered plans.  Abbie and I will head up the A1 to Doncaster tomorrow when Das Kapital moves from novice hurdle to novice handicap hurdle company.  I'm looking forward to that, although originally I was looking forward to going to Wolverhampton tomorrow where/when Cloudy Rose was going to make her debut.  The plan was that I was going to take her, and I had someone lined up to drive Das Kapital to Doncaster.  However, my inefficiency meant that Cloudy Rose isn't running, courtesy of an administrative oversight which, stupidly, I made.


Her debut won't be delayed for long, though: she'll run instead at Kempton on Wednesday, five days later.  So that's fine.  I had actually thought that Wolverhampton would be the best place for her to start off as she used not to like kickback at all when cantering or galloping on the Polytracks here, and I reckoned that Wolverhampton's Tapeta might be our best best.  As it is, though, I'm not too distressed by the enforced change of venue.  Firstly, when we ran Turn Of Phrase there two weeks ago I was pleasantly surprised by how little Polytrack was on her face and bridle and on the jockey's silks afterwards (compare and contrast with Lingfield and Chelmsford, at both of which courses you'd have thought that our bridles had been buried on the beach after our last visits).  Secondly, she has grown up a lot in the past month, and I'm much more sanguine about her coping with the kickback than I was previously.


In between times we'll have Big Pete making his debut in the AW bumper at Lingfield on Monday.  (You can see him and Cloudy Rose three times between Roy's ears earlier in this chapter, and Das Kapital twice.  And you can see Cloudy Rose on the Al Bahathri this morning in the final photograph).  That, too, is a changed plan.  He's not very robust and, finally becoming nearly ready to run at this time of year, I'd feared that he would have to make his debut on a quagmire and feared that he might really struggle.  So I'd picked a bumper at Lingfield where, of course, when they have a jumps meeting on the turf, they run the bumper on the AW.  The only fly in the ointment, of course, is that  Lingfield is currently waterlogged, so the meeting has already been abandoned.  Happily, in its place has been hastily arranged a 'jumpers'  bumpers' card containing the bumper that would have been run plus some AW flat races for jumpers.  So he can run in his bumper after all - except the meeting is now on Monday, rather than Tuesday.  Anyway, that's a very roundabout way of saying that we'll have three runners in the next six days.  You'd think that it was high summer!

3 comments:

David J Winter. said...

I too, have wondered for a long time why TQ seems to struggle for rides. Even going to the extent of going back home and riding for his family over the sticks. I am not an expert but having ridden (not racing) myself and watched and listened to many sages, I have always thought Tom to be an excellent horseman and tactician. You would know more than me but sometimes the personality of the jockey can influence their career and in the bubble of racing the rumour mill grinds quickly. Not that I am casting aspersions on Tom, far from it but I have heard first hand in the trainers bar jockeys being “slagged off” after a supposed bad ride or showing poor attitude and I’m sure this sometimes sticks.
I saw the G. Moore ride at Kempton and it was excellent and he produced the horse to maximise its ability.
I thought your Wolves run deserved some appreciation John...from the slow start his progress was good and all in all for a lightly experienced horse did well under almost constant pressure...bodes well going forward.
Good luck with the three runners this week and especially Roger Vicarage’s Cloudy Rose.

neil kearns said...

Mr Q. Then excelled on Sunday on another of Dave Evans when he made all on Zulu Zander not unusual in itself until you see that at least twice he has to take major avoidance of a loose horse during the race , in both cases losing momentum and his chosen racing line it was a brilliant display of horsemanship

John Berry said...

Thank you for those observations. I see that Tom had another winner this evening (for David Evans) so let's hope that the tide of fortune is indeed flowing his way after a long spell undeservedly in the wilderness.