Monday Musings: Ebor Wrap (and a word on a late friend)

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The fashion had been highly acceptable for the first three days of York’s Ebor Festival, but I hadn’t been prepared for what was to confront me on Saturday, writes Tony Stafford. I arrived early as usual, and it was only when I ventured from the box after an early cup of coffee, that ranged before me was a sea of colour.

Looking closer, the wearers of those extravagant dresses were rarely past mid-teens, some even as young as eight or nine. It was Travellers’ rather than Ebor day, and by no means for the first time, but I had generally gone home before the final day of the meeting, so it was totally unexpected for me.

But regulars were fully aware of the make-up of the day and watching more closely, you could also discern the young men, again many in early teens. Both sexes were immaculately turned out, suits and ties for the boys, fulfilling the old-time posh enclosure style requirements (largely relaxed nowadays) and the girls, beautifully coiffed and their dresses looking fit for a catwalk at Paris Fashion week.

As I made my way out of the stand aiming at the paddock, those 70 yards were a minefield – no hint of trouble, just difficult to navigate through the throng which swayed back and forth all day.

I learnt that the travellers come from all over the UK for this day, swelling the crowd on Ebor Day on which inevitably Frankie Dettori, now operating without his long-time business manager Peter Burrell, took the riding honours.

He conveniently collected the big race (£300k) on Absurde and the other half-million Group 2 City Of York Stakes on Kinross to end a most astonishing fortnight of achievement.

Referring to the Burrell issue – Pete was the man who set up the book deal when I ghosted Frankie’s Year in the Life book. Frankie said the other day: “That must have been 25 years ago! <27 in fact> and added, “Pete didn’t like that I was retiring – it was as if he was the one retiring.”

You would have thought that the rider/manager bond would have been able to withstand this after 35 years together but apparently not. The way Frankie is riding though, you wonder whether he might go through his enjoyable winter spell in California with Bob Baffert and think, maybe, “just one more year?”  - the punters will love it if he does.

A little admin followed by a catch up: I failed to deliver an article last week – I was almost halfway through an Ebor preview when we were forced to take our 15-year-old lovely little Yorkie Josephina to the emergency vet. She had suffered a sudden seizure and they said there was no alternative but to euthanise her. Here we are, on a happier day not long ago...

Tony Stafford and his beloved pooch, Josephina

Tony Stafford and his beloved pooch, Josephina

 

The week before, I suggested Frankie had probably picked up around £40k for his percentage of the half-million first prize for the Jacques Le Marois at Deauville. He took a few days off after that and from that point, he had ten more rides, mainly at York.

Five wins from the 11, with two second places both in valuable contests and one third place, his total tally of prize money amounts to £1,882,000. His percentage – bearing in mind the place earns a jockey considerably less – will still be the best part of £150k. Nice work.

Before he changed out of his civvies, a smart light-blue suit as befitted the general air of sartorial elegance on the day, Frankie spotted Brian Meehan in the paddock. “What a winner, 16/1, why didn’t you tell me?” “Why would a jockey want to know?”, asked Meehan before Isaac Shelby’s run - he finished a slightly disappointing fourth to Kinross.

Frankie had time for his lightning change into the Kinross livery while I spoke to Sam Sangster about his ever accelerating career as a buyer of yearlings. The 16/1 shot Frankie referred to was Friday’s Newmarket debut scorer Jayarebe, who had tracked and then outpaced 4/11 shot Broadway Act, a Charlie Appleby/ Godolphin colt who had already had a good debut.

Sangster had bought him for €180k at Arqana’s October Yearling sale and the colt was passed on to the returning Iraj Parvizi, owner of Meehan’s 2010 Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Dangerous Midge at Churchill Downs 13 years ago. Parvizi had been out of racing for some time and Meehan’s predictable comment was, “It’s great to have him back.”

Jayarebe could be in line for some big-race action and the decision seems to be the Royal Lodge Stakes over a mile rather than the Dewhurst at seven. That would seem sensible for the son of Zoffany who is a half-brother to a true two-mile mare and decent staying hurdler, Ian Williams’ Malakahna.

Sam Sangster said that the 180k he paid for Jayarebe was comfortably the most he’d ever paid for a yearling; Isaac Shelby cost €92k to his bid two years earlier. The Greenham winner, and runner-up in the French 2,000 Guineas and the Lennox at Goodwood has picked up £340,000 on the track but realised a good few times more than that (Sam remains coy about just how many times) to Wathnan Racing before the French Classic.

He says he has bought 12 Group performers, ten of which have been trained by Meehan – the other two by Nicolas Clement in France. Four of them have been Group 1 performers, although he has yet to supply a Group 1 winner. The average price paid for those smart performers has been a very modest £51,000, given the amazing prices paid at the sales these days. He truly is Robert Sangster’s son.

When I spoke to Brian Meehan on Friday morning, he was very measured in his analysis of Jayarebe. “He’s very, very nice.” On Saturday I tasked him with, “You put me away. You said he was very, very nice. He’s very, very, very nice!”

In performance terms, on debut he beat a field chock-full of potential and almost all with big-race entries this autumn. He put up the fastest time of the day, rare enough for a two-year-old. You could imagine Derby thoughts going through the minds of trainer, owner and talent spotter. It’s early days but if he did win the Royal Lodge, it could be within the realms of possibility.

Deauville’s month of excitement came to a climax with a big win for Paul and Oliver Cole, their Jack Darcy winning the Group 2 Grand Prix de Deauville at 11/1. A winner of his first two races, Jack Darcy’s best run since had been a second place to the smart William Haggas seven-year-old Hamish, who would have been top-weight for Saturday’s Ebor if he had taken up the entry. But 10st9lb (including a penalty) would have been too much, requiring a 9lb higher weight-carrying achievement than Sea Pigeon’s 44 years earlier, in 1979, to win.

It was great last week to see Sea Pigeon’s winning Ebor rider, Jonjo O’Neill, still looking in his prime. He reported his team at Jackdaws Castle is ready to go as the jumps season gathers pace. One jumps trainer, though, whose horses are always primed obviously is Willie Mullins.

When I bumped into him, asking if it was right that he was expected in the same place that had been my base all week, he said: “Sorry no, I’m off to do the day job. Maybe later.” You could say it was day job done after Absurde had won with a peach of a ride from Dettori. Later I saw him leaving the track and said, “You might be okay at the day job, but you aren’t much good at coming up for a drink.” He laughed and said: “Next time.”

- TS

Monday Musings: Holidays

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A bright sunny Sunday smack bang in the kids’ school holidays, writes Tony Stafford, and what’s to do? “I know”, says Dad, “How would you like to go horse racing? You’ve seen it on ITV on Saturdays and always seemed to like it, especially when my bets win. But there’s nothing like being there.”

Looking at his computer – he doesn’t bother with newspapers nowadays, it’s all on the screen. “Oh dear”, he says. “Only Windsor and Leicester and nothing over jumps, which we always find more exciting. It’s a bit far to both, so we’ll have to give it a miss this time. You’d think there would be more choice right in the middle of summer.”

Dad’s right, you would have thought so. As a telly punter, no doubt he wouldn’t necessarily go into the intricacies of the day’s two programmes, but I have. Eight races at Leicester and seven at Windsor. The Thames-side track comes out just on top on prizemoney but only because it includes on the card a qualifier for a series contest, the £15,462 to the winner Juddmonte British Stallion Studs Restricted Race (Bands C and D).

A race designed for cheaper buys that might have some talent, it was by £10,000 and change the most valuable on the card. Apart from one 0-65 handicap, worth £5,234 to the winner, all the other five races carried a first prize of less than £4,500.

There was no stand-out race, value-wise over at Leicester. The top race was a handicap which carried £6,281 to its victor. All the other seven races were worth less than 5k.

Leicester did cater for slightly better class, if inadequately remunerated, horses, viz a 0-85 nursery, £4,711 and that six grand race which was 0-80. Otherwise, the upper limits in card order were 65, 75, 68 and 55.

Windsor, as stated above, had its most valuable (sic) prize in handicaps for a 0-65. Lesser prizes were affixed to a 0-60 amateur riders’ race and further contests with upper limits of 68 and 52.

Sundays in Ireland are usually planned to appeal to the likes of Aidan O’Brien and the other top trainers, but yesterday’s card, apart from one Listed race for fillies and mares, worth €32,450 to the winner, was humdrum.

That never means small fields and, with the big guns elsewhere or just taking a Sunday off, the other six races were worth two each at €14,750, €11,800 and €8,800 for a total of €104,250, still comfortably more than the £77,000 for the two UK meetings.

It’s unfair to compare with Deauville which featured the Group 1 Prix Jacques le Marois, worth £505,664 to its winner and a handsome £25,309 for fifth place. Fifth in the bulk of the UK races yesterday ranged between £367 and £214, not enough to pay the jockey and entry fees, never mind the ever-escalating transport costs and training fees.

Generally, two-year-old novice and maiden races here do not even carry a fifth prize nowadays, but the Juddmonte qualifier did break out from the norm with £906 for fifth place and even £453 for sixth.

The four Deauville Group 3 races, each worth a not exceptional £35,398 in comparison with their UK counterparts, had a uniform £3,539 for fifth place, near as makes no difference to matching the win prize for 12 of yesterday’s 15 UK contests.

Now take Dad’s other gripe. No jump racing. Indeed, the stables with summer jumpers have been put on an artificial hold for two weeks, ironically at a time when the recent weather would have allowed plenty more to run than would have been the case in last year’s exceptionally hot and dry weather.

They start again on Saturday at Perth and Market Rasen when there’s also four flat fixtures including Newbury with its Group 2 Hungerford Stakes. There’s no jumping next Sunday either, I’m afraid Dad, just Sandown (Sunday Series finale), Pontefract and Southwell hoping to attract the family audience.

If our mythical Dad had not been dissuaded already he might have asked whether Frankie Dettori, Ryan Moore, William Buick and Oisin Murphy would be there to sign autographs. No dice. Indeed, the only thing Dettori had to worry about yesterday was not breaking his ageing ankles with his flying dismount after Inspiral won that Gallic Group 1 for the Gosdens and owners Cheveley Park Stud.

https://youtu.be/ke9UdusqV9A

That probably works out at around 40 grand for the ever-accumulating veteran whose farewell tour is proving lucrative in the extreme.

Jamie Spencer would have been delighted too with his share of the 100k Light Infantry earned for the David Simcock stable for third and Neil Callan picked up some handy pocket change for his fifth place, referred to above, for Kevin Ryan on Triple Time.

The aforementioned Moore and Buick had to be content with smaller rewards having trailed home in the last three in the big one. Buick won a Listed (24k to the winner) and Moore was second in another. Even the top jockeys don’t have it all their own way every day.

Cut back to the sort of owners, trainers and rides who ply their trade at the lowest end of the UK horse racing pyramid. One trainer sent me details of a recent runner he had in a 0-60 race at Carlisle. The entry fee for this £3,000- odd to the winner contest was £37.45. Jockey insurance was £24.42. Jockey riding fee was £131.60 with £26.32 VAT and a processing fee by Weatherbys of £36.42 plus £7.28 VAT. Expensive things to push, those computer buttons. The total outlay, never mind transport to the track and training fees, was £263.49.

That same owner/trainer was bemoaning the fact that, as he sees it, the smaller owners with lower-grade horses are subsidising events like the Sunday Series which does not carry entry fees.  Six lots of races carry extraordinary amounts for the grade of race and the last of six Sunday dates next weekend at Sandown will carry total prize money of £225,000.

Yet the take-up has been less overwhelming than might have been expected by trainers. The last of the series at Haydock eight days ago featured six races and none went ahead with the intended full field of 12, although one non-runner in the last reduced that to 11. The other field sizes were 9, 7, 11, 7 and 6. I can understand that person’s suggestion it was a waste of money.

Last Thursday’s latest instalment of the Racing League hardly suggested that this competing Sky Sports Racing Thursday series was doing much better than its Racing TV equivalent. The seven races, culminating in a richest flat race ever at Chepstow (echoing a similar situation at Yarmouth two Thursdays previously) still struggled to fill fields. The numbers here were 12 (full), 6, 11, 8, 10 and 8, with 11 for the big one.

Ian Williams, always one to aim for the big money, has regular runners in both series. He says that there is a real fear that if the take up does not improve, neither series is safe for the coming season. His horses in the Racing League run under the banner of Wales and the West, one of seven regional teams. They lead the way after two rounds with 319 points ahead of Ireland (242) London and the South (231), The North (217), The East, so Newmarket (187), Yorkshire (147) and Scotland (58).

As much as the presenters on the channel try to keep the team competitiveness interesting, it’s all so much a contrived enthusiasm. Punters want to back winners and are not bothered that the Wales and the West second string got up for third to stretch their points advantage.

These two competitions of course owe more than a sideways acknowledgement to the daddy of them all, the Shergar Cup, which started in 1999 and despite nowadays being less of a magnet for top jockeys, has a formula which has stood the test of time. Its latest edition happened conveniently on Saturday while both the other events that mimic it to a degree or another, were still ongoing.

There were some nice camera shots from the inside in close finishes on ITV on Saturday and it was clear that the Ascot grandstands were packed as usual. Ascot has that magic whatever time of year, although some people suggested to me that Craig David performing after racing might have had a bit to do with it.

The day before, I tried out one of racing’s most notorious traffic hotspots, the M6 on a Friday. I left home before noon and it took me almost exactly seven hours to complete the 260-odd mile ordeal thanks to one accident and some long established road works leading to my destination.

I had time for a quick bowl of soup before going into the paddock and was surprised to see just how calm Tom Dascombe’s Dufresne looked as he went around before the race as his horsebox preceded me by only two vehicles into the course. Imagine how long the poor horse had been on his feet rocking around.

The object of my journey was in the same race, the Michael Bell-trained Wootton’s Jewel fading to a very disappointing fourth after making the running in that novice race for juveniles.

Dufresne was a couple of places further back but considering he probably didn’t get the chance to have a quick rest in his box in the racecourse stables before being readied to run, that was a very fair effort, Next time, Dufresne could well do much better for owners Sleeve It Ltd and Tom Dascombe.

- TS

Monday Musings: Still Glorious despite the weather

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There have been a few Goodwood meetings where the term Glorious did not exactly comply with weather conditions, writes Tony Stafford. Indeed, the lavish sponsor Qatar, whose name affixes to several races, in the process making the meeting’s prizemoney extravagant by most UK standards, is a more accurate term nowadays.

What was glorious and equally extravagant though was the performance of Quickthorn in Tuesday’s Goodwood Cup. It was notable for the less than gushing praise allotted to Hughie Morrison’s six-year-old gelding compared to the deluge of compliments afforded to his jockey Tom Marquand’s front-running ride.

Tom sent him quickly into the lead, maintaining the speed for the first half of the race by which time he was a good dozen lengths to the good.

It’s worth reiterating here, lest we forget, that in opposition were the winner, Courage Mon Ami, runner-up, Emily Dickinson, third home, Coltrane, and fourth, Eldar Eldarov, from the Gold Cup at Ascot six weeks previously. In between Aidan O’Brien had found time to win a Group 2 at home with Emily Dickinson.

On television and on the racecourse the commentators glowed with praise for Marquand as he merely had to keep his mount going to maintain a sizeable lead – albeit diminishing to six lengths at the line.  It was a very good ride, replicating his 14-length win on the same horse at York last summer.

Excuse me if I misheard, but I understood the stewards had the also rans in to ask about their “misjudged” riding, as they had “allowed” Quickthorn and his rider to go around 20 lengths clear at some stage.

But this was a Group 1 worth £283k to the winner, and therefore worth at least 20 grand for the winning jockey. I doubt they were in any way culpable, just guilty of taking pains not to go too hard after what they considered a pace, if not too quick for the leader to maintain, certainly one to burn up their mounts in the early part of the race if they pursued it too energetically.

In finishing order, the beaten jockeys were Moore, Murphy, David Egan, Atzeni, Dettori, Buick, James Doyle, Rossa Ryan, Crowley and Kingscote, hardly the least talented band of ten to challenge for a major race.

In the event they provided a rousing conclusion (for the not inconsiderable place money) with a short-head, short-head, neck, and one and a half lengths separating Emily Dickinson (£107k), Coltrane (£53k), Eldar Eldarov (£26k), Giavellotto (£13k) and the favourite Courage Mon Ami (a puny £6,750 for Frankie to take a piece of.)

I always (additionally having been lectured by the Editor over the years) take no more than a passing interest in Racing Post speed-figures but it is remarkable that, having gone so quickly in the early stages, the winner of a two-mile race should record the fastest speed figure of the entire meeting.

Their RPR’s also sometimes have a sickly sweet aroma of fudge about them, too, but since his head second to the very well handicapped and subsequent Irish St Leger winner Sonnyboyliston in the 2021 Ebor at York, Quickthorn has run 14 times and only once recorded an RPR below 100. That happened when he collapsed late on (and was by no means the only one!) behind last year’s champion stayer Kyprios in the Prix du Cadran (2m4f) last October.

His overall record boasts nine wins in 22 starts, with three second places and one third. As well as that Ebor near miss, he was also close behind Princess Zoe in last year’s Sagaro Stakes. By the way, the moving of that great mare from Tony Mullins earlier this year smacks of ingratitude if ever I heard it.

Criticism of last week’s Goodwood Cup jockeys was the obvious way to go, but Oisin Murphy, who won twice on Quickthorn earlier in his career, told Morrison he dare not chase him as when his mount Coltrane, ridden by Rob Hornby, attempted that in last year’s Group 2 Lonsdale Cup at York, he was beaten more than twice as far as at Goodwood. The question now is whether Hughie will attempt the Lonsdale double but when I spoke to him after the race, he seemed to be thinking more in terms of drawing stumps for the year. “He doesn’t seem to like the winter, so we can always bring him back next year if we are kind to him now.”

His earnings are a touch short of £800k, putting right the near miss of a slightly bigger prize in that 2021 Ebor. Morrison had been without a Group 1 win since Sakhee’s Secret gave him his second July Cup, two years after Pastoral Pursuits also won that Newmarket sprint. In between, the 10-year-old Alcazar won the Prix Royal Oak. Also a gelding, if the typical Morrison training pattern holds firm, what more could come from Quickthorn?

**

I recently outlined how Paddington is quickly creeping up on the Iron Horse sequence of Group 1 wins of his O’Brien forerunner Giant’s Causeway. His emphatic Sussex Stakes victory on Wednesday made it four Group 1 wins since the end of May and leaves him only needing to collect the Juddmonte at York already to match the achievements of the old champion.

Many more options are available to this later starter and now Ryan Moore has confessed publicly that Paddington could be the best horse he’s ever ridden. He even suggested that the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe may not be beyond his scope. If that was either the seventh in a row (with the Irish Champion in between) he surely will have eclipsed Giant’s Causeway. Slip in a race at the Breeders’ Cup and the Coolmore cup (and even their superlatives!) will runneth over.

My second favourite horse at the moment is one that hasn’t won a race this year, but the doughty sprinter Apollo One, dubbed trained by Peter Charalambous and James Clutterbuck, but firmly in the Chambo camp, is a true star.

Saturday’s latest instalment of his sequence of near misses in sprints came in the Stewards‘ Cup in which, remarkably considering the meeting was to be called off immediately afterwards, all 28 horses stood their ground.

Annoying for two, previous winner Summerghand, who was withdrawn lame at the start, and the sole three-year-old Rumstar, who dropped to his knees as the stalls opened jettisoning his rider Rhys Clutterbuck, only 26 completed the six furlongs that was finally about to succumb after a day-long  deluge on top of all the earlier drenchings during the week.

When I spoke to Pete last Monday, I got the feeling Apollo One, up near the top of the weights with his rating of 100, might not run. The ground had been good to firm when he ran a one-length second of 27 in the Wokingham Stakes at Royal Ascot and similarly when also second to prolific winner Badri in a close finish on Derby Day at Epsom.

He’d never indicated an equal facility for handling heavy ground, for that assuredly was what it was on Saturday. But Richard Kingscote got him away alertly from his stall one off the stand rail and he was always heading the pace on that side as the contest devolved into the customary three groups.

Apollo One maintained his pace and above all his action in the ground all the way to the line but could not quite match conceding weight to the penalised Aberama Gold, a six-year-old ridden by Goodwood ace and soon off to Hong Kong Andrea Atzeni and trained by David O’Meara for lucky owner Evan Sutherland. Aberama Gold earned his penalty only seven days before in another valuable race at York, but nowhere near the £128k on offer on Saturday.

Charalambous had the consolation of collecting the £60k second prize for pcracing.co.uk which he heads and now can be looking at the Portland at Doncaster and, realistically now the heavy ground question has been positively answered, the Ayr Gold Cup.

Behind him in third and fourth were two eight-year-olds, Bielsa and previous Stewards’ Cup consolation winner Mr Wagyu. Quite a week then for the old boys, but Paddington stood firm for the Classic crop and bestrode the meeting with his sheer class and toughness.

- TS

Monday Musings: A Smack in the Mouth

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Now I know what it feels like, writes Tony Stafford. Coming to the end of my eighth decade, I can now honestly tell you what it is to experience pain. Thinking back to my football days, a broken wrist and a regularly sprained ankle were about the size of it.

I’m sure every woman past puberty has been doubled up on a regular basis and most sportsmen – none more so than jockeys – accept it as part and parcel of their lives. Sorry Keith - and boxers!

But I’ve poodled along and, despite the odd bit of skin cancer on my face and Type 2 diabetes for the past 15 years which has realistically only involved taking the tablets (and not passing up biscuits and cakes), have had a trouble-free run. My friend George Hill, who has had his share of scary medical issues over the years, always says I’m made of tungsten. The tungsten has run out.

It started a few months ago with a twinge in the corner of the mouth, usually when eating. That developed to such an extent that I went to a dentist to see if there was a problem. Nothing on the X-ray.

The pain got worse – not permanent, just intermittent concentrated bursts for seconds or minutes, often while eating in company with friends at the races or in restaurants with my wife. How embarrassing! Ask the editor!

I finally booked an appointment with the doctor for last Thursday but went to watch Ray Tooth’s Glen Again at Sandown the previous evening. It was after his race, trying to have something in the owners’ room that the pain got unbearable.

The nice guy who monitors the room and likes Chelsea FC and Surrey CCC said: “If you need painkillers go to the First Aid room in the main stand.” I did, to be greeted with a: “Painkillers won’t make a difference. I think I know what you have.”

To my shame, I didn’t take down her name, but this highly capable woman told me that she had been originally a dental nurse and for 30 years a paramedic. She was clearly the boss, working very congenially it seemed with her two male colleagues: “It’s trigeminal neuralgia.” Relief, I know what it is. I’ll tell the doctor tomorrow.

Then I Googled it after I left her room and, for relief, read horror as I realised I will have this condition for the rest of my life.

I slunk to the surgery on Thursday, telling the GP the symptoms and it took about ten seconds for him to repeat the dreaded name. “I’m pretty sure it’s trigeminal neuralgia, but it’s not entirely certain. We’ll prescribe the usual drug for the condition. Start with one a day for a few days, then go to two.

Thursday, Friday, I had one each day. Saturday, I went to Ascot, had the good fortune to be in a box where the food was laid out in glorious, nay luxurious profusion. To that point, all I’d managed to get down me from Wednesday had been a couple of coffees and a diet coke, but anything that involved access to the right-hand side of my mouth was the inevitable trigger for another shooting pain.

On Wednesday evening, post paramedic, I was trying to put away a little soft dessert, to no avail, and recently retired trainer Harry Dunlop hove into view. I was keen to ask him what he was doing now and just as I began, the pain came at maximum force. All I could do was stand there like a moron; mouth open trying to stave off the agony. Kindly, with an apologetic smile, he moved away.

So what is trigeminal neuralgia? It stems from the trigeminal nerve, the biggest nerve in the brain. That sends signals of pain to the face, ear, upper and lower jaw and teeth. When it gets damaged for whatever reason, the neuralgia follows.

The literature says that the sharp pain, like an electric shock, can be induced by talking, smiling, chewing, brushing your teeth, washing your face, a light touch, shaving (or putting on make-up – pass), swallowing, kissing, a cool breeze or air conditioning, head movements, vibrations, such as walking or travelling in a car. If that catalogue wasn’t comprehensive enough, it can happen spontaneously with no trigger at all.

Looks like I’ll have to change many of the things I thought I could do!

The literature suggests it can never be cured, the medication – a smaller dose, but the same that is given to epilepsy patients, great news eh -  can help ease or even stave it off for periods, but it’s always lurking in the background. A bit like the tablets I must take for the diabetes.

If you’d have asked me yesterday morning how I felt, it was still at stage one. I was beginning to see why patients with this condition can go into depression or even worse. I won’t. At Ascot, I drank a coffee without incident, but thinking soup would be the only sensible option, I asked if they had any and a nice bowl of tomato was put in front of me.

I needed two goes. The first when I managed three spoonfuls; the second, a third of a bowl, before the wave of pain sailed in. That was game, set and match and after the King George I went straight home.

Yesterday, though, the fourth day of medication and the second with the full daily dose of two tablets, I thought I would try to drink my soup rather than eat in the conventional way, for lunch. That worked. For dinner, a Tesco Fish Pie, spooned minutely so that it took 25 minutes to consume, also went without a problem, although two or three times, the hint was there. So, you pause, take even more care for the positioning of the next morsel. For now, I’m still clear.

The menu is to go back for a blood test tomorrow (Tuesday) and see the doctor again on Thursday week. As I write this, for the first time in weeks I’m feeling optimistic. Maybe the tungsten is still in there somewhere, but boy does it hurt when that shockwave of pain comes!

                                                              **

Two years ago, I sat down – eating again, in the days when I could – having a bite before racing at Brighton racecourse and for the first time, met and had a chat with Owen Burrows. He was clearly anxious about his future as Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum had recently died and the entire Shadwell Estate Company organisation was very much up in the air.

He told me: “There’s a big meeting in Dubai next week and all the trainers are worried that the Sheikh’s daughter Sheikha Hissa and the rest of the family won’t be inclined or even able to keep it going.”

At that time most of Owen’s horses ran in the blue and white Hamdan livery and with the prospect of massive numbers of mares, horses in training and young stock on their way to market, it was understandable the uncertainty, indeed trepidation, that all the Shadwell trainers were feeling.

Project forward two years to Saturday July 29th 2023 and within 25 minutes, Owen’s older generation horses in the Shadwell ownership collected two big prizes. The four-year-old Alflaila, in his first run since last autumn, made it four wins in a row and six from 13 career, in the £70k to the winner Sky Bet Stakes at York.

Then at Ascot in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes, his Hukum picked up almost exactly ten times that in beating last year’s Irish Derby winner Westover after a sustained battle. Jim Crowley, used to winning big races as recently as last year on Baaed, expressed great joy at picking up this massive pot with a six-year-old entire, whose tally over five seasons’ racing is 11 from 17. At six, he matches dual winner Swain and triple heroine Enable, the only previous horses of that age to win the race in its 73-year history.

This was a second flop of the year for Derby and Irish Derby winner Auguste Rodin, whose sudden capitulation before the home turn after which Ryan Moore looked after him, coasting home a long way behind, was a shock, no doubt especially to connections. Minute medical checks will be taken, but Auguste Rodin was not the only disappointment in the race.

Emily Upjohn, who gave Paddington such a brave fight in the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown three weeks earlier, probably left her race on the Esher slopes, and never looked like getting Frankie Dettori a last King George winner, finishing 27 lengths behind the first two in seventh.

The Classic generation form was given a small nudge by King Of Steel, second in the Derby clear of the rest and an easy Royal Ascot winner. For a while it looked as though Kevin Stott was bringing the Amo Racing/ Roger Varian representative with a telling run, but he weakened and had to be content with an honourable third.

Tough stuff this Group 1 racing, especially in soft ground. Hukum is tough and Owen Burrows knows how to keep his golden oldies going.

- TS

Monday Musings: A Diamond Studded King George in Prospect

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It looks as though we might be getting a twelve furlong Race of the Year in England just as Sandown’s Coral-Eclipse Stakes three weekends back provided a midsummer pecking order between the generations, writes Tony Stafford. Ballydoyle’s Paddington won that and now the Aidan O’Brien stable’s other 2023 Classic-winning colt is due to line up in Ascot’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes.

That horse is Auguste Rodin, coming on from the two Derby wins, emphatically at Epsom over King Of Steel, and a shade controversially against fellow Coolmore inmate Adelaide River in his home Derby. More than a few close observers of the Curragh race noticed a marked differential between the relative energies of Ryan Moore on the winner and Seamie Heffernan on the runner-up.

Adelaide River had been only eighth at Epsom, so as the favourite joined him on the outside at the head of affairs, a “see you later” type of accelerating flourish was on everyone’s minds, but it didn’t quite work out like that.

Then again, Adelaide River is a fair tool as he showed under Ryan in the subsequent Grand Prix de Paris on Bastille Day ten days ago. He ran a close second to the Pascal Bary-trained Kingman colt Feed The Flame, now a winner of three of his four career starts, all this year, with just the French Derby as a negative.

More easily quantified for Anglo/Irish observers was the presence in third in Paris of the Gosdens’ Oaks winner, Soul Sister, who saw off Savethelastdance at Epsom in a battle of the super fillies. Savethelastdance put her seal on the overall form picture with a Group 1 win of her own in the Juddmonte Irish Oaks on Saturday.

Lucky it wasn’t on Sunday as the two scheduled midsummer Sunday flat programmes, one each in Ireland and Redcar in the UK, were off through waterlogging as is Cartmel’s jumps card today. It was a bit wet at the golf and the cricket, too, but it was nice for the Athletics in East London.

So here we are, summer half over, the nights are starting to draw in and eight of the ten UK and Irish Classics are already done. Every year I say something similar. We’ve Ascot this week, Goodwood, York, the St Leger and not much else. And before the next month is out, trainers will be asking owners to re-invest at the upcoming yearling sales and chase all that generous BHA prizemoney.

But to return to the King George. Adelaide River and King of Steel, the two runners-up in the Epsom and Irish Derby wins of Auguste Rodin, form – along with their vanquisher – a three-horse bloc against 16 older horses at the latest entry stage. We will know after midday today how many have stayed in. The most likely port of attrition is O’Brien, who had nine still engaged up until last night. That number is sure to be trimmed by a few.

The first question of course is whether Auguste Robin will be pitted against the Roger Varian-trained Amo Racing colt, King Of Steel. Varian had been very forthright about the chance he thought the son of Wootton Bassett had on his stable debut at Epsom having been trained previously by David Loughnane.

Starting at 66/1, a furlong out he looked to have won the Derby having gone clear in the straight under new Amo jockey Kevin Stott, but Auguste Robin pulled him back late to win by half a length. It was five lengths back to the rest – hence no extra three-year-old challengers for this weekend.

While O’Brien waited for the Irish Derby, Varian went quickly to Royal Ascot and the Group 2 King Edward VII Stakes. Once called the Ascot Derby, it gave a chance for a trio of Epsom also-rans to try to depose the emerging star, but they were wiped away. It was the ease of that win that encouraged some of the Machiavellian thoughts to emerge among the racecourse crowd – if there is such a thing.

One view was, if Auguste Rodin takes on King Of Steel again and beats him once more, that’s fine. If the result gets turned around, though, the downside for Auguste would be severe. If he stays away and King of Steel wins – “We’ve already beaten him in the Derby”, they can and will say – and in that regard in the Derby hero’s absence, effectively King Of Steel would be running for him, reputation-wise.

Some of that tortured reasoning has its basis on that less emphatic than expected run on the Curragh, but whatever the rights and wrongs of that, Auguste Rodin is lining up to be the first winner of the two Derbys and then the King George since Galileo.

The Ascot race has gone to the Classic generation seven times in the 22 years since Galileo’s success. Two went to fillies, Taghrooda in 2014 and Enable three years later. Of course, Enable was destined to win the race twice more after a break as a four-year-old when she missed the entire summer.

Adayar, the Derby winner of 2019 for Charlie Appleby and Godolphin did win the King George but didn’t appear in Ireland in between. He is one of two further Derby winners still engaged, joined by Desert Crown, last year’s Epsom hero for Sir Michael Stoute, but absent for the rest of his Classic year.

Adayar did make a winning return to action this spring, but two defeats, including at long odds-on as recently as the July meeting at Newmarket, must make him a doubt on both the scores of form and the short time since that appearance.

Desert Crown’s comeback defeat, half a length behind Hukum in the Brigadier Gerard at Sandown in late May, was diminishing in form terms, but the apparent growing confidence behind the Owen Burrows six-year-old, who would enjoy a testing surface, should also throw a favourable light on last year’s Epsom victor.

Talking of 2022 winners, how about the ever-improving Pyledriver? Also a six-year-old, he ran his best race of an illustrious career when seeing off 2021 Arc winner Torquator Tasso in this race last year and returned at the Royal meeting a month ago after that near one-year gap, romping away with the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes.

He might have knocked a few of his rivals over in the closing stages there, but after his delayed return you could imagine William Muir and co-trainer Chris Grassick would have left something to work on for this weekend.

Then, for good measure, we also have the prospect of 2022 Oaks runner-up Emily Upjohn. She followed Epsom with a weak effort in Pyledriver’s King George, but has done little wrong since, winning the Filly and Mare Championship race at Ascot last October and cleaning up in the Coronation Cup a year on from what most people thought a luckless defeat in the Oaks.

Last time, she got within half a length of midsummer sensation Paddington in the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown. She was down in trip, with the winner stepping up from a mile, and it’s hard to fault her, especially with the older filly having to concede that outstanding colt 7lb in the Esher showdown.

As the only female in the race, Emily Upjohn now gets 8lb over the two furlongs longer trip and if she doesn’t have a repeat of last year’s poor showing, she must be dangerous.

If either of the first two at Epsom this June should stave off all that older talent, he would be celebrated as the interim middle-distance champ, with only the Arc to dent that reputation. It will be well worth travelling a long way to see it!

- TS

Monday Musings: G1 Galore

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They were coming at the big prizes from all directions over this second weekend in July, Classic winners attempting further Group 1 triumphs, writes Tony Stafford. While some notable stars continued their upward momentum, the challenge of maintaining that level of excellence is never easy.

Normally staged on the first Saturday of the month, the Coral-Eclipse Stakes over 1m2f at Sandown might have attracted only a four-horse field, but the quartet posed an intriguing puzzle as the opening clash between the top Classic horses from the respective generations.

Considering the record of three-year-olds in this £425k to the winner prize, it was disappointing that only one attended the party. But then it was a distinguished representative, the winner of five previous races in a row, culminating in the Irish 2,000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes.

This of course was Paddington and, like several of his Aidan O’Brien predecessors, here he was trying ten furlongs for the first time having been campaigned at a mile.

Ranged against him as the obvious threat was last month’s Coronation Cup heroine Emily Upjohn, dropping back to ten from 12 furlongs and without the reassuring presence of Frankie Dettori. William Buick stepped in.

As the horses started to vacate the paddock, Matt Chapman for ITV approached William Haggas, asking about his runner, the 5yo Dubai Honour, winner of two valuable prizes in Australia and placed in another massive pot at Sha Tin last time out.

“He has won twice as much money as the rest of these,” he said, but that confidence statement did not fool the market, his horse’s price of 8/1 also at variance with his official rating which slotted in between the big two.

Once that pair launched their joint bids past the one other runner, the Crisfords’ West Wind Blows, who had quickly taken the lead after initially being bettered from the stalls by an alert Paddington, it was a match. As the duo stormed together up the hill they proved to be in a class of their own, with Ryan Moore always looking to be holding his rival.

The other pair are talented, but in finishing six (WWB) and eight (DH) lengths adrift, it will be globetrotting, as Chapman suggested “against inferior foreign opposition” rather than Group 1 shopping at home and in the top European venues, that they will have to do to continue bolstering the coffers.

Emily Upjohn is firmly in line to go back up in trip with part-owner John Shack keen on the Arc. The original outright owner, he cashed in a chunk of his great filly last year and still owns a mightily valuable proposition when she ends her career and goes to partners the Lloyd Webbers’ stud.

There will clearly be a massive stud job for Paddington, too, when the son of Siyouni finishes racing. Much has been made of his going from a handicap to Sandown but, as I’ve said here before, the Coolmore team need to offer fulsome thanks to the Irish official who decided to allot him a mark of 96. He had demolished a field of 20 2yo maidens at the Curragh on second start following an exploratory opening foray at Ascot late last September.

The next offer of gratitude is that the Sunday of the Irish 2023 turf flat programme’s opening weekend, at Naas, features the Madrid Handicap which accommodates 3yo’s with high ratings. Paddington won it and then, five days before the 2000 Guineas was being contested at Newmarket, he earned a smooth albeit unspectacular win in Listed company.

The well-chronicled and minutely explained by their trainer unhinging of Auguste Rodin and Little Big Bear at Newmarket – soon eviscerated by the simple expedient of going up in trip (AR in the Derby) and down (LBB to sprinting), conveniently left a vacuum in the Irish 2000 Guineas. We now know who filled it.

Aidan has a supreme ability to get improvement race on race for his charges. In less than five weeks, Paddington has won three of the toughest Group 1s in the English/Irish calendars and his career holds a gathering similarity to that of one of his most famed predecessors at Ballydoyle.

Giant’s Causeway was known as the Iron Horse, but when I looked back at the career of the 1997-foaled son of Storm Cat, I hadn’t remembered he raced only at two and three. Unbeaten as a juvenile, with the Group 2 Prix de la Salamandre as his biggest win, he raced another ten times at three.

A win on his comeback run in a Group 3 in Ireland was followed by a near miss in the 2000 Guineas (2nd of 27 to King’s Best) and the Irish 2000, when runner-up to Bachir. He then went on a five-race Group 1 winning spree taking in the St James’s Palace Stakes (by a head), Eclipse (head again), Sussex Stakes (three-parts of a length), Juddmonte (head once more) and Irish Champion (half a length).

He finished off with two second places, in the QE II at Ascot, half a length behind Observatory, and the Breeders’ Cup Classic, a neck behind the brilliant Tiznow in an epic battle on the Belmont Park dirt track..

Having started more conservatively with Paddington, the O’Brien colt has already gone a long way onto the Giant’s Causeway ladder and in one way is already ahead of that horse’s Group 1 schedule.

Understandably, both the Sussex and Juddmonte were mentioned after Saturday and should he take in and win those, five Group 1 wins would already match the Iron Horse with the prospect of the Leopardstown and Ascot races to follow, not to mention a possible turf foray at this year’s Breeders’ Cup. Eight would be nice and for Iron Horse we would have to substitute Diamond, the hardest mineral known to man.

At Royal Ascot, Paddington meted out stable revenge on Chaldean, the horse that won the 2000 Guineas for Andrew Balding, and there was no hint of Giant’s Causeway’s love of a tight finish in which to show his battling tendencies as the Irish colt went almost four lengths clear.

Chaldean was expected to get back on the winning trail in yesterday’s Prix Jean Prat at Deauville, but after showing up in the middle of the track in the Group 1 over a straight seven furlongs, he faded away to fifth. Other veterans of this season’s mile Classics to finish unplaced here were Indestructible, 4th, Charyn, Hi Royal and the O’Brien filly Mediate.

The winner was the Fabrice Chappet-trained Kodiac colt Good Guess, 40/1 according to the Sky Sports racing caption afterwards but barely half those odds at a miserly 24/1 for off-course punters in the UK. Sixth in the French 2000, he has always been highly regarded and reflects how quickly fortunes and abilities can change as each Classic generation unfolds through the season.

One other Classic winner, Westover, Ralph Beckett’s Irish Derby hero from last year, was also in action in France this weekend, strolling home as the 2/1 on favourite in a four-runner renewal of the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud on Saturday.

Westover had been a creditable second to Emily Upjohn in last month’s Coronation Cup, the pair finishing a long way clear of Point Lonsdale and 2021 Irish Derby hero Hurricane Lane. He, too, will be lining up for an Arc challenge.

Two further 2023 Classic participants made the trek across to New York for the very valuable Belmont Derby Invitational. Oisin Murphy must have been hopeful of winning the main prize on Dante winner and Derby fifth The Foxes,but, having been given plenty to do, he could not peg back the Todd Pletcher-trained Far Bridge who got first run and beat him by a length.

Further back was the Charlie Appleby-trained Silver Knott. Silver Knott had been only 11th in the 2000 Guineas but had been a good second when travelling to Keeneland for last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, where he was beaten a nose by Aidan O’Brien’s Victoria Road.

Incidentally, Victoria Road, who has yet to reappear after a training setback in the spring, has a handful of imminent entries taking in later this month up to September.

No joy for Oisin in the Belmont Derby Invitational, then, but his trip was made more than worthwhile when the Fozzy Stack filly Aspen Grove (15/1) won the Oaks Invitational earlier on the card. Last of ten to Tahiyra in the Irish 1000 last time, the Justify filly, half-owned by Sue Magnier, collected the £229k first prize with a strong late run.

Oisin’s share of the £355k earned by his two mounts will have helped salve the disappointment of Chaldean’s defeat yesterday. You win when you lose when you’re in the Oisin, Ryan and Frankie (who missed both Emily Upjohn and Chaldean) bracket!

- TS

Monday Musings: Aidan’s Curragh Monopoly

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You would think a €1.25 million pot would be enough to entice raiders from across the water to the Irish Derby, writes Tony Stafford. English connections of six of the nine runners duly did arrive at The Curragh in anticipation of the second Derby win of Auguste Rodin, and some friends and family too, but as far as the horses were concerned, it was a private party for the home team.

A length-and-a-half victory for the 4/11 shot, Aidan O’Brien’s almost obscene 15th success in his principal home Classic, might smack of routine, but routine it definitely was not.

Aidan had five runners, all for the Coolmore boys, and Messrs Tabor and Smith were on hand, along with John Magnier and Georg Von Opel alias Westerberg. Donnacha and Joseph supplied one each, Donnacha’s for the boys, although Joseph’s fifth home – incidentally behind four of his father’s – Up And Under, has Go Racing Ltd as its owner and I’ve no idea who they are or where they come from.

In the Derby at Epsom, nine of the 14 runners were trained in England. Runner-up King Of Steel gave the winner quite a battle before giving best, and was a full five lengths clear of the rest of the field. Roger Varian’s colt lived up to it in a fluent victory at Royal Ascot in the King Edward VII Stakes. There he had two of the better-fancied runners from Epsom similarly well beaten again.

They were Artistic Star (Ralph Beckett) and Arrest (John and Thady Gosden) and the way they were put in their place by the Epsom runner-up gave a very solid look to the form.

You could see why none of the other, more remote, Derby Day also-rans from the UK took on the re-match. There was more realism in the second challenges of home-team contenders White Birch, third for the John Joseph Murphy stable, and Sprewell (fourth for Jessica Harrington), and unsurprisingly they were the second and third in the betting yesterday and the only two at single-figure odds.

Neither replicated the Epsom form, but in some ways neither did the winner. As had been the case there, where Adelaide River cut out much of the running, he again set the pace. He had been a well-beaten eighth at Epsom, but now it took a long while for the favourite to master him.

Much of the story of the race, though, involved the one Aidan runner not to be involved in the finish. This was San Antonio, a son of Dubawi, who at 16/1 was the second shortest of the Ballydoyle quintet even after he finished as far back as 11th at Epsom.

Here he was galloping happily alongside and just behind Adelaide River with the favourite in customary Irish Derby O’Brien comfort zone, close up, when suddenly four furlongs from home, San Antonio broke down and unseated Wayne Lordan. San Antonio sadly was fatally injured having fractured his right foreleg. Lordan was taken to Tallaght Hospital where last night he was said to be “concussed but fully conscious and able to move all limbs”..

The fall caused interference to the favourite and considerably more to some of those in behind including the two other home hopes, who both ran below par, their riders and trainers blaming the incident.

Ryan Moore certainly thought leaving Auguste Rodin without cover on the outside of the leader was a major contributor to what appeared a workmanlike at best performance. With a strong headwind in the first half of the race, and a tailwind in the straight, leading had been hard work initially and then pegging back the leaders just as difficult in the run home.

Eventually Auguste Rodin got on terms and, with his rider working hard, edged ahead, but Adelaide River, in Moore’s words, having enjoyed “the run of the race”, was even pegging back the favourite, and in no way looking a 33/1 shot.

Covent Garden, 80/1 in third, had been three lengths behind Sprewell in his latest race, the trial the Harrington horse won before Epsom. It was left to Peking Opera (66/1), a disappointment in the Queen’s Vase (1m6f) at the Royal meeting 12 days previously, to take fourth under Tom Marquand.

We’ve been accustomed in recent years of O’Brien multiple representation, especially at Epsom, to see more than one Ballydoyle work jockey step into the limelight: Padraig Beggy (Wings of Eagles, 2017) and Emmet McNamara (Serpentine, 2020) picked up career defining wins in the greatest race in the UK Calendar, but the home boys have stayed home of late.

Now, the five Ballydoyle horses were ridden by the regular trio of Moore, Heffernan and the unfortunate Lordan, while Tom Marquand will be happy to pick up his rider’s share of 50k for the fourth place of Peking Opera. Former Irish champion Declan McDonagh (2006) and more frequently riding nowadays for Joseph, finished third. Not a chalk jockey in sight!

They are clearly taking ever more careful account of jockeyship, something which especially concerns Michael Tabor; and his championing of Moore was the main reason for that appointment after Johnny Murtagh’s time there ended. Ryan has been riding with renewed vigour and enterprise, and at Ascot his energy and tactical awareness were the best we’ve seen from a flat race jockey for a long time. That has filtered through to his regular trips across to Ireland where before racing yesterday, he jointly led the riders’ table on 30 wins.

O’Brien sits second to the Gosdens in the UK trainers’ prizemoney list, having won £2,746,146 against Big John and Little Thady’s [he’s not that little! – Ed.] £3,210,084. At home, before racing yesterday, he was on more than €1.8 million. That has swelled to just a few Euro over the three milion mark, almost three times Joseph’s far from negligible tally in second.

Tabor was fulsome in his praise of his trainer yesterday. It is salutary to relate that it was only a few years ago that the media and those rumour mills, always so prevalent in racing, were predicting that David O’Meara was about to take over at Ballydoyle and that the Coolmore owners were ready to jettison their man.

John Magnier must go down in racing history as the genius who discovered the man to follow his unelated namesake but equally supreme, Vincent O’Brien.

When he retired, Vincent got an honorary doctorate and was forever thereafter described as Dr O’Brien. Maybe somebody can think up an appropriate appellation for Aidan when he allows someone else to win the Derby (nine and counting) and Irish Derby (15). It must be something unique as there’s been nobody like him.

Ryan Moore, so much more at ease with the media nowadays – the natural caution of this private young man having been hard for him to come to terms with - also was fulsome in his praise of the trainer. He said that over the past ten years he had provided so many good horses for him to ride. Auguste Rodin was Ryan’s first winner of the Curragh race, to go with his three at Epsom, two for O’Brien including last month.

The rest of the season is panning out quite nicely for them with such as Irish 2.000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes winner Paddington dominating the mile division for now and, despite his near miss at Ascot in the Commonwealth Cup, top sprint honours can still come the way of Little Big Bear.

As for the two-year-olds, there was a rare reverse in yesterday’s opener when close Ascot third Bucanero Fuerte rallied late to get the better of Aidan’s favourite, Unquestionable, in the Railway Stakes. The pair, both sons of Coolmore’s star young stallion Wootton Bassett, were miles clear of the third-placed His Majesty, who had been a close fourth in the Norfolk Stakes.

That followed two wins at the start of both Friday and Saturday’s Curragh cards, all comfortably achieved. The highlight undoubtedly was the facile all-the-way win of Frankel filly Ylang Ylang on debut on Saturday. This 1.5 million gns buy from Newsells Park Stud had the look of a guaranteed contender for races like the Moyglare Stud Stakes. I was at Chester on Friday night watching another Wootton Bassett colt, owned in partnership by Newsells Park with Jonathan Barnett and trained by Michael Bell.

He ran a promising first race finishing third to Witness Stand who looked very smart. Tom Clover trains that one. It took five hours without stopping to get back from Chester which was just five minutes less than the journey home from Lingfield (one third the distance) on Saturday when a three-hour wait on the M25 put in perspective how lucky I had been with my five hours each way on the M6 on Friday.

It wasn’t entirely a weekend without enterprise by English trainers. Michael Dods sent his top-class sprint handicapper Commanche Falls for the Listed six-furlong race yesterday and was rewarded with a nice payday as he outpaced the local speedsters.

But his chance was there for all to see. Much less obvious were the claims of the Hughie Morrison-trained and Arbib family-owned Stay Alert, a Group 3 winner last year, but only fifth behind Free Will and Rogue Millennium in the Middleton Stakes at York.

In running an excellent second in the Yulang Pretty Polly Stakes on Saturday to the George Boughey favourite Via Sistina, she collected valuable Group 1 placed black type as a 25/1 shot, and can go on from here.

The winner looks a top performer. Boughey has lost one major owner from his yard after a run of unfortunate veterinary issues during Royal Ascot but the way he spoke diplomatically about his former client, wishing him and his family all the best, suggested he has the right temperament for this tricky profession in which he has started out so well.

- TS

Monday Musings: Compensation for Dylan

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A friend called yesterday afternoon and asked, “What are you going to write about? Dettori? Coolmore? My choice”, he said, “would be the King and Queen Camilla, how they fully and seamlessly followed the example of the late Queen, treating Royal Ascot with fitting respect.” He could have added, even down to owning a winner and having the joy of the Duke of Kent presenting the trophy to them, writes Tony Stafford.

My preference though, only locked in my mind a few minutes after 6pm yesterday, was one that got away. All week, until Thursday at 10am, a small trainer based in Newmarket was convinced he had in his stable the winner of the Golden Gates Handicap, penultimate race on Saturday.

The unfortunate thing for Dylan Cunha, though, a South African with just under a year behind him as a trainer in the UK, was that the 10-furlong Round Course allows only 16 runners in races as against 20 at a mile-and-a-half.

With a few minutes to go, we spoke, and he said: “It’s not looking great, Johnston and Appleby haven’t declared yet” – but then they did and Dylan’s hopes for Silver Sword and a £50k first prize evaporated in a trice.

He did have yesterday’s one-mile Sunday Series race at Pontefract as back-up, but a ten grand winning dividend hardly makes up for five times that as well as the kind of publicity a win at the meeting would mean to a small stable.

“It’s been very hard to convince UK owners of what we are capable”, he said in an earlier chat before we got to know each other better. “Most of the horses have a South African ownership element at least and all we can do is show on the racecourse that we are up to the job.”

The same goes for Greg Cheyne, 46, ten times a top five rider in South African and twice runner-up there. An experienced rider with more than 2,000 wins to his name and who has moved to the UK to take up a job as pupil assistant to William Haggas.

He’s not the usual pupil assistant, the type sprinkled around Newmarket especially, from “good families” often with ownership and breeding in the family tree, much like Haggas was in his early days and even before.

I’m sure I’ve told this story before. William, now 63, was at school when at the time I used to speak every night to Michael Dickinson who was still riding. He’d come in from his nightly sauna when father Tony’s plans percolated through his head as the steam ebbed away the excess pounds from that spare, long frame.

The Dickinson trinity of dad Tony, mum Monica and son Michael were for a time almost the equivalent of a 70’s version of Willie Mullins and trained, among other very good horses, Silver Buck for William’s mother Christine Feather. The young master Haggas, apart from being a star cricketer that Fred Trueman once declared as a future Yorkshire captain, also kept a close watch on affairs at Gisburn in Lancashire, the original Dickinson base before the move across the county line to Harewood near Harrogate in West Yorkshire.

One evening Michael came on the phone. Always a little hyper, this time he neglected the usual greeting of “now then”, instead launching into a furious tirade saying: “That little so-and-so William Haggas keeps phoning me from Harrow telling me how to train his mother’s horses!”

A Cheltenham Gold Cup and two King Georges at Kempton were to fall to Silver Buck as well as fourth in the Famous Five Michael Dickinson Gold Cup of 1983. His was a long, honourable career which ended with a stable accident when still in his prime the following year.

By that time, Haggas had already moved to Newmarket, as pupil assistant for two years with fellow Old Harrovian Sir Mark Prescott and then four with John Winter before starting training in his own right in 1986. Thirty-seven years on, he is of course one of the acknowledged masters of his craft, working alongside wife Maureen, daughter of Lester Piggott.

Anyway, I digress, Dylan and Greg went north to Pontefract yesterday rather than south-west to Ascot the day before. The market was unequivocal, Silver Sword being backed down to 13/8 favouritism. If you need to know a little of Dylan’s talent, consider this about the Group 1-winning handler during his time in South Africa where he was one of the leading trainers. Silver Sword, an 11 grand December 2021 yearling had two runs in August last year early in Dylan’s UK training career and the result each time was catastrophic, at least for the trainer.

Apprentice Grace McEntee had the misfortune to be on the already gelded grey son of Charm Spirit for whom the comment on debut at Chelmsford was “dwelt, refused to race” and then, at Newbury 18 days later, “slow away, soon hung left, refused to race.”

Now what can you do after that? Well Dylan took him home, gradually instilling confidence so that by October he was ready to show more conventional reaction to training, finishing fifth of 11 as a 250/1 shot at Newmarket before three weeks later getting his first place with a second of 13 at Lingfield. Thus he could be sent away at the end of his juvenile career with reputation restored – to a degree!

Project forward to the February sale at Newmarket and I was having a cup of tea with my pal John Hancock, bloodstock insurer extraordinaire, and another friend, Michelle Fernandez, and knowing I edit a couple of sites every day, Trainers Quotes and From The Stables, she thought I might like to meet this trainer she had got to know. “He might be one for your site, he’s South African.”

I asked her to find out from him before he came over whether he knew Bernard Kantor, a friend who was the joint-founder and long-time boss of Investec Bank, sponsors of the Derby for quite a few years, sharing the podium with Her Majesty and the winners of the great prize. He is now retired.

Dylan Cunha came over and said: “You asked if I knew Bernard Kantor. I trained for him and we had plenty of winners together. In fact, one of his horses probably was most responsible for my coming over here as he had looked like a potential champion but had serious problems. I was so disillusioned I decided to call it a day and came to England a few years ago.”

He agreed he would join the Trainers Quotes team and told me that day about this grey gelding he had that was going to be a big part of his year. By April, Silver Sword had won very easily at Southwell and the plan was the London Gold Cup at Newbury in May. When you have one or two nice horses, you need the luck to hold and a couple of days before the race the horse had a small setback and Newbury was off.

Instead, turning out at Epsom, the gelding was second to a smart John and Thady Gosden performer on an interrupted preparation and that convinced him he would win at Royal Ascot.

Early in the week, when I wondered whether he would get in on his mark of 86 – up 4lb for Epsom – he said, “84 and 83 got in last year, so we should be all right.” History will show he wasn’t.

The best thing about the decision to run over an inadequate trip of a mile was the stiff nature of the Pontefract track, and having broken well from stall two, he soon had the two leaders covered and the punters who had shortened his price during the day never had a moment’s anxiety. Pulled to the outside by Cheyne, he took control just over a furlong out, drew clear and then had time to be eased. The winning margin was just over three lengths under 9st10lb joint top-weight. If they had another two furlongs to go, the margin could probably have been trebled.

Before yesterday’s race, still disappointed about missing Ascot, Dylan told me of a valuable ten-furlong race at his local course that is already on his radar. The Bet365 Handicap over ten furlongs for three-year-olds is a 0-105 that opens day two of the July meeting. That race carries a similar prize to the Golden Gates and he should have no fears of making the cut, especially as he’ll be into the 90’s by then.

I’m thrilled for this hard-working handler, and another winner with Ascot connections also pleased me greatly on Thursday. You won’t find the name Paradise Row on the list of Ascot winners, but part-owner Jonathan Barnett and trainer William Knight were in a box watching the progress of that three-year-old filly when she ran at Chelmsford, a few minutes after 150/1 shot Valiant Force had carried football agent Kia Joorabchian’s colours to victory in the Norfolk Stakes.

Barnett is also a major football agent, and founder and Chairman of ICM Stellar sports, race sponsors every year at Chester.  Rather less ebullient than the boss of Amo Racing, he watched as his filly battled home to a first career success at the Essex track. With a few friends around him and his trainer to cheer her home, it felt like a Royal Ascot winner. I agree with her handler that bigger things await this Zoffany filly as she gains experience, maybe even a run in one of the handicaps at next year’s Royal meeting. After all, dreams in racing can come true!

  • TS

Monday Musings: A New Head of the Table

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As Royal Ascot looms, writes Tony Stafford, what could be better for the boys from Coolmore Stud as they ponder their prospects across another important week than that a brilliant dual Classic winner comes along to advertise their operation?

When the horse in question, by their UK and Irish 2,000 Guineas winner Churchill, is owned and trained elsewhere, it must be almost more satisfying. Chances are that when the Christopher Head-trained Blue Rose Cen beat their filly Never Ending Story, trained by Aidan O’Brien, by four effortless lengths in the Prix De Diane at Chantilly yesterday, it will not have bothered them a jot. There, she was supplementing her triumph in the French 1000 Guineas from a month ago.

Fixing stallion fees is one of the primary skills of this operation. A dual Guineas winner by Galileo, so one of his speedier Classic horses, Churchill might have been earmarked from the outset to get to the top. In that context the initial fee of €35k was more an enticement than a reflection of their faith in their horse.

That was in 2018 and, the following year, he was introduced to Queen Blossom, a filly that had started out as a €15k graduate of the Goffs Sportsman yearling sale (3rd division stuff really) but who did well for P J Prendergast with a win on debut and a one-mile Group 3 success on her third start. Later she was exported to the US.

It took a while for her to match that first stakes success and reach her peak over there. But she found it in the unusually severe stamina test (for the US) of the Santa Barbara Stakes at Santa Anita, a 1m4f Grade 3 for older fillies and mares, which fell right into her wheelhouse. By then a five-year-old, she was the lesser fancied of two Richard Balthas entries but won nicely and was soon on the way back to Europe, after a $220k sale.

A few months later, she was through a sale ring once more, but this time the late John Hassett had identified the daughter of smart but ill-fated dual-purpose sire Jeremy, as a prospect and acquired her through Ted Durcan for 110,000gns. She was sent to be one of Churchill’s second crop harem. Three and a half years on, her daughter Blue Rose Cen stands with a record of seven wins in nine starts, her only defeats at two on debut and when a close second to Aidan’s subsequent Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Victoria Road, who has yet to appear following a training injury at the start of the season.

Those two impressive Classic victories will be the impetus for Churchill to move into the next level as a stallion. The fee was down to €30k for the present covering season, but we can expect something more akin to €50k or more when the numbers get crunched by the back-room experts in Co Tipperary come the late autumn.

Blue Rose Cen had hitherto been the second-top-rated horse in the stable of relative newcomer Christopher Head, but no longer. Head, 36, could hardly have a better heritage if he wanted to operate within any branch of thoroughbred racing as he is a fifth-generation member of the revered Head dynasty.

Originally from the UK, his great-grandfather William moved to France early in the 20th Century and soon became a leading National Hunt rider and later trainer, winning four jumps championships either side of World War I during which he fought with the British army.

Son Alec initially started riding over jumps and won successive runnings of the Grande Course de Haies, the second time on Le Paillon (1947) on which he finished runner-up to National Spirit in the 1948 Champion Hurdle.

Le Paillon went on to win the Arc but, after some falls and increasing weight, Alec’s wife Ghislaine encouraged him to retire and to set up as a trainer which he did as a 23-year-old. For half a century he won a series of major races including four Arcs which he also won three times later as a breeder and another as an owner.

When he retired to give full attention to his Haras Du Quesnay, which he ran with outstanding success with wife Ghislaine, his daughter Christiane (Criquette) took over as trainer while younger brother Freddy had a stellar riding career on the flat, before also proving a top-class trainer.

Christopher is Freddy’s son, and when I spoke to Ted Durcan last night, he said the sophomore handler has really been shaking up the established order and practice of training in France. In some ways his methods make him French flat racing’s equivalent to Ben Stokes and Brendan McCullum in England cricket.

Blue Rose Cen, following that record of four from six as a juvenile, the last of which a five length romp in the G1 Prix Marcel Boussac, has now won a Guineas trial, the French 1,000 and the French Oaks in 2023 by increasingly easy margins.

I mentioned that she only moved ahead of stable-companion Big Rock because of yesterday’s success.  Big Rock had run three races in maidens before the turn of the year with another trainer before his owners moved him to Head.

Starting in a minor handicap at Longchamp three weeks after that fifth place for his previous trainer he won off 37 (81 UK equivalent) by five and a half lengths. Raised in grade the following month, Big Rock won a Listed by 4 ½ lengths; then two Group 3 races, the La Force by 2 ½ and the Guiche by five lengths.

By the time he turned out for the Prix du Jockey Club as the 17/10 favourite this month, his mark had been elevated from to 115. Even though beaten into second in the Jockey Club, by the unbeaten Ace Impact trained by Jean-Claude Rouget, he went up another 1lb.

It will be interesting to see whether Big Rock will continue running with the regularity he has so far, with some smart entries already including the Arc; and no doubt his trainer would love to follow the family tradition in that race. At this stage Blue Rose Cen might seem the more likely to be there on the first Sunday of October.

Christopher will have been aware of the many brilliant Head family fillies all his life, such as Three Troikas and dual Arc winner Treve for Criquette. While not an Arc heroine, the remarkable Goldikova, winner of the Queen Anne Stakes on the opening day of Royal Ascot in 2010, was trained by Freddy. She went on to win three consecutive Breeders’ Cup Mile races and was a close third as a six-year-old when attempting the four-timer.

Tomorrow’s Queen Anne field is nowhere near the level of last year, when Baaeed enjoyed his exhibition. Neither is there anything within a stone and then some of Frankel, winner two years after Goldikova. Thoughts of his grandfather will also be at the forefront of the emerging young handler as it was a year ago this Thursday that the great Alec Head died aged 97.

But on the opening day I’m most looking forward to the clash between Chaldean, the 2000 Guineas winner, and Irish 2000 victor Paddington, who stepped into the void left by vanquished Ballydoyle 2000 flops but subsequent Derby (Auguste Rodin) and Haydock sprint (Little Big Bear) winners.

Royal Scotsman, Galeron and Charyn all try for a third time having run in both colts’ Guineas, but I’ll be cheering for Isaac Shelby to keep Brian Meehan’s spirits up after his near miss in the French 2000.

My bet of the week, however, is Zinc White in the Ascot Stakes. There’s only an 8lb range between the 100-rated top-weight Tritonic and Ian Williams’ Chester Plate winner on his first run for ages. The 8lb he was raised was just enough to get him in here on the bottom at number 20 and Ian is entitled to say it’s just as important to be lucky as to be talented.

***

For those of you that might have been confused having read the various versions of last week’s effort, I can only hold my hands up, especially to Conrad Allen, whom I misquoted several times, making a pig’s ear of getting his amazing story in some order. Writing in the middle of the night has its potential downside, not least eliminating the possibility to re-check, or be corrected by the subject once he has read what has been attributed to him.

Fortunately, Conrad was able to point out where I’d gone wrong in transcribing my notes and the final effort, I trust, was acceptable to him. Many thanks to the Editor too for his forbearance. Meanwhile Conrad’s filly Princess Chizara is jocked up to run in Wednesday’s Queen Mary Stakes in the colours of owner Izy Manueke and I hope she gives them a bold showing after her speed-laden debut win at Brighton.

- TS

Monday Musings: Conrad Allen – A Life in Racing

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What happens when a self-confessed journeyman trainer suddenly gets the opportunity to go to the sales, armed with the sort of hitherto undreamed-of financial backing to make him a candidate for the best prospects on offer?

That was the situation suddenly presented to Conrad Allen, 36 years a trainer and, apart from three years when resident senior handicapper for racing in Qatar, between 2009 and 2011, a man who has sent out winners every year since 1987, writes Tony Stafford.

Now though, the Breeze-up season was his target as new investor Ify Madueke excitedly looked through the catalogues first for the Craven, then Goffs at Doncaster and, lastly, the Guineas breeze back at HQ.

Ify is the father of Chelsea’s exciting January signing Noni, at £26.5 million one of the club’s less expensive buys in that explosive and excessive January window. Noni is a 21-year-old English player of Nigerian heritage, but one who had nurtured his skill and reputation over three years with PSV in Holland.

Not everyone has been overjoyed at Chelsea’s spending but for Conrad, 63, an avowed Spurs fan who grew up in nearby Edmonton, it has meant a new client coming literally from out of the blue.

“There was no joy for us at the Craven when prices were astronomical for anything I liked, but I picked out two at Goffs the following week.

“I loved the Twilight Son filly, who came up first. Ify said he would go to 200k for her. Unfortunately Richard Brown also liked her, and he got her for 360 grand – we were underbidders at 350! She is now called Beautiful Diamond and won very easily first time for Karl Burke.

“Undeterred, an hour later we were in for a Dark Angel filly, but again there was plenty of competition, Andrew Balding securing her for £340,000. She has had two runs and was a good second in the Hilary Needler at Beverley on Saturday,” he rued.

So now it was down to the least prestigious of the three, the Guineas breeze. Happily, trainer, new owner, and advisor Jim Lovat, a vastly experienced racing man who had been an owner with horses at a high level with former trainer Jeremy Noseda, got their filly. Lovat had owned High Havens Stables when Conrad trained from there for ex-footballer and broadcaster Alan Brazil.

“She was a small, active, typical breeze-up horse, by Cotai Glory and we got her for 65,000 guineas. We also bought a second filly, a daughter of US Navy Flag, who will take much more time.

“From the kick-off, Princess Chizara, named after the owner’s daughter, was quick, and leading up to her debut at Brighton last week, I called Ify and told him I wanted a jockey who was prepared to come to ride her here. That would rule out all the top boys and asked him for Darragh Keenan, brave and very much a horseman.”

The Brighton race was a four-runner affair with a long odds-on shot, three second places on his book. He was Mashadi, a 265,000 guineas yearling purchase trained by Richard Hannon for Amo Racing. As Conrad relates, “Our filly was going down to the start with her head in Darragh’s face and for quite a while behind the stalls it looked as though she might refuse to load. Fortunately, Darragh showed his horsemanship, and the starter was patient with her.”

Headed from the gate for a few strides by the favourite, Princess Chizara then took off, led inside the first furlong, and was never passed thereafter, drawing away to win impressively by almost five lengths in quick time. “Now we must go to Ascot. It was slightly annoying when the coverage on Sky Sports Racing suggested it unusual for me to have a nice juvenile. For much of my training career I would spec ten to 15 juveniles every year, with Harry Beeby of Doncaster sales urging me (and everyone else) on. If I told him I didn’t have any money, he’d say, “Pay for them when you sell them.” That was fine if they were any good, but when they weren’t, you couldn’t sell them and then had to keep them and be stuck with them.

“As I grew older and wiser, I stopped doing that and as you become part of the furniture, new trainers come along. People stop sending horses to you. I recall one example. My wife Bobbie worked as a secretary/assistant to Dana Brudenell-Bruce, daughter of Stanhope Joel (brother of Jim) and sister of Solna Thomson Jones, owners of Snailwell Stud and therefore major breeders.

“Once every month Bobbie used to drive Dana to the races and this day we went up to Beverley together where I had a winner. On our way back she said: “We are going to send some yearlings to young James Fanshawe who is going to start training, to help him.” He had been assistant to Michael Stoute. I knew then, coming as I did from Edmonton, I just wasn’t the right type for these established owner-breeders, and I haven’t been proved wrong since either.

“It was a total fluke that I ended up in racing. As a young child, I spent much of my early days in the company of actors as my father had been in the original cast of Half A Sixpence with Tommy Steele. We moved to New York when the show moved to Broadway, but when my parents split up, we came back to North London. My mother used her contacts in the business to get me loads of work in 1960’s TV adverts, such as Rice Krispies, Bisto and Vosene. I also went for the role of Oliver Twist in the film of Oliver but didn’t get it!

“That convinced me that acting wasn’t for me and the options for a young man from a one-parent family in those days were three-fold, an apprenticeship, in a bank or the Army. I chose banking and for two years I built up experience, soon showing I had the acumen for finance. The people I worked with were mainly very much older and with deaths, retirements and my own progress, promotion was rapid.

“But I had been attracted to horse racing as my grandfather had been a bookmaker and earlier as I had been looking for a challenge, I had decided to go to the local stables and begin riding. At first, I found it difficult, but I was determined to rise to the challenge, so I was soon offering to help at the Trent Park stables in North London in exchange for lessons.

“This continued alongside working in the bank and when I said I wanted to leave, I was assured I could come back when I wished. But one bank manager suggested, as I had improved my riding, to apply to become a jockey.

“We wrote to six trainers and got six job offers. I chose Tim Moloney at Melton Mowbray. At 18, I was older than the other apprentices and at the same time, I took out a mortgage and bought my first house.

“I had three ambitions, to ride in a race, to compete against Lester Piggott, and to partner a winner; and it took me until 21 to achieve all three. After working as a lad for Harry Wragg, I then rode as back-up to Philip Robinson with Mick Ryan. In those days, apprentices lost their claim through age, unlike nowadays, so once I lost mine, after one win as a fully-fledged jockey, I stopped there and then.

“I then took a livery yard at Brinkley, taking people’s broken-down horses and bringing them back to racing fitness. Eventually one contact asked me to accommodate an Anglo-Arab and train her. I had no idea what to do, but finally agreed and we took the horse to Goodwood for an Arabian race. When I saw the opposition, mostly looking like horses straight out of the field, I got rather more confident, and the filly won.

“It was a short step then to training and, by late 1987, I had a licence, never having enough money to buy into the top level but always sufficient contacts to keep the show going. I will, sadly to my mind, forever be known as the man who trained the first-ever winner on a UK all-weather track, and that was a total fluke!

“I thought the first day of all-weather was something to aim at, and entered two horses for the claimer, at Lingfield Park on October 30, 1989, which was due off as the third race. In the end, with multiple divisions, one of ours, Niklas Angel was in the first of 12 races on the card and won the race at 11 a.m.

“Continuing my investing in property, I bought Shadowfax Stables, building up to around 30 horses, with the help of a couple of important owners, who brought in many investors.

“We were the forerunners in stable sponsorship but when both men died from cancer within a short time of each other, the people they had brought in also melted away.  From 25 horses, suddenly I was down to four.

“I had sold my yard and asked Charlie McBride – formerly my assistant – if I could move them to him and that I would ride them out for free. I had been planning to go to the US to train, but first I resolved to clear all my debt with vets, feed and the other outstanding costs of running a racing yard.

“Then one day, Michael Fenton, the handicapper, not the jockey, and a friend of Charlie’s, asked had I thought of becoming a handicapper?

“I said, of course not, I’m a trainer.” He said “Exactly, you act as a handicapper every day of the week,” telling me Qatar wanted a handicapper. They would fly me out there, pay me $8,000 a month, find me accommodation and a car.

“I got the job simply because of Michael’s recommendation and because I told them I could do it. Soon I was travelling around the world attending all the international handicappers’ meetings in Hong Kong, Dubai and Paris and conferences in Sydney, Paris again and Tokyo.

“I could have stayed longer but it was really like a paid prison sentence, so I decided to come back. I did keep my Qatari contacts and trained for them, but it wasn’t something that could be relied upon over any length of time.”

Here I can make my own small intervention. As Conrad told me at the time, if I wanted the job, he could probably arrange it for me. Another opportunity spurned in my life of missed chances? Possibly.

It was over the past couple of years, as he had been chugging along quite happily, that Conrad was made an introduction by Martin Dwyer that has undoubtedly led to this new phase in his career’s becoming possible.

“Martin had become friendly with a young businessman he had been riding for, who had been very successful in the building industry. Having initially started owning a few horses, he rapidly developed a vision of owning 100 within a few years.

“His name was Simon Lockyer, but at the time we were introduced, he had over-invested with his previous trainers and needed a drastic cutting back. He told me he wanted to send me 38 horses. I had 18 boxes at my yard in Hamilton Road, but with access to a similar number further up the road in a livery/spelling yard.

“I said I would take eight, and we chipped away, and he said this was the first time a trainer had ever recommended he reduce rather than increase his string.  We were left with a manageable number of horses that were not only money-spinners at their level, but proved to the business that given the right material I could get results. None of those we discarded ever gave cause to regret those decisions. Unfortunately, Simon, of whom I have a high regard, has had to withdraw from racing for now, but I hope his wish one day to return on a more realistic scale, can be in partnership with me.

“Several of the remaining horses were quickly sold, and crucially, in the case of Tyger Bay, a share went to Middleham Park. Now, as he has done so well, we have Incrimination for them with the promise of another to come.

“But more importantly, when Ify Madueke wanted advice on which trainer to employ, Jim Lovat recommended me. As we stood in the winners’ enclosure at Brighton on Friday, Jim said: “At least now you know you’re a good judge.” I replied, I’ve always been a good judge, but I’ve never had the money to back it up.” He smiled and said, “You have now!”

“Princess Chizara is all speed, so the choice is whether to stay with the fillies in the Queen Mary, probably including Beautiful Diamond, or take on the boys in the Windsor Castle. All those years ago when we had a Queen Mary filly in Toocando I’m sure I went the wrong path taking on Lyric Fantasy. Next time out we were was second to future 1,000 Guineas winner Sayyedati In the Cherry Hinton at Newmarket.

“It’s great to have that sort of discussion to look forward to after all these years,” he said.

- TS

Monday Musings: The Derby’s Record-Breaking Connections

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For the past three years, observers of the British Turf have been all agog awaiting the equalling of the best-known of all Classic records – the late Lester Piggott’s nine Derby wins as a jockey, writes Tony Stafford.

He was kept in suspended animation as Aidan O’Brien was poised on eight as a trainer when outsider Serpentine collected in 2020, just 19 years after Galileo gave him the first victory. When Piggott died on May 29 last year, the record, to his still very active mind, remained intact.

Well, it isn’t any longer and, while Saturday’s extraordinary victory by winter favourite but 2000 Guineas flop Auguste Rodin has prompted the record-compilers to regard Aidan as the joint record-holder, two men actually share the honours with ten.

The first Derby was won by Diomed in 1780. His owner, Sir Charles Bunbury, famously the man who lost the toss with the then Earl of Derby to have the destined-to-be great race named after him, won it again 33 years later.

Others in between enjoyed a quicker repeat win, and sometimes as the decades and centuries wore on, with more than two. Among its winners were kings, princes, noblemen of all levels and Prime Ministers, mostly past. Never would any of those great gentlemen of the realm have considered that a young man born and bred in East Ham, East London would – with his partner – eclipse them all, and within a remarkable 22-year span. Aidan does have nine, but in between, Pour Moi, trained by Andre Fabre, makes ten.

When the first Coolmore triumvirate, instigated more than half a century ago, and founded on Robert Sangster’s Vernon’s Pools money, Vincent O’Brien’s training brilliance, and Vincent’s son-in-law John Magnier’s all-round knowledge of horses and business acumen, was beginning to wane – Royal Academy’s 1990 Breeders’ Cup Mile win under Lester was the final positive - it fell on Magnier to take charge.

Robert had the expense of Manton to take precedence; Vincent was about to retire and son David, who won the Derby with Secreto six years earlier when El Gran Senor was supposed to win for the team – he got the show back on the road in Secreto’s absence at The Curragh, was out of love with training and went to be a wine grower in Europe.

With Vincent leaving, it needed somebody special to take his place at Ballydoyle. Many were surprised at Magnier’s selection, which fell on a young man who had only recently taken out a licence.

A former amateur rider with Jim Bolger, Aidan O’Brien (no relation to Vincent) had joined his wife Anne-Marie (nee Crowley) in her training base where she had followed her father Joe and instantly become champion jumps trainer in Ireland.

Still in her early 20’s, she promptly retired to have their first child Joseph, and Aidan took up the reins, following her as champion over jumps and attracting Magnier’s shrewd notice. Aidan had started with Bolger when Tony McCoy was a young apprentice and Willie Mullins was also in the team.

Even earlier, at least 45 years ago when he was based in White’s Gate, Phoenix Park, Bolger told me that his ambition was to train a stable entirely of his own home-bred horses. How remarkable that he has pretty much achieved that aim and at the same time has been responsible for putting the three most influential individuals (himself and Magnier apart) in UK and Irish racing – the best flat trainer, the outstanding jumps trainer, and the best jump jockey of all time – on the righteous, unwavering path.

Bolger’s wish came so close to happening over the years, brought closer when he sent out homebred Teofilo, then acquired at auction New Approach, both unbeaten champion two-year-old winners of the Dewhurst from the early crops of Galileo, the latter winning the Derby in 2008. These two came at the start of a remarkable spell of five wins in six years. O’Brien has a total of eight, six coming from the next nine years.

It was only the astounding prices commanded that compelled the former accountant to swerve (slightly) from that ambition and accommodate Sheikh Mohammed’s interest. It has ensured that his family’s Redmondstown stud in his home Co Wexford, run by granddaughter Clare Manning (daughter of Una and Kevin Manning) has the resources to continue to thrive.

If identifying the training talent was important to John Magnier, it was even more fundamental to ensure a stream of investment to maintain and, as it proved, improve on what had gone before. Michael Tabor was already owning horses with Neville Callaghan, enjoying big-race success with the likes of Danehill Dancer and Danetime, both sons of Danehill.

Danehill Dancer eventually became a successful stallion at Coolmore and was a great producer and broodmare sire.  Meanwhile Tabor was minded to invest with the great US handler and former college basketball coach, D Wayne Lukas, king of the Breeders’ Cup. They promptly won the 1995 Kentucky Derby with Thunder Gulch.

I remember a call the following morning from his then close associate Victor Chandler saying: “Unbelievable. It could only have happened to Michael.” Previously one of the leading figures in racecourse betting activity, and about to cash in his off-course Arthur Prince betting shop empire, this was success right out of left field.

As with all successful men, he didn’t marvel at it, unbelievable as it clearly was to those who knew him best, but he made it a starting point, and while finding his ally in racing with Magnier and Coolmore, his business interests also burgeoned.

His greatest pride is in his family. Son Ashley Tabor-King is founder and boss of the massive and ever-expanding Global broadcasting company which has an on-going programme of projects aimed at giving a helping hand to young people, many from under-privileged backgrounds.

Meanwhile, within the Coolmore family, it wasn’t long before the dividends started. Michael timed his membership with the first Derby success for the trainer and for Galileo, by Sadler’s Wells, son of Northern Dancer, the stallion John Magnier and O’Brien senior convinced Robert Sangster that they had to invest in from US auctions if they wanted to compete on the world stage. Nijinsky and Sadler’s Wells were among the first.

Two equine generations on, recently deceased Galileo is having a similar overwhelming influence on the breed. His son Frankel has developed into the leading stallion for providing Classic horses although, as ever, breeding needs to outcross, and Auguste Rodin is the product of the fantastic multiple Group 1 mare Rhododendron (Galileo – Pivotal mare cross) by the multiple Japanese champion, Deep Impact. Now the Tabor ownership figure stands after Saturday at a mind-boggling ten – from just 23 renewals of the great race.

All through that time, the measured way Michael, John and their long-term associate Derrick Smith – in for the last eight – have modestly taken the success – and respected the unique nature of a race founded 243 years ago and which is yet to have been stopped by Wars, Covid and even would-be horse-racing-ending Animal Rising protesters.

Rightly, the Derby Roll of Honour is a short-cut to an understanding of the history of the sport from its days when a few dozen rich men matched their charges against each other up to the business where massive pots of country wealth have been grafted, with the aim of making their rulers pre-eminent in the annals of turf.

The winner of the Derby is a unique beast. He needs the speed to stay in touch with the pace and again to settle any lingering doubts as they go for home. He requires the adaptability to cope with the bends, cambers, rises and descents over these 12 furlongs of historic Surrey downland, and the resolution and temperament to handle the extraneous demands of a massive crowd that challenges their still only part-developed strength and character.

Derby horses are far from the finished article, but the race has proven to be the perfect test over time. Aidan O’Brien knows what’s needed so, while everyone was cogitating as to whether he was crazy or not after the unexpected flop of Auguste Rodin in the 2000 Guineas, the trainer himself was adamant that he was special; and his word is his bond for Messrs Magnier, Tabor, Smith, their sons and the other members of the ownership team such as Westerberg, the racing operation of auto magnate, Georg von Opel.

I had a fabulous trip with Harry Taylor and Alan Newman to Ballydoyle/Coolmore, I think four years ago now, met Galileo at Coolmore and had a nice look at the O’Brien team on the gallops. The lot we saw – second I think – consisted of 70 and all the jockeys, which included Adrian Maguire and Dean Gallagher to name but two – were instantly identified by name by the trainer.

Likewise, the horses. Afterwards in a quiet moment, I asked Aidan if he ever betted. Now excuse me if I have the number wrong but I’m pretty sure what he said was: “I did at one time when I was with Jim Bolger. My first 15 bets all won. The next one lost and I’ve never had another one since!”

I truly believe no other trainer would have dared run the horse that finished so far back at Newmarket, and Roger Varian for one is wishing he didn’t. Roger was described as looking “gutted” when visiting the boys in the box on Saturday; no wonder, for otherwise his King Of Steel, a 66/1 half-length runner-up on stable and seasonal debut, would have been a near five-length Derby hero.

Varian, who won the St Leger for Derrick Smith’s son Paul with Kingston Hill, is sure to gain further attention for, like O’Brien, he was fulsome in the constant encouragement of his colt’s chances, despite the massive odds.

Aidan might not be a betting man nowadays. The three main Coolmore owners certainly have been. In each case, though, they have transcended their earlier status to the extent that, thanks to Aidan O’Brien, their place in the fabric of the English Turf will be forever as the most important players in the history of the Derby. Nothing more, nothing less!

  • TS

Monday Musings: Aidan

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When Aidan O’Brien turned up at Newmarket for the 2000 Guineas three weekends ago, hopes were high in the Ballydoyle team that the stable would be collecting a tenth success in the first Classic of the year, writes Tony Stafford.

He had the favourite – the Vertem (ahem) Futurity winner, Auguste Rodin – of which nothing short of a comfortable victory was being entertained, as well as last year’s European Champion juvenile - by a massive 5lb margin - in Little Big Bear.

The former wound up finishing last of the 14 runners behind Chaldean, Hi Royal and Royal Scotsman, with Auguste Rodin 12th, both colts more than 20 lengths behind the Frankie Dettori-ridden winner.

Aidan declared it a non-event for his two colts, citing early scrimmaging involving them both and Royal Scotsman. He maintained the firm Derby objective for Auguste – the race that was envisaged as the second leg of his ambitious Triple Crown attempt - while announcing Little Big Bear would lick his wounds and go sprinting.

So, what of the Irish 2,000 this weekend just gone? Little Big Bear did indeed go sprinting and, with Ryan Moore busily employed for three days at the Curragh from Friday to yesterday, the peripatetic Signor Dettori eagerly offered his services.

If Frankie is one p- word, Aidan and the Coolmore boys are another – pragmatic in the extreme. In the six-furlong Group 2 Sandy Hill over six furlongs at Haydock Park, last year’s champion two-year-old was ranged among others against the 114-rated Bradsell, super-fast Royal Ascot winner for Archie Watson.

For a few strides coming into the last 300 yards, Bradsell briefly suggested a tussle might be forthcoming, but once Little Big Bear got Frankie’s serious message through the reins, the result was stark. Bradsell didn’t just go under, he collapsed. The easy way is to say he didn’t stay – although probably he didn’t and the move back to five furlongs is sensible - but the truth is, he was humiliated by his rival.

As striking as was this powerful son of No Nay Never’s acceleration, the determined way runner-up Shouldhavebeenaring from the Richard Hannon stable managed to hold the deficit at one and a half lengths, was almost as impressive. He had drawn eight lengths clear of Bradsell at the line.

Now the Commonwealth Cup/ July Cup summer double must be Little Big Bear’s programme, and I’m sure Aidan and the boys, not to mention Ryan who will have been licking his lips in anticipation, will have a wary eye on the Hannon dark horse in both.

Of course, this coming weekend there are bigger fish to fry in the Derby for the other member of the Guineas non-eventers. So, what did Aidan contrive to restore stable honour faced with the 2-3 from Newmarket in Hi Royal and Royal Scotsman, representing Kevin Ryan and Paul and Oliver Cole respectively?

It probably didn’t take too much scrutiny among the 50 Classically bred colts in the Ballydoyle stables (*source Horses in Training 2023) to identify the next star cab off the rank. Step forward Paddington, actually and bizarrely not listed in the HIT team, a winner second time out last autumn by five lengths in a maiden.

For his return right at the start of the new season in March, Aidan chose a handicap at Naas in which the Irish assessor had obligingly allotted a mark of 97 for the 20-runner Curragh romp the previous September.

Next came a Listed race, won by a length and a half from stable-companion Drumroll over the course and distance of Saturday’s Classic. Drumroll finished second past the post again in yesterday’s Gallinule Stakes (Group 3) but having been bumped a couple of times by the original winner, was awarded the race.

O’Brien found two additional candidates for the colts’ Classic. First was Age Of Kings, a Kingman colt who had been some way behind Bradsell in last year’s Coventry Stakes, but later Group placed in Ireland, before off the track for almost a year. He beat one home.

More intriguing was Cairo, a son of US sire Quality Road and as such regarded as suitable to challenge for the UAE Derby on dirt on Dubai World Cup night.

This presumably was to have been the prelude to a tilt at the Kentucky Derby. He started favourite at Meydan but faded away to 10th of 13 and any US challenge never materialised.

Instead, he turned up on Saturday as back up to Paddington and in typical Aidan O’Brien style ran on to complete the exacta, just ahead of Hi Royal, who had a spirited set-to with the winner until cracking in the last 100 yards.

In a welcome return to the big time, veteran handler Paul Cole, now with training duties and recognition shared with son Oliver, has a horse of real ability. Royal Scotsman had extricated himself from the early muddle with the two Coolmore stars at HQ to stay on for a very good third.

As Hi Royal had been rated only 92 as he entered the stalls in the 2000 Guineas (115 after), starting at 125/1, Royal Scotsman was expected to reverse the Newmarket form, and was the 6/4 favourite on the Curragh, but he was never in contention under Jamie Spencer and finished a disappointing ninth.

Now Paddington surely will be the number one from O’Brien to challenge Chaldean in the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot when Brian Meehan’s French 2000 narrow runner-up Isaac Shelby could also be in the line-up.

The Coolmore partners clearly have a high regard for Siyouni, sire of Paddington and two of their highest-profile young stallions in Sotsass and St Mark’s Basilica. Paddington has elbowed his way into the top table of three-year-old colts from last year’s European Free Handicap.

Of the five top rated colts and one filly last year, four of the colts including the “scrimmaging trio” as well as the winner Chaldean, were all on show on the first Saturday in May. The exception was Blackbeard, retired to stud after a busy campaign in the top juvenile races over six furlongs, for Group 1 wins in the Prix Morny and Middle Park Stakes for Coolmore.

The filly in question was of course the narrowly beaten 1000 Guineas favourite Tahiyra, just outlasted by Godolphin’s Mawj with the rest well beaten off. Dermot Weld said before Newmarket that he wished he had two more weeks with her after she had been held up by the wet spring.

Now with the required extra time, she was fully primed for her home 1000 Guineas, and was the overwhelming favourite. The Newmarket race had proved a disappointment for the O’Brien team, with Meditate not matching last year’s form, but she was back in full cry yesterday, Ryan Moore always having her well placed. They went for home in the straight, but Tahiyra and Chris Hayes always had her in their sights and the Weld filly won comfortably.

Jim Bolger has yet another potential star on his hands in the Vocalised filly Comhra, a 150/1 shot after two unplaced runs in Group 3 trials this spring, but a closing third here. In another two strides she would have been second and so fast did she finish, I doubt Bolger will have any fear of taking on the first two at Royal Ascot in the Coronation Stakes.

Two home wins, including the 2000 and one Group 2 race at Haydock, made for a great Saturday. Four wins yesterday, all with Ryan in the saddle, made for a veritable feast, highlighted by Luxembourg’s tremendous performance in holding off Sir Michael Stoute’s top-class Bay Bridge in the Tattersalls Gold Cup, a second Group 1 of the weekend. Favourite here was last year’s French 2000 and Prix du Jockey Club winner Vadeni, 11/8 with a previous run behind him, but he was a well-beaten fifth yesterday as the front two drew clear.

Vadeni had been a close third to Luxembourg in last September’s Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown before running a wonderful second to Alpinista in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. Luxembourg, clearly improving, promises many more successes. And if Auguste Rodin does win the Derby, a season which was initially viewed with trepidation by the Coolmore partners could develop into a vintage one, even by their and O’Brien’s standards.

One notable absentee on Derby Day – apart from me, owing to an unexpected domestic issue – is Sir Rupert Mackeson, yes, of the brewing family, but more significantly, the man who for many years has run the bookshop on Britain’s racecourses. He was a fixture at Epsom’s summer meeting and a couple of years ago, I spotted a lovely water colour on his stall which Derby winning owner Khalifa Dasmal (Shaamit) was delighted to acquire.

Rupert has struggled manfully with physical difficulties for many years, yet even approaching his 80’s he remains as mentally sharp as he ever was. I helped him on his stand at Ascot for a couple of days one September a few years back and very much enjoyed the experience, marvelling at his knowledge of his subject.

Over the years, he became very friendly with Lester Piggott, who regularly visited the Epsom pitch on Derby Day. Had he still been in his old Derby Day location, he had planned a Lester Piggott Oaks/Derby exhibition, with many items signed by the King of Epsom. This will now be located at Weston Super Frames, 17 Locking Road, Weston super-Mare BS23 3UY. I hope it goes well.

-TS

Monday Musings: A Weekend in France

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It could only happen in France, writes Tony Stafford. There were 15 runners in the Grade 1 Grande Course de Haies d’Auteuil on Saturday and despite seven from Ireland, four Willie and one Emmet Mullins, a dual Cheltenham Stayers Hurdle winner (Flooring Porter) for Gavin Cromwell, and last month’s impressive Sandown Grade 2 chase winner Hewick from Shark Hanlon, the French turfistes bet as though only one horse mattered.

Until a few weeks ago there would have been a big two, but over recent meetings, Theleme, Saturday’s 6/4 favourite trained by Arnaud Chaille-Chaille, so good a trainer they named him twice, had taken control. Last year, Hermes Baie had easily won the then eight-runner renewal by seven lengths from Mullins’ first string of three, Klassical Dream, who was coming on from winning at Punchestown, a feat he repeated late last month.

In another replica, while just preferred in the market to his conqueror, Klassical Dream was again seven lengths adrift of Hermes Baie, as that six-year-old got within a couple of lengths of his contemporary Theleme, a well beaten fourth last time. Still, third will have done quite nicely for Joanne Coleman and family and Mr and Mrs Mark Smith, not only enjoying a weekend in the French capital but also glorying in West Ham United’s Europa Conference League exploits. The bubbles surely will have been flowing and blowing!

This season, apart from an aberration when Goa Lil, a 7yo trained by Tom George’s son Noel, but running in the colours of Nigel Twiston-Davies, was allowed too long a lead and supplied an 18/1 shock against the long odds-on Theleme - Nige’s horse pulled up on Saturday – it’s been one way traffic.

The unusual thing I referred to at the start of the piece was the fact that in each of Theleme’s last dozen races over the past 20 months, Hermes Gaie has been among the opposition.  For their initial five encounters, Francois Nicolle’s charge had been on top, winning four of those races, but the tide has turned emphatically and Theleme is now unequivocally the master.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about a one-time Willie Mullins horse, not to mention his initial trainer, Guillaume Macaire, and subsequent not insubstantial handlers, Paul Nicholls and Dan Skelton. He’s a discard from Sullivan Racing and hardly the type to make a living out of racing in France, the land of his birth, you would think.

But over the past 18 months, from her base in Westbury-on-Severn, Gloucestershire, Sophie Leech and her husband Christian have been loading up the horsebox for the eight-hour trip to the Paris tracks to campaign said Lucky One, with spectacular form and financial results for owner Ben Halsall.

Last month, the eight-year-old won more than 50k in a race over 2m5f at France’s principal jumps track, and afterwards the team reasoned he was unexposed at the extended 3m1f of the Grande Course, so the foolhardy – it seemed to others – plan was hatched.

A glimpse at his UK rating of 114 – probably unrealistic as his last ten runs (all of them in fact since being bought out of the Skelton yard) – have been in France. He was raised to an exchange equivalent of 129 (from 120) for the last win.

What is as equally remarkable as Lucky One’s achievements is the Leech race planning of his programme. He has taken up and raced in eight of his last ten entries.

Surely, though, he would struggle in such company? Well, no, in the event he ran on from the rear into sixth, admittedly behind Irish trio Klassical Dream, Hewick, and Emmet Mullins’s lightly-raced Feronily, all of those recent Grade 1 scorers. But, in turn, he was well clear of Haut En Couleurs, Willie’s 146-rated hurdler and 10lb higher chaser, in 8th place; 156-rated Flooring Porter (9th), with Willie’s remaining pair Asterion Forlonge (155 hurdles, 162 chase) 10th and Kilcruit (145 and 160 chase) 11th.

Christian Leech said they were all thrilled at the result and he and Sophie are looking forward to exploiting the opportunities in what they regard as their “home” programme book next season. In the meantime, they had another nice result at Compiegne last week when Alnadam, a 42/1 shot, picked up 7k for his fourth in a Listed hurdle.

Eight lengths behind in fifth was the Harry Fry trained Might I, a 3/1 shot. Rated 20lb above the Leech horse in the UK ratings, but conceding only 2lb, he was easily beaten off. Alnadam can look forward to some more trips under the Channel in the coming weeks and months.

If Willie Mullins was pained at having four unsuccessful darts at the big hurdle, the gloom would have intensified yesterday when the well-publicised plan to return with last year’s third Franco De Port for the Grand Steeple Chase de Paris proved in vain as he trailed home eighth of 18.

The master trainer had planned out his season minutely, with three previous trips across to Paris along with a date in the Cheltenham Cross Country when he ran third to Gordon Elliott’s smart pair Delta Work and Galvin, but to no avail.

There were three UK connections faring rather better. Lord Daresbury, who in his days as Peter Greenall rode many good hunter chasers under the guidance of a master trainer of an earlier era, the irrepressible Arthur Stephenson, four decades ago. His lordship is the principal owner of the big race favourite Gex, who was backed down to a very short 9/5 before the off.

Most of the way it seemed inevitable that he would win but he was pestered out of it on the run-in by a determined Johnny Charron on Rosario Baron, trained by Daniela Mele. Fourth were two familiar names, Nick Littmoden and Jack Quinlan, trainer and rider of Imperil, who collected £71k.

The seven-year-old was bought originally from France as a juvenile and I was at Fakenham on New Year’s Day in 2020 when the son of No Risk At All made his Littmoden debut and cantered away with the 2nd division of the novice hurdle, beating a 40/1 shot trained by the late Shaun Keightley.

I was there to see Waterproof win the first division of that race for Keightley in the colours of Raymond Tooth. Jack Quinlan, pretty much the only jump jockey of any seniority in most of the past decade to be based in racing’s HQ, had done all the schooling on Waterproof and ridden him in his previous starts, but was unavailable for Fakenham when he could also have ridden Imperil.

My connection with Jack’s father Noel goes back a long way and probably as far as with Littmoden. In his days around 25 years ago – Nick first took out a licence in 1994 – he trained on the track at Dunstall Park, Wolverhampton. In response to my asking whether he had anything for sale privately, he came up with two hard-working handicappers which were passed on to Kuwaiti brothers who raced on a small private track.

When, after a season, they reported back that between them they had won 15 races (one seven and the other eight), unwisely I passed on the “good news” to their previous trainer and Nick refused to sell them any more! At least, the boys offered me a trip to the wedding of one of them that winter which I was happy to accept.

Sometime after, Nick moved to Newmarket and trained from Julie Cecil’s Southgate Stables in the Hamilton Road after she retired. That’s now the base for Amy Murphy, Jack Quinlan’s principal employer, when her stable was much more jumping oriented. The best days were when Kalashnikov was winning the Betfair Hurdle and other nice races.

Amy herself has done well with mostly Flat runners in France and she is still toying with the idea of making the move to that country permanent to take advantage of the far better prizemoney on a day-to-day basis. A hurdles win there for now 10-year-old Kalashnikov at Auteuil in March brought a win prize of £23k and he was then sixth in another hurdle at Compiegne over 2m3f, won by Rosario Baron, who stepped up 10f and over to fences for yesterday’s triumph

Littmoden, unlike Amy, did go the whole hog; switching with wife Emma in early 2021 to a base at Moulins-les-Metz in Alliers, Central France, 377 km from Paris and just north-west of Lyon. With so many of France’s many racetracks within a few hours’ drive, that has proved an ideal location.

In 25 years’ training over jumps, his best single season’s prizemoney haul in the UK was £29K, although when he had the journalist/professional gambler Nigel Shields as the main owner in the yard, he was adept, with Nigel’s shrewd reading of the programme and form book, at getting many more wins, 80 being the peak in 2002.

In 2021 upon his move, the first season brought 14 wins from 78 runs and yielded €218k; last year 13/168 brought €268k and this year so far eight wins from 51 have added €259k so he is on course for a another much-increased tally. With almost £800k for his owners over just more than two years, this has been a transfer to savour. He operates from two yards, one based at Moulins racecourse housing around 15 horses – no new experience for him! – and the remainder are located nearby at a farm with an 800-metre gallop.

Yesterday’s fourth in the undoubted biggest race of the year over fences in France was one sort of pinnacle but when his career record as a foreign trainer in the country is remembered after he finally retires, Imperil’s success under Jack last month in the race that is known as the French Grand National, but is actually the Prix du President de la Republique, will stand tallest. Jack was along for that ride too, as Imperil beat 16 others in the race over just short of 3m.

While Littmoden was checking his France Galop account to see whether he had beaten last year’s tally, Willie Mullins finally got on the winner’s podium. His filly Gala Marceau, in the Kenny Alexander Honeysuckle colours, picked up her second Grade 1 win, having previously been the beneficiary of stablemate Lossiemouth’s traffic problems at the Dublin Racing Festival in February at Leopardstown.

Otherwise, she had been seeing Lossiemouth’s back end in a second place in the Triumph Hurdle and third at Punchestown, but she bolted up yesterday in the 4yo championship, Grande Course de Haies de Printemps (Spring), slaughtering the much-acclaimed domestic champion Losange Bleu by seven lengths.

Then again, you might say champion of what? Mullins had bought all the potential juvenile stars over the past 18 months and most of them, including Lossiemouth, are still on the upgrade. No doubt Willie and Howard Kirk will have had their notebooks out over the past few weeks, shopping for next season’s stars. And probably still trying to remember where they had heard the name Lucky One!

  • TS

Monday Musings: Of Rich Men and Trainer Fashion

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There are a lot of very rich people in the world. There are also many very talented racehorse trainers in the UK, in Ireland and France, writes Tony Stafford. Many wealthy individuals like to own racehorses, preferably blue-blooded ones.  As trainers enter their middle years, though, the tendency is for all but the legends like Sir Michael Stoute and John Gosden on the flat and Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls over jumps, to feel the draft from the younger, thrusting upstarts.

These can be talented, too, but as I often refer to in spring, there are some stark, indeed harsh, facts on this seemingly inevitable trend to be gleaned from the Horses In Training book which lists the strings of most stables.

I was shocked to see one entry upon receiving my volume later than expected because of the present state of Royal Mail. Colour coded and fully traceable stamps aren’t much use if it takes a week (more in this case) to get a little book a hundred or so miles.

Some surprised me by how many more horses they are now training compared to just a year or two ago. But the biggest shock was reserved for a trainer who won a nice handicap at the Craven meeting at Newmarket and then followed up with the same horse in the Victoria Cup at Ascot on Saturday.

The trainer, Amanda Perrett, the horse Rebel Territory, a 5yo home-bred gelding who streaked away at the end of the Ascot feature in the manner of a potential stakes horse. Home-bred is the key here, loyal but ageing owners that are so hard to replace.

I’d noticed that Amanda and husband Mark were listed as training only 19 horses at the famed Pulborough stables in West Sussex, base of her father Guy Harwood. He was the trainer of the peerless Dancing Brave and the equal in his day of Sir Michael and Sir Henry Cecil where Classic performers were being mentioned.

Amanda has held the licence at Pulborough since the late 1990’s and between 2000 and 2019 only twice did she and Mark send out fewer than 25 winners with a peak at 60 in the immediate aftermath of Guy’s heyday.

I canvassed several friends and racing experts, one of them who previously had horses there, asking how many they thought were in training now. Most estimates were around the 40 mark. “I wish it were,” Mark Perrett might have been saying when he told the media after the nice win on Saturday that “we only have 22 in, but we could always train a good horse when we got the opportunity, and we still can.” No question, Mark, and eight wins at 23% hit rate so far this year is a great start.

That intro was a long way round into coming to my main point. When you have a very good horse in your ownership and far from being one of the leading owners in the world, but you are part of a small, friendly syndicate, what do you do?

The history of the turf is littered with stories of people that did not take the opportunity presented to them when unexpectedly they got a good horse. Often, after refusing a nice offer, the horse in question does not fulfil expectations.

The fact that Isaac Shelby, winner of last month’s Greenham Stakes at Newbury in smart fashion, was owned by one of Sam Sangster’s Manton Thoroughbreds syndicates and trained by the pragmatic and vastly experienced Brian Meehan, ensured that when their opportunity to make a killing rather than agonise about it came, they agreed, albeit reluctantly, allowing the deal to go though.

“It was an agonising decision”, said Sangster, “but the chance for everyone to do well from the deal and at the same time welcome a potentially important new owner into Manton for Brian, made it the right choice. Everyone walked away with a smile on his face!”

It behoves a one-time journalist to try to delve beyond what little they want to reveal and find out rather what everyone else out there wants to know. But young Mr Sangster was not playing. Back in the bosom of his family, he continued: “Sorry Tone, there’s no way I can tell you how much Wathnan Racing paid for him.” “What was that? How many shareholders? Not sure.”

Knowing the present state of the market and the value of top racehorses, the number for a potential imminent Classic winner will be a minimum seven digits. “Not eight, I wish it was!” was as much as Sam could be pinned down to admit to. Neither would he say whether a contingency would have applied had Isaac Shelby won yesterday, or indeed if he picks up any other Group 1 race later in his career. Sorry Sam, I had to ask but I’ll leave you in peace, now!

It’s hard to remember all those years ago, but was it as difficult to break down Robert Sangster (Sam’s dad), and John Magnier’s, similar reticence when things like the multi-million Storm Bird or El Gran Senor stallion deals were having their problems? It’s hard to be sure through the mists of time – maybe I was just better placed in those days to pick up the correct rumours!

So, rather than work on trying to wheedle out of one of the future giants of the bloodstock business what he’d rather keep private – fair enough – instead I’ll pass on what I’ve found out about Wathnan Racing. This Qatari owning entity has been put together by Australian Ollie Tate, who can take full credit for setting up Godolphin’s operation Down Under in around 2002 when still in his mid-20’s.

He’s done plenty in the industry since, with his own operation for the past six years. Recently he was tasked by Qatari Abdullah Mana Al-Hajri to set up a racing operation back home. So rapidly has it developed that over the recently concluded season which ran from October to March, he was leading owner in Qatar with many winners of both thoroughbred and Arabian races.

The biggest acceleration for Wathnan came after an all-out assault on last year’s Newmarket Autumn Horses in Training sale. He bought nine mostly three-year-olds for a total of £1.75 million, an average of close to 200k each. Significant among them were Charlie Hills’ Inverness for 380k; Persian Royal, a 450k recruit from the Charlton stable and Hamiki, 260 grand from William Haggas.

He has enjoyed pleasing results at some of the more important meetings there. His local trainer is Alba De Mieulle and his go-to rider for the major days when international races were staged was Mickael Barzalona, who won several important races in his Technicolor silks.

It would not have escaped Mr Al-Hajri’s notice yesterday that just when Isaac Shelby looked home and hosed, ready to provide a Classic winner at the first time of asking, that along came the said M. Barzalona. Riding the 26/1 shot Marhaba Ya Sanafi, they got up right on the line by a short neck.

Another irony was that that the winning horse’s owner, Jaber Abdullah, a long-standing associate of Rabbah Racing in Dubai, had been selling off a good number of his surplus animals at the HIT part of the Guineas Breeze-Up sale at Newmarket just over a week ago.

Brian Meehan had been very confident of Isaac Shelby’s chance before the race and Sam said, “He was gutted!” They thought the gallop had been inadequate and having made all the running in the Greenham Stakes, there must have been the thought afterwards that it may have been better to have forced the pace again.

Meehan and the new owner’s representatives – the deal was brokered by Richard Brown of Blandford Bloodstock – will talk about the next target, but Royal Ascot, where a winner for Mr Al-Hajri would presumably be a major ambition, comes next this side of the Channel at least. As well as the St James’s Palace Stakes, which Meehan won with Most Improved in 2012, a sideways look might be glanced at the six-furlong Commonwealth Cup, in which the colt also holds an entry.

At this stage, though, the mile option looks more likely. Isaac Shelby certainly didn’t fail through lack of stamina yesterday and most bookmakers have him as one of the first four in the betting on the race.

I’ve spent many wonderful work mornings at Manton with Brian and Sam down the years. Their loyal relationship, which encouraged Sangster to pay a higher-than-usual 92,000gns for the son of 2000 Guineas winner Night Of Thunder as a potential syndicate horse, stands out in an often more routine game between owners and trainers of musical chairs. But make no mistake, Brian Meehan, has long been an outstanding trainer who, like the Perrett’s, just needs the raw material and he’ll get the job done at any level.

When Mr Al-Haji finally makes it to Marlborough, I’m sure he will fall in love with the place as so many before him have over the centuries.

- TS

Monday Musings: You Say Potayto

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You say tomayto, I say tomahto. You say potayto, I say potahto, as the George and Ira Gershwin 1937 song Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off goes, illustrating the spoken differences in the American and British versions of the English language, writes Tony Stafford.

You say Mage, I say Mawj. Two very similar four-letter words, beginning with MA that identify respectively the surprise winners of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday night and the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket yesterday on a Coronation weekend of great significance for the United Kingdom.

There were 20 horses in the Run for the Roses and 18 for the fillies’ mile classic and each time the winner was the only one with four letters in its name. In the entire history of the ten furlongs around the Louisville circuit, since its inception in 1875, only once, in 1892 when Azra won, has such an economically framed name adorned the winner. In that context, the win of Zeb, the only winner with three letters to his name exactly 100 years ago is a statistical disappointment, for someone who bothers with such trifles anyway.

We only need go back three years to Love’s winning the fillies’ race on the way to a sublime year of achievement for Aidan and the Coolmore boys to find another four-letter name. In the Classic’s early years, the more demanding breeders’ young horses were never given names until they won, simply regarded as the something colt or the something else filly. Many four-letter and mostly mundane names adorn the dusty pages of the 1000 Guineas winner register during the 19th Century.

At Churchill Downs on Saturday, it took a decision on the morning of the race by the veterinary examining committee to bar the Todd Pletcher trained Forte. The morning line favourite, winner of his last five, including a strong-running victory at 3/5 in the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park, was ruled out on a soundness issue.

He was clearly the one to beat, so it was music to the ears of connections of Mage, twice behind Forte in his last two runs, but getting nearer and only overtaken in the last 100 yards at Gulfstream.

Now as a 15/1 shot and with veteran Javier Castellano on board, he came through to win the first leg of the 2023 Triple Crown at the 16th time of asking for the jockey. The colt came down the outside beating Two Phil’s by a length with Angel of Empire, who inherited favouritism, third. Trainer Gustavo Delgado would not have been one of the more likely handlers of a Derby winner in the line-up. His previous best win was in the G1 Test Stakes at Saratoga seven years ago, though he did also saddles the 2020 winner of the G1 Clark Handicap on this track.

What Mage did over there, Mawj did here and when I saw the blue Godolphin number one colours fighting it out with the favourite Tahiyra from some way out and then going well clear with her into the Dip and up to the finish, instinctively I briefly thought, another for Charlie Appleby.

Then the double realisation hit home. No, it’s Saeed and Oisin and then instantly, “and she’s going to win”.

The first conclusion was these are two very high-class fillies. Dermot Weld had only ever previously run one filly in the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket, some statistic considering he’s been at the forefront of international training for half a century.

But then Saeed bin Suroor, the most modest, polite and uncomplaining man you will ever encounter, has been at it a while too, associated firmly with Godolphin from its inception. The native of Dubai, where his first career was as a policeman, has never shown any resentment at being now the undoubted second trainer behind Charlie Appleby for Sheikh Mohammed’s team.

He said that Appleby worked under him for a long time and while conceding the big-race wins may not be so plentiful nowadays, this was his third 1000 Guineas, 20 years on from the second. It was also unique in that no filly campaigned in the winter in Dubai before running in this Classic had ever won it.

She had been a good second at Royal Ascot last year to yesterday’s second favourite Meditate but that filly disappointed in much the same way as the two Aidan O’Brien/Coolmore colts, first and third favourites Auguste Rodin and Little Big Bear, had on Saturday.

Before the race, Dermot Weld was ruing the fact that he probably needed another two weeks to have Tahiyra to his entire satisfaction. She will have the opportunity to take her revenge on Mawj – who may also improve in the interim, of course – at the Curragh and it’s hard to see anything else from this race at least, troubling either.

For Oisin Murphy, who missed the whole of last season in the aftermath of his various breaches of the rules in relation to Covid and alcohol, this was a joyous moment. Nobody doubts his talent. Now it’s up to him to steer clear of temptation. Non-riders might think that nothing could be more addictive for a jockey than winning big races. Maybe it’s not always that straightforward, such are the pressures.

This was his 52nd success of the year in the UK and 24 different trainers have contributed to the score which is running at more than 20% wins to rides. The Guineas win also took him past the £1 million prizemoney mark. If Murphy can stay focused, William Buick will indeed have a rival to fear as the former three-time winner will have designs on wresting the crown back from last year’s debut champion.

Strangely, this was Oisin’s first ride of the season in the UK for Saeed, although in the years 2019 to 2021 he rode 70 first past the winning line for bin Suroor. Saeed said in his post-race interview on TV that he has now won 192 Group 1 races. (Hope I heard correctly!). Few can match that.

Of course, on the day of the Coronation, racing’s enduring monarch of the saddle, Senor L Dettori chose one of the most exciting days I can remember on the Rowley Mile for years, for all that it rained all day, to steal another show.

The flood of racegoers and their cars arriving from early on the day was reminiscent of the 70’s and 80’s. Three of the mile colts’ Classics in the 30-odd years since Frankie came across from Sardinia had fallen to him. Two of those – Mark Of Esteem and Island Sands – of course were for bin Suroor while he was the undisputed number one rider for Godolphin for so many years.

Having announced this to be his final year in the saddle, with Chaldean earmarked for his final 2000 Guineas mount, it was a complete shock when he was jettisoned from the colt’s saddle on exiting the stalls as they set off as an odds-on shot for the Greenham Stakes two weeks earlier. That the colt came through unscathed, having accompanied Isaac Shelby and the rest up the straight mile without a rider, was a cause for relief for the Andrew Balding team, and his preparation for last Saturday clearly hadn’t been affected.

With the well-fancied Auguste Rodin and Little Big Bear not performing to expectations on the other side of the track – their normal transport routine, flying in on the morning of the race having been ruled out, was Aidan’s suggestion – here was Chaldean on the far side, fulfilling all that Dewhurst-winning promise with a smooth success in the Juddmonte colours.

I was delighted to be there for all the frustration of an awful day of drenching rain and with the race being run on such un-Newmarket like ground. Dettori, remarkably, but obviously, is as good a jockey as he ever was.

It’s a long time since, with many of his achievements in his future, I was asked to ghost-write a mini autobiography entitled A Year in the Life by Frankie. I’ve told before how the book was already in print in the days when computerisation didn’t exist. The pages were set if not in stone, in hot metal.

So, what does Dettori do with weeks to come before publication and publicity? Just ride seven out of seven at Ascot! An extra chapter was hurriedly added and placed at the front of the book– I can’t remember if he contributed anything to it – I think he was far too busy celebrating. No doubt he was in similar euphoria after Saturday.

When you write about someone in that way, taking such a long time gathering the material, inevitably you never lose that proprietary interest. I know that every big win in the 27 years since from Frankie has brought if not a warm glow exactly, certainly a little smile.

The book was written all those years ago when Frankie was still engaged to Catherine. Now with six children, and with three jockeys’ championships and 22 English Classics behind him, he’s still the same engaging, garrulous chap he always has been. Basically, a Peter Pan figure, the 52-year-old apprentice! How many more big ones await him? That he can still be around with Buick, Oisin and Ryan Moore all in their prime makes the prospect of the 2023 flat-race season, his last round-up, a vintage one.

- TS

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