Monday Musings: Cheltenham Memory Lane

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I rarely buy the print version of the Racing Post, preferring instead the online option (saves at least £80 a month), but on Friday I stretched a point, writes Tony Stafford. I needed to check whether I was still officially alive – so many other great cricketers having succumbed over the past week – and, yes, there I was with yet another new description.

You have to hand it to John Randall, still the man behind the Post’s birthday feature and so much else, and also my former colleague Howard Wright. They keep their aging fingers – one set older, one younger – on the pulse and have now blown my cover and described me as “Editor-in-Chief of Fromthestables.com”.

So no longer Raymond Tooth’s racing manager and possibly other plausible titles involving the Daily Telegraph – left in 2002, really? – but it was nice of them to give the site the publicity it deserves. That’s just my totally objective opinion, of course.

Friday’s Post informed me and the rest of the rapidly diminishing number of the immediate post-World War 2 baby boom generation that I had indeed entered the final quarter of my personal century.

The values instilled in me by my racing loving, Arsenal supporting and cricket adoring father have stayed with me for at least 70 years since I first went to Highbury, Newmarket and Kempton Park. People might have expected me to grow up, but what would be the point? Become a Formula One fan, hardly!

The early days at the races were always by charabanc – coach to you – with stops at the halfway houses between East London and those two named tracks courtesy of the Fallowfield and Britten firm that picked up at Clapton Pond.

One day standing in the toilet on the way to the 1954 2,000 Guineas won by Darius – Harry Wragg, Manny Mercer - I felt a warm, moist intrusion on my left leg. Further enquiries revealed the culprit as Prince Monolulu, the famed racecourse tipster who sold his selections to a willing public. For many years he had the persona, if not the bladder control, to entice an audience.

In those innocent days this alleged chief of the Falasha tribe of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) had actually been born in the Virgin Islands and his name was the far from glamorous Peter Carl Mackay. At the time of my anointment as a future tipster he was already 72 years old and survived the 1961 legalising of betting shops, four years before his death aged 83.

When my dad got a car, a favourite was the spring meeting at Epsom where we would park on the Hill and watch from opposite the winning post, but later he asked if I’d like to go to Cheltenham.

He took me and a couple of friends for the opening day of the 1968 meeting and it happened to be the year when L’Escargot had the first of his big wins, in the second division of the Gloucestershire Hurdle, historically usually the race targeted by Vincent O’Brien before he left jumping to his inferiors having won multiple Gold Cups, Champion Hurdles and Grand Nationals in the early post-war years.

Dan Moore was the trainer and Tommy Carberry the rider of the horse owned by Raymond Guest, the former US Ambassador to Ireland. Guest also owned Sir Ivor, the outstanding Derby winner, trained by O’Brien to Classic success only three months after that Cheltenham trip.

We all piled on him with a few quid each and the atmosphere was very good on the way home. If L’Escargot made an impact that day, it was not until a year or so later that he was to become my favourite jumper of all time.

I had joined the racing desk at the Press Association and one particular week we were concentrating on the Wills Premier Chase meeting at Haydock early in the year. Two Irish horses dominated the betting on the Final, L’Escargot and a horse that had beaten him in the Irish qualifier a few weeks earlier. He was East Bound, trained by Arkle’s celebrated handler, Tom Dreaper.

It seemed to me that the betting was all wrong as winners of a qualifier had to carry a 5lb penalty. Research – in those days information was something to be chiselled out rather than at the touch of a keypad – told me that L’Escargot had followed his early hurdling days in Ireland by racing in his owner’s homeland, to such good effect that he was voted Champion US chaser of 1969, having won the Meadow Brook Chase at Belmont Park.

Before Haydock I thought I was very clever taking 14-1 about the Gold Cup. He duly won at Haydock, not by far, but as the weeks went by he drifted by the day. I travelled to that Cheltenham by train with a chap from Raceform called Peter Boyer (I think!) telling him all the way that 33-1 was a joke.

So it proved and he won at that price and followed up the next year in bottomless ground as favourite or thereabouts.

By the following year he started a four-time challenge for the Grand National, right in the middle of the Red Rum era. In 1972 he was a third fence faller carrying 12st top-weight. Under the same burden in 1973 he was a remote third to Red Rum, who was making his debut in the race and who received 23lb from L’Escargot and the Australian horse and joint-top weight Crisp, who famously just failed to make all in that epic race.

L’Escargot got nearer to Red Rum in second the next year and, as a 12-year-old in 1975, gained deserved recompense with a 15-length defeat of Red Rum, who by now was conceding him weight. That was where L’Escargot’s racing story ends as only the second horse (and still only the second almost half a century later) after Golden Miller to win both the Gold Cup and Grand National.

Red Rum still had to return for another runner-up place behind Rag Trade and then a final triumphant curtain call in 1975, when he made it three Grand National wins and two second places, also as a 12-year-old.

Once at the Daily Telegraph, Cheltenham visits were more regular but not to the degree that the outside staff could guarantee. But the year after I’d made a most impulsive “purchase” – £100k for ten horses from French-based carpet tycoon and private stable owner Malcolm Parrish in 1984 – I just had to be there.

Parrish owned all of the 100-plus horses in his stable and was pretty much the trainer although M de Tarragon held the licence officially. A few years earlier Michael Dickinson had bought through me but more significantly from Prince Rajsinh of Rajpipla – Prince Pippy to his readers in the Sun years later – who is the son of Windsor Lad’s (1935 Derby) owner, the Maharajah of that Indian state, two horses from Parrish.

One, French Hollow, proved a wonderful buy so it was fortuitous when going over to meet David O’Brien at Ballydoyle soon after his Derby win with Secreto, after that horse beat his father’s El Gran Senor the previous month, when he asked me to redirect to the Cashel Palace Hotel as he was with an owner.

That owner was Malcolm, later to own both the Lordship and Egerton Studs in Newmarket. I told him of the French Hollow connection and he said. “Do you want any more?” We agreed on ten and they were all to go to Rod Simpson. You might ask where did I have £100k to spend? Luckily Malcolm wasn’t much bothered and he got his money in the end. Rod didn’t like the look of one, Hogmanay, priced at £5k and when later he kept winning chases around Ascot and the like for Richard Casey it was hard to take.

There were problems with others too. A horse called Seram behaved like a lunatic from day one and Rod suggested I’d give him and another horse away. I moved them both to Wilf Storey who already had Fiefdom for me, and while Seram did have to be put down after almost killing Chris Grant on the gallops, Santopadre was an outstanding jumper.

In short time Wilf won successively a selling hurdle, a claimer and a novice with a double penalty, each time with noted punter Terry Ramsden filling his boots, the latter race by 15 lengths at Wetherby. It was around that time I got a call from the Jockey Club security people to meet me at Ascot. There they said they believed Rod Simpson was still training horses that were running under Storey’s name. I told them in my opinion Rod was nothing like as good a trainer as the mild-mannered Co. Durham sheep farmer.

Another of the ten was Brunico, a grey who later in his career won 23 point-to-point races for Peter Bowen. At this stage he’d just won at Windsor first time over hurdles as a partnership horse with Terry Ramsden, but he bought me out before his win at Sandown, where even Dermot Browne’s best efforts couldn’t stop him winning.

He was second in that year’s Triumph where Santopadre was fifth, both in Terry’s colours. He then won an amateurs’ Flat race on Doncaster’s opening meeting under Tim Thomson Jones before providing a big shock when winning the Ormonde Stakes (Group 3) at Chester at 33-1.

A third runner  in that Triumph, carrying my then but now David Armstrong’s red silks, was second-favourite Tangognat but he hated the ground and finished tailed off.

The Cashel Palace Hotel was closed for many years but it has been greatly restored and a friend who stayed there last week – it re-opened on March 1 – says it is spectacular. As he was visiting Ballydoyle, Coolmore and the two younger O’Briens’ stables in preparation for the new season, he got his timing right – as ever. Lucky boy, that Harry!

One horse that will not be at Cheltenham is the Doreen Tabor-owned Walking On Air who was so impressive at Newbury recently. Apparently Nicky Henderson will not be able to prepare him for the race in time for next week.

His dam Refinement’s near miss is engraved on my memory, as I turned away when she apparently had the Mares’ Hurdle won, exactly at the moment her head hit the line going up rather than down.

The one Cheltenham I regret having missed of course was Punjabi’s Champion Hurdle victory in 2009 for Ray Tooth. I was sitting on my sofa at home recovering from a detached retina operation and dared not risk getting knocked over should he win. Instead I watched alone, barely cheering, just enjoying the unbelievable result. That day I fancied horses in every race and linked them all in a full cover each-way bet.

I had the 33/1 winner and laid out a nice few quid. Not one of the others managed a place! Never mind we beat Binocular! I love Cheltenham and regret I can’t get there in 2022. Hopefully there will be a few more chances, but you never know!

 - TS

Monday Musings: The home defence prevails in Saudi

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Two years ago the Saudi Cup was staged for the first time with a total prize fund of $20 million ($10 million to the winner) and therefore the richest single horse race anywhere in the world. There was little surprise when US-trained horses came out on top in the nine-furlong event on the dirt course close to Riyadh.

The winner that day was Maximum Security, the horse that had also finished first past the post in the 2019 Kentucky Derby.  Immediately after the Derby, Maximum Security was disqualified for causing interference on the final bend and was relegated to 17th of the 19 runners under the stringent US interference rules.

The horse’s owners, which include the Coolmore partners, must have been relieved that the Saudi Cup was at least a financial consolation for losing the Derby. Sensationally, though, within a few days of that inaugural running, news came that the colt’s trainer Jason Servis had been arrested. He is named as one of 27 individuals implicated in a US-wide horse doping conspiracy. Their inevitably complex trial is expected to begin next year.

The first actual recipient of the Saudi cash therefore – before Newcastle United and the golfers wanting to play in the Kingdom-inspired planned breakaway from the PGA tour – was Prince Abdul Rahman Abdullah Faisal. The Prince, usually referred to as Prince Faisal in the UK, with his Gosden-trained Mishriff, won the race last year. He, of course, is from the Saudi Royal family.

His horse was back again for the Cup’s third running on Saturday, but he finished last, virtually pulled up by David Egan. The home team this time enjoyed both sides of the triumph, not just a Saudi-owned (again a Prince from the ruling family) but also by dint of its Saudi trainer.

That horse was Emblem Road, a US-bred son of Quality Road, sourced as a two-year-old for around $80,000 at Ocala in Florida, and he came into Saturday’s race with six wins in eight starts, yet started 80-1 (or 50-1, depending on which report you believe).

The price was understandable as he faced the reigning Kentucky Derby winner Mandaloun, also unbeaten in three runs since that day before Saturday, as well as well-touted fellow Americans Country Grammer and Midnight Bourbon.

The former of that pair is trained by Bob Baffert, another high-profile US trainer several of whose best horses have been found to have had illegal substances in their post-race samples and who is soon to face an inquiry into one of those instances. Interestingly, it was to Baffert that Maximum Security was switched after the Jason Servis licence was suspended two years ago.

Hopes for Emblem Road were drastically reduced when the colt started very slowly but his 53-year-old rider Wigberto Ramos did not panic. A Panamanian who has been riding in Saudi Arabia for the past 24 years, “Wiggy” knows the track as well as any jockey and he steadily made up his ground.

There was still more to be retrieved as Country Grammer set off for home, offering Baffert high hopes of his cut of the $10 million; but Emblem Road, buoyed by his own extensive experience of his home track, would not be denied and got up close home to win by half a length.

The victory was a massive triumph for his local trainer Mitab Almulawah and it must be very possible that his smart and tough four-year-old might be deployed to Meydan to challenge for the Dubai World Cup, victory in which would propel him even higher up the world top earnings table.

I remember when I first started working back in 1990 with the late Prince Ahmed Salman and his Thoroughbred Corporation team which won so many major races around the world, asking whether the family was on a par with the Maktoum family.

The answer came from my pal Jack Rusbridge, the late Prince’s main security advisor, who replied: “No contest. The Saudis’ wealth is a bottomless pit!” Phil Mickelson and Eddie Howe are well aware of that, never mind Baffert who for all the disappointment of his near miss in the big race, collected his share of around $3.5 million for Country Grammer’s second and the victory of his 7-4 favourite Pinehurst in the Saudi Derby earlier on the card.

The rivalry between Dubai and Riyadh is such that the failure of any of the Godolphin ten to win a race would have been regarded as a triumph on the ground for the home team. Rather than any of the more anticipated centres of success, the remaining four races open to the invaders all went to that upwardly-mobile source of big-race excellence that is Japan.

Two wins on the second day of the Breeders’ Cup with Marche Lorraine – sixth to Emblem Road on Saturday – and Loves Only You, who went on to win the Longines Hong Kong Cup in December, jolted many of us to their ever-expanding horizons.

But this was something on an altogether different scale. All four were ridden by Christophe Lemaire who, in the manner of all true international jockeys of the highest order, instantly knew how to handle this track. Three turf races opened the feast, Lemaire making all in two with a come from behind run in between. Then later, in the Turf sprint, he was back in making-all vein, completing an astonishing four-timer for this powerful racing nation.

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There was some decent jump racing back home at the weekend and it was good to see Milton Harris winning the Adonis Hurdle at Kempton with the now unbeaten-in-five over timber, Knight Salute, who needed to overcome a 5lb penalty for his earlier two Graded wins.

Expensive recruits from the flat were easily brushed aside and while it might have been tight if the Gary Moore-trained Teddy Blue had jumped the last two flights better, Knight Salute looks the main domestic hope for the Triumph Hurdle against the Mullins/Elliott platoon.

Staying chases were the other prime targets for owners and trainers, and both Newcastle’s Eider Chase and then Kempton’s Coral Handicap Chase were mopped up by the mop-haired (although he has trimmed it a shade!) Christian Williams.

Always a shrewdie in his riding days as a generally second-string jump jockey, he seems even more astute as a trainer. He says the plans for the multiple entries for these two valuable prizes were fixed months ago and they were rewarded when Win My Wings justified heavy support down to 11-2 favouritism at Newcastle. Cap Du Nord, 15 minutes later, with Williams – anxiously on course in the paddock at Sunbury - led home a stable one-two completed by Kitty’s Light.

The three Williams contributors collected almost £160,000. On what was the worst performance of his life Mandaloun “earned” £222,222 for finishing ninth in the world’s richest race.

For anyone waiting for news of Glen Again who now has been taken out twice so far when due to make his hurdles debut, I can tell you he has two possible entries later this week. Ian Williams has to choose between Ludlow on Thursday and Newbury the following day. At least the ground will not be heavy wherever he goes.

- TS

Monday Musings: Williams truly a man for all seasons

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The Dubai Carnival 2022 has crept up on me, but I had a quiet day at home on Friday and had a good look as William Buick and Charlie Appleby dominated their home meeting with a hat-trick in the last three of six at Meydan, writes Tony Stafford. They cleaned up with Lazuli, 8-11 in a Group 2 sprint; Manobo, 4-9 in a Group 3 over 14 furlongs; and a “handicap” where Valiant Prince bolted home at 13-8 with stones seemingly to spare in completing the set.

The Racing UK coverage for Dubai has never been over-critical of the hosts but the way Angus McNee and Rishi Persad over-gushed after Manobo’s undoubtedly impressive performance in the 89k to the winner Nad Al Sheba Trophy, at the exclusion of all others in the 15-horse field, was an exercise in stating the obvious.

Here was a horse unbeaten in four runs in Europe, starting when a 5-1 scorer under Adam Kirby at Newbury in May – from Mojo Star whose next outing was when runner-up to Charlie’s Adayar in the Derby. He followed up the next month with Buick in the saddle, emphatically by six lengths at 4-11 at Kempton.

Charlie then gave him a break before moving him up in grade, collecting a Listed race at Saint-Cloud at 7-10 by ten lengths with James Doyle riding in September. Doyle again had the mount, and 7-10 was also the price when he out-pointed fellow Appleby three-year-old Kemari, the Queen’s Vase winner from Royal Ascot, in the Group 2 Prix Chaudenay at Longchamp’s Arc meeting.

Over-qualified to a degree then for a ballast-filled race nominally a notch lower, actually rather more so. Thus it was hardly unexpected when he drew away easily to make it five from five given his rating of 114. The winning margin was almost six lengths. A second Godolphin runner, Global Heat ridden by Frankie Dettori for Saeed Bin Suroor, was third. He was just bettered for second favouritism by the regular Group performer Rodrigo Diaz, trained by David Simcock, who finished a modest sixth.

Totally unnoticed, or if he was, never mentioned in all the time I waited for it, were the identities of the other money-earners.  Even after they came back from the domestic action for the next Meydan race, Rishi was revealing: “We’ve been talking about Manobo the whole time!” I’ve no doubt they were.

Anyway I’d like to keep you in suspense for a little while longer. On the day of Manobo’s Newbury debut, a six-year-old gelding fresh from the UAE where he had been trained for all of his 14 career starts, none successful, lined up in one of the handicaps at Newbury with an opening UK rating of 70.

I remember looking on the morning of the race thinking that was stern enough especially when taking it in the context of a £6k (30k AED) sale price out of Doug Watson’s stable more than two years earlier.

The horse was called East Asia, the new trainer Ian Williams and his owner Sayed Hashish, a businessman in Dubai, wanted to give him a chance in the UK. Partnered by Richard Kingscote, the 16-1 chance shot clear two from home in the mile-and-a-half mile handicap and won by almost five lengths.

Stepped up in trip for his next two races at Goodwood, Williams turned to William Buick and, riding him with great confidence, he won twice more, comfortably each time as his turf rating rose.

Buick was not employed in the immediate aftermath with the obvious difficulty of timing the races with his Godolphin commitments and East Asia had a relatively quiet spell. Then, coming to the last rites of the turf season, Buick became available for a race at Nottingham and normal service resumed. All that remained was a tilt at the November Handicap where Buick was otherwise engaged riding a double at the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar; so Kingscote stepped back in.

This time there was no happy ending: East Asia, held up a long way back, hated the cloying mud of Town Moor and finished just below halfway. That left him with a mark of 90 and anyone who has ever sent a horse out to the Carnival with a rating as low as that will know how difficult it can be to get into a race.

But Sayed Hashish is an optimistic chap and fuelled by the four wins from nine starts his UK trainer had supplied him from the previous non-winner in 14, he decided to take the risk. Balloted out in the early weeks, Williams found the answer with Friday’s Group 3, in which East Asia had the lowest rating of all.

He also gave the same entry to a second stable runner, Enemy, there on his second run since being bought in November in France for €92k out of the stable of Francis Graffard, the Aga Khan’s new principal trainer.  Enemy had been running over a mile and a furlong or less in France and started at that trip a week earlier. He finished unplaced, albeit barely five lengths behind Lord Glitters.

Williams told me he thought he would stay and that the much-increased trip would suit but he too was among the lowest-rated in the line-up. The pair, understandably both 66-1 shots, turned for home in the last trio with Enemy right at the back. They both took a rails course coming home and if East Asia had not been slightly blocking his stablemate at a crucial stage, according to Williams: “They might have finished the other way around.”

Anyway East Asia stayed on for second under Richard Mullen, greatly out-running his rating (24lb less than the winner) with Enemy and Andrea Atzeni an eye-catchingly closing fourth. In case you hadn’t noticed, Racing TV – and, don’t worry, I still prefer your coverage to ITV, except of course when they show Ascot or Doncaster on a Saturday – this was a monumental training performance.

Ian tells me he thinks East Asia, who collected almost 30k for those efforts might now be getting an invitation to the Gold Cup on Dubai World Cup Day. No wonder Mr Hashish is telling his friends what to do with their old handicappers. Meanwhile, Enemy’s new owners, Tracey Bell and Caroline Lyons, have the prospect of an exciting season ahead with their five-year-old.

It might seem much longer ago, but it was as recently as the autumn of 2017 that Williams encouraged Dr Marwan Koukash to buy the apparently fully-exposed Magic Circle from Ralph Beckett towards the end of his five-year-old season. Few trainers would expect to induce much improvement from that trainer’s skilled handling but, for 70,000gns, Williams had a project.

First up, six months later, it was the doctor’s Holy Grail, the Chester Cup, and with Fran Berry in the saddle Magic Circle ran out a six-length winner from Hughie Morrison’s Fun Mac. The Group 2 Henry II Stakes at Sandown came next and it was another six-length romp for the six-year-old, this time excellent yardstick Red Verdon took second for Ed Dunlop.

Immediately after (or probably knowing the connections, sometime before) the plan was hatched to go for the Melbourne Cup.

Nine years previously, a much cheaper buy, Munsef, led out unsold at £11k from Dandy Nicholls, was then bought privately as a seven-year-old on May 20th 2009 and, by late summer, within weeks he had won three and finished second twice including in a Swedish Group 3. That resulted in a Melbourne Cup qualifying mark and so, that November as a 50-1 chance, he carried the Koukash silks to a close up 11th of 23.

Contrastingly, for most of the summer of 2018, Magic Circle was the favourite for Australia’s most coveted race, but on the day at Flemington he started a point longer at 6-1 to Aidan O’Brien’s 5-1 market leader Yukatan.

The winner this time was the Appleby-trained Cross Counter, a top-class three-year-old who just held off Hughie ‘s Marmelo, now a stallion, and Charlie Fellowes’ Melbourne Cup regular – until last year – Prince Of Arran.  Magic Circle finished in the back third having faded over the last two furlongs, but the dream, as with East Asia for his owner, had been more than fulfilled.

As he returns to his yard near Birmingham, this trainer for all seasons and all types of horses, faces one of his biggest ever challenges. Tomorrow he sends out Glen Again for his hurdles debut at Market Rasen in Raymond Tooth’s colours. I’ll be there, so let’s give it a good show!

Williams had a good second with his promising novice chaser Tide Times at Wincanton on Saturday but the highlight for me was the great attempt of Kim Bailey’s 25-1 shot Two For Gold in the Betfair Ascot Chase. If Joseph O’Brien had forgotten to enter J P McManus’ Fakir d’Oudairies, Two For Gold would have won. Only one Irish runner all day and inevitably the best prize of the afternoon goes west!

Kim will have been more than delighted with second especially as the novice Does He Know had already spread-eagled the opposition in the Reynoldstown Novices’ Chase. Pre-Irish domination, that was the race I always liked to see my three-mile Cheltenham novice chase fancies win, but nowadays pretty much all the contenders lurk over there.

Before you look round, Cheltenham will have come and gone, but one possible entry that I am looking forward to is Poetic Music who might tackle the big Irish boys in the bumper. We know she can fly up the hill so getting a hefty 17lb from the hot Mullins favourite and the rest, anything may be possible for the apple of Sally Randell’s eye!

- TS

Monday Musings: Snow’s Got a White National Chance

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Yesterday, high up on Haldon Hill overlooking Exeter the mist rolled in as winter rainfall finally reached jumping racecourses after a frustratingly dry New Year, writes Tony Stafford. Shining through the murk as she always does and stealing the show was an old mare, nominally grey but in effect as white as the caps that J P McManus’s first strings sport on the racecourses of the UK and Ireland.

J P was cleaning up this weekend with a treble a day at Naas and Punchestown, but those exploits and the 3,000 and a fair few wins he already owns will hardly matter a jot if the said 10-year-old grand lady, Snow Leopardess to you and me, wins the 2022 Grand National.

Since 1839 when Lottery set the ball rolling in the world’s best jumps race ever challenged for, only 13 mares have won it. In the race’s early days there were loads, ten in the first 50 years. That makes it three – that’s right only three – in the next century and a third! After Frigate (number ten) in 1889, there’s only been Shannon Lass (1902), Sheila’s Cottage in 1948 and Nickel Coin in 1951.

Unless you’re almost as old as me you would not have been around for any of them – unlike me, here for the last two. But I hadn’t yet begun my interest in racing – that came with the following year’s King George VI Chase which we used to watch on my great-uncle’s television when we went to their big house at Christmas – so it starts with the Galloway Braes and Halloween battles between 1952 and 1954.

I suppose you can say I was as much brain-washed to county cricket at the Oval, football at Highbury, and racing everywhere from the early-1950’s to an extent that others might be fed politics of a certain standpoint and other life-defining attitudes.

Seventy years on, those three pastimes, nay obsessions, are intact and if anything reinforced by having had the opportunity to write about them. Thus when a Snow Leopardess comes along I think we should give full credit to the mare herself; the owners who bred her dam to a wonderful stallion, and her trainer Charlie Longsdon, who has guided her to an already exceptional series of achievements. If the final one happens, his role will only then be fully appreciated.

Charlie likes winning first time out with his horses – you only have to look as far back as Saturday at Warwick to see how Gaelic Park: “not really a bumper horse, more a galloper”, as he suggested, bolted up first time.

Two weeks short of six years ago, the daughter of the brilliant French jumps stallion Martaline made a winning debut at Doncaster, seeing off the heavily-backed Nicky Henderson-trained Rather Be. Charlie was Hendo-trained too – he was his former assistant.

There were a couple of highlights in her early days. One fifth place in the Aintree bumper spelt enough for her first season, but then she was shipped out first time next autumn for a valuable Listed bumper at Gowran Park and beat a Gordon Elliott mare and 18 others to pick up a €20k prize.

She was at it again at the end of that season, having in between won one minor hurdle race at Doncaster at 9/2 on. Here again she came home clear of a big field (16 runners this time) to win the EBF Mares’ handicap hurdle final at Newbury that March. The prize? another £22k.

Now, Snow Leopardess likes nothing more than winning first time sent to a new country, so after a six-month break Charlie despatched her to Auteuil for a conditions hurdle for, you guessed it, €21k. She duly beat seven rivals under James Reveley but unfortunately that’s where she sustained the injury that promised to end her career.

Snow Leopardess and her owners the Fox-Pitt family, though, do not believe in standing idle and, while recuperating, the mare was sent to Derby-winning stallion Sir Percy, the product of that union arriving early in 2019.

Amazingly, 26 months on from that ill-fated albeit winning trip to France she was back in action for a truncated twice unplaced campaign. She still the added one victory to her previous five in eight last term and also ran a remarkable race when finishing fourth in the National Hunt Chase, having lost her place when briefly outpaced on the faster than ideal ground. Nothing finished better than her as she chased 2022 Gold Cup candidate Galvin up the hill.

The story has developed apace this winter. After winning a nice handicap chase at Bangor – no she’d been there once before so the new country syndrome was not in operation this time – she then showed the most carefree disdain of the Aintree fences when dominating most of the three and a quarter mile Becher Chase in soft ground ten weeks ago. The Aintree run-in was another matter.

Her stride was understandably shortening in those last demanding yards but the nose by which she bravely held on was never more deserved. Switching back to a conventional three miles yesterday at Exeter for her first try at Listed class over fences might have been a pitfall waiting to happen but where her opposition of experienced and prolific-winning steeplechasers dropped away one by one, she slogged through the mud for a 12-length success.

A deserved increase (“not too high!” says Charlie) in her 145 rating should ensure she gets in the field come April and as Longsdon said afterwards: “We have to hope for a wet spring.”

Her career tally from only 19 starts is a remarkable nine successes at a rate that is very high up among the best products of Martaline. It would be very tidy if she could make it 50% at Aintree.

She jumped some of yesterday’s fences with feet to spare and I remember marvelling at the way she was clearing the fences in the Becher Chase. While not as formidable as in the bad old days, you still have to jump 30 of them and, Tiger Roll apart if he shows this time, there won’t be a horse better equipped to handle them, or the stamina test needed if it does turn soft.

As I said earlier, only three mares during the last 132 years have won the Grand National. Equally amazingly in its entire history only three grey horses have ever won it, The Lamb, twice in 1868 and 1871; Nicolaus Silver (1961) which my dad told me he’d backed after I got home from playing in the London Grammar Schools six-a side football championships at Chiswick that morning, and Neptune Collonges in 2012.

Snow Leopardess is already guaranteed one distinction if she does succeed. She’ll be the first grey mare to win it. Probably the early winning mares, namely Charity (1841), Miss Mowbray (1852), Anatis (1860), Jealousy (1861), Emblem (1863) or Emblematic the following year would have had other duties to perform.

Assuredly they would have been worked on farms, maybe pulled the milkman’s float or the brewer’s dray and then needed to be walked however many miles from their home base to Liverpool for their big race day. It could well be the case that one or more of them might have had a foal, but we can say for sure that Snow Leopardess would be doubly unique – the first grey mare to win the race and the first to add having a foal to that singular distinction.

As the enormity of the potential situation gathers momentum, rather in the manner of Andrew Gemmell three years ago when Paisley Park won his Stayers’ Hurdle, or through Rachael Blackmore’s domination of Cheltenham last year, you can expect a media barrage. Charlie, I hope you are ready for it.

Dermot Weld duly won with his Cheltenham possible Falcon Eight in his novice test at Thurles on Thursday. Having looked to have a lot to do half a mile from home, magically he had completely eroded the gap from the leaders in a trice. You were allowed to see just a glimpse of the class he showed in winning the Chester Cup off 104 last May and a little brushing up of the jumping technique could produce another giant step forward.

My friends who have the 33/1 run guaranteed for the Albert Bartlett on the Friday will be hoping for dry weather. The beauty is, having backed him for Thurles, they know canny Dermot will not let him run if it turns soft at Prestbury Park so they are in a win/win situation. Especially if he win wins!

Focus this week is on my long-term boss Raymond Tooth’s return to ownership with the Ian Williams-trained Glen Again who makes his hurdles debut at Fontwell on Thursday. If he runs as fast and jumps as beautifully as he looks – which the trainer suggests he might – Ray could have some fun for the rest of this season and for a few more. Fingers crossed, as they say!

- TS

Monday Musings: Conflation

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The punters were loving it in the packed grandstands at Leopardstown during the two days of the Dublin Racing Festival as favourite after favourite went in, writes Tony Stafford. A host of Grade 1 races meant a conveyer belt of superb winners, confirming the power of the big stables almost in the manner of the Cold-War style May Day Parades in Moscow’s Red Square.

For armoured tanks and missile launchers read Mullins chasers and hurdlers, Elliott juveniles and handicap chasers not to mention the odd De Bromhead stealth bomber still to taste defeat in 14 faultless sorties.

Honeysuckle and Blackmore; Chacun Pour Soi and Townend; and, most demoralising for all the existing Gold Cup stars, a demolition job by Conflated and Russell in the Paddy Power Irish Gold Cup, at 18-1 which brought only a temporary respite for the layers on Saturday.

Conflated can certainly describe Mr Ryanair. He has the twin roles of running Ireland’s most visible and visibly competitive airline along with a still massive undertaking with Gigginstown House Stud. The culls in the latter direction have clearly become evident. Only nine in the maroon colours appeared during the two days and 15 races of the Festival, a long way short of the days when the sort of big-money handicap chases and hurdles on offer here would have usually included half a dozen of his representatives in each. Whatever happened to all those caps? JP’s are all different colours to theirs so no taker there!

Gordon Elliott’s suspension last year coupled with the Covid restrictions were a convenient moment conflatedly to confirm Michael O’Leary’s support for Elliott and at the same time accelerate the cull. The horse Conflated, happily for the magnate and his racing manager brother Eddie, ran in the Gold Cup despite Eddie’s view he had no chance.

The relative outsider, although well backed in the lead-up to the race, had far too much speed for last year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Minella Indo – showing something of his true self – and the rest. The one coming through late into the Gold Cup field often beats the established stars at Cheltenham. He usually has had fewer hard battles and knocks lingering in the recesses of his consciousness to shrink from on the big day.

We – or at least our trainers – moan about the way the Irish come and pinch our biggest prizes every March, with last year’s almost total oblivion, perhaps, being the final straw. Paul Nicholls seems to err on the cautious side at Cheltenham these days in favour of more serious involvement at Aintree at the Grand National meeting but he did make a challenge for two of this weekend’s big prizes.

Frodon, who had beaten Minella Indo at Down Royal on their joint reappearance back in the autumn – with Galvin splitting the pair – does not have a Cheltenham entry this year. This was his Cheltenham, running in a three-mile rather than three-and-a quarter-mile Gold Cup on Saturday.

The near-veteran put up his usual prominent showing under Bryony Frost, but when the taps were turned on over the second-last they were immediately raising a white flag, coming home a remote last of the seven finishers more than 20 lengths behind Conflated.

Then yesterday, Greaneteen, outpointed last time by Shishkin at Kempton having previously won the Tingle Creek, was utterly rolled over finishing last of five, miles behind Chacun Pour Soi in the Dublin Chase, a Grade 1 extended two-miler.

Those two obviously below-par performances will have been a sobering experience for Nicholls, a man who recently clocked up his domestic century of winners this season, just after Donald McCain and before the upwardly and geographically-mobile Irishman Fergal O’Brien.

More to the point though at a time when complaints about UK prizemoney are unrelentingly put forward by trainers and owners alike, surely it was an indictment of the lack of enterprise here that no other UK trainer – and there are more than 500 of them if you include permit holders – was daring enough to have a shot at the €2,881,500 on offer for the 15 races.

In all, 91 prizes were available over the two days and between them Messrs Mullins and Elliott snaffled 42% of the money – Mullins €702,000 from seven wins, five thirds, five fourths, seven fifths and three sixths; and Elliott almost precisely half a million from three wins, seven second places, two thirds, two fourths, six fifths and one sixth place.

In an almost exact proportion of prizes they collected 41 of the 91 on offer. The usual suspects filled in for the rest with Henry de Bromhead just about keeping his head above water with Honeysuckle’s wide-margin victory in the Chanelle Pharma Irish Champion Hurdle.

Understandably Honeysuckle was roared all the way from the winning line to the enclosure by an enraptured crowd finally allowed to give vent on a racecourse to their feelings. For what it’s worth, my view watching from the owners’ room at Kempton – my first time at one of my favourite spots on the circuit for almost two years – was that there were a couple of slightly worrying elements.

She probably got a little lonely out in front and while there was never a proper challenge, it wasn’t as smooth as some of the earlier wins. You have to wonder – well I did anyway – whether she might be getting bored with the whole “I’m miles better than the rest of you” girl-power routine?

Why Kempton, you might ask? Well I was there to watch the comeback of Jonathan Barnett’s Year Of The Dragon – sorry mate, it’s the Year of the Tiger! – after seven months off. A strong-finishing third, while a little short of peak suggests a win next time. February 24 at Newcastle fits William Knight’s penchant for sending his horses to that northern outpost. Fill your boots!

On another fill your boots theme, I had a nice chat with Dermot Weld at the sales at Newmarket on Thursday and he had news of his Chester Cup winner from last year. His Falcon Eight, under Frankie Dettori, took advantage of lenient UK handicapping to win the big staying prize from a mark of 104.

This Thursday he will have his second run over hurdles in a near-three-mile novice event at Thurles and as Dermot said: “When he wins he’ll go to the Albert Bartlett. And by the way, the English trainers were moaning about his handicapping and getting their knickers in a twist but he had been dropped only 4lb!” True enough Dermot, but to be dropped at all after finishing fourth in the Irish St Leger wasn’t exactly harsh treatment by BHA’s finest! We’ll be cheering for you on Thursday though with our vouchers for the potato race at the Festival warming our inside pockets for the next few weeks.

Returning to Leopardstown, surely the most eye-opening performance of the lot was Saturday’s bumper victory of Facile Vega, trained by Willie, ridden by Patrick and the second foal to run of their great champion mare, Quevega. I sort of hinted what I would be doing if I owned a mare of such quality – much as Michael Tabor did in his mating for Refinement that produced Walking On Air - and send her to Derby runner-up Walk in the Park. Suppose it’s easy if you own both the mare and the stallion!

It worked fine for Facile Vega’s workmanlike first run but here he was so dominating in outclassing a field of previous winners that the trainer seems set for a ridiculous 12th success in the Champion Bumper with a horse that is odds-on even before the entries are known.

Last year’s winner of that race, Sir Gerhard, was not the first string when he made it 11 for the maestro that day and, with Rachael Blackmore riding, he overcame hot favourite Kilcruit and Patrick Mullins, who himself had been ultra-impressive in this race twelve months ago.

Yesterday, in the Cheveley Park Stud colours and with only a single defeat – by Kilcruit when they reconvened at Punchestown, the gelding brought his tally to five out of six with an easy win in the Grade 1 novice hurdle. Now we have to wait and see whether another re-match is possible. More pertinently, perhaps, will be which Nicky Henderson star, the afore-mentioned Walking On Air (who would need to be supplemented) or Constitution Hill or Jonbon, he prefers to face before deciding on the Supreme or Ballymore.

The relentless march of the big Irish stables with their ability to identify and then secure with their greater financial power the best prospects is a trend that no end of BHA committees, tough talk from trainers and retaliation from handicappers will arrest any time soon. Major owners increasingly have their horses trained over there as there are meetings like last weekend’s when they can tilt for almost €3 million. Would it were so in England!

- TS

Monday Musings: Playing the Long (Distance) Game

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Sometimes the story exceeds its components: the myth overcomes reality, writes Tony Stafford. For instance, how many Stayers Hurdles has the now ten-year-old Paisley Park won in his 20-race, ten-win hurdles career? Two, no three one’s mind wants to say. We’ve seen Andrew Gemmell, his owner, celebrate so many times. Sorry memory – and that went for me too just now until I checked – it’s just the one.

Yes, that day almost three years ago now when the Emma Lavelle-trained gelding sailed up the Cheltenham hill under Aidan Coleman clear of Sam Spinner and the rest to create a magical afternoon also charmed by victory on Frodon under Bryony Frost.

The owner, blind from birth but able to build quite a stable of horses having spent a successful career working in local government, has moved on notably also as a leading shareholder among the Barbary Lions in the champion Alan King-trained Flat-race stayer Trueshan. Andrew has enjoyed many wonderful days but Saturday’s third victory for Paisley Park in the Grade 1 Cleeve Hurdle at Cheltenham was very different as he was unable to be present.

At the time Paisley Park came up the hill to tumultuous cheers from the packed stands, his owner was in London Bridge Hospital recovering from surgery on a heart valve. He was intent on getting the surgery out of the way so he can be at the Festival.

As to the Stayers Hurdle, in 2020, sent off at 4-6 Paisley Park was only seventh behind Lisnagar Oscar – a well beaten third on Saturday in receipt of 6lb. Last year, again favourite, albeit at a more conservative 9-4, he was third, closest at the line behind the all-the-way, indeed runaway, Irish six-year-old Flooring Porter.

Coming into Saturday, the auguries for Paisley Park were far from bright. He now has a 12lb lower handicap mark – a relatively modest 157 – than after that Stayers Hurdle triumph in 2019. He had been third three times in succession in lead-up races at Wetherby, Newbury and Ascot, latterly in the Long Walk Hurdle, a Grade 1 race he had previously won, around five lengths behind Champ.

Re-opposing on identical terms, the last expectation was that he would revive old memories and many people were talking up the re-directed chaser Champ as the likeliest Stayers Hurdle winner, the Irish excepted and in some cases included. Indeed, such had been the impression created at Ascot by the J P McManus horse that the Irish were temporarily forgotten especially when Klassical Dream’s much-anticipated midweek trial for the Festival ended in a weak-finishing fourth.

Now, in the manner of racing and the best tradition of wishful thinking – I’m up there wishing with them all, too – we’re projecting a nice win in a five-runner race onto success in a 15-runner championship event.

“Look at all that ground he lost when turning around as the other quartet set off”, they say. Well, try that tactic on the big day and see where it gets you if Flooring Porter goes hell for leather again. It’s hoping to turn a potential deal-breaker into a positive. Saturday’s field was thin with only two of the five-horse field both in-form (Lisnagar Oscar certainly was not) and proven at the trip.

Paisley Park remains a wonderful stayer and his victory allowed all the outpourings of emotion that are commonly ceded to jump racing’s longest-serving heroes. We should take it as one more very welcome reminder of his talent rather that expect him to match or improve on it in six weeks’ time.  For his owner, just imagine how agonising it must be having to hear rather than see it happening. A remarkable man!

Earlier on the same Cheltenham card, we saw a very likely Festival winner in the shape of the Gordon Elliott-trained Pied Piper. The way this four-year-old by New Approach was followed vainly up the hill by his lesser rivals suggests his breeder, HM The Queen, was far-sighted in naming him.

Trained by the Gosdens, an easy win off 89 at Leicester in heavy ground on his last run before Tatts Horses In Training sale brought a final mark of 96 and a sale price of 225,000gns. I wonder whether Charlie Longsdon ever suggested to the powers that be that the owner-breeder might enjoy jumping him herself. Money talks, it seems, even in places maybe you’d think it would not!

If he shows up for the Triumph on the Friday of the Festival he will obviously take all the beating, such was the style of the win. Gordon Elliott also has unbeaten-in-three Fil Dor and the usual maybe we’ll go for the Supreme chat entered the equation briefly. You win the Supreme with a four-year-old, so what? Win the Triumph and if two have to go for it, needs must.

It’s not the same thing exactly, but I remember a few years back when Refinement was proving herself a top-class mare in long-distance hurdles, I asked Michael Tabor whether he would breed from her.

His answer: “How bloody old would I need to be before she has a runner?”. A home-bred foaled in 1999, Refinement won 13 of 33 races and more than £360k. Already the mother of four winners -  West Coast Time (2012), Meticulous (2014) and Risk Factor (2015) - all won in the blue and orange silks, but her most exciting prospect is a horse foaled when she was 18 years old.

That horse, Walking On Air, is trained by Nicky Henderson and is the first of the quartet to be sired by Walk In The Park, one of the star jumping stallions among the Coolmore NH team. If ever there was continuity of ownership and production, Walking On Air is it.

Walk In The Park, trained by John Hammond, was a home-bred of Tabor’s Irish and French Derby winner Montjeu, also trained by Hammond, an Englishman based in France who retired in the last couple of years.

Walk In The Park was runner-up in Motivator’s 2005 Derby as a big outsider and started his stud career in France standing at only €1,500. He immediately showed his propensity to produce winners and he was hastily finessed into the Coolmore nursery. Nobody – apart from anyone asking to send their mare – has ever been publicly aware of his fee. Betcha it’s a fair few Euros now!

But what a pedigree, and the way the Nicky Henderson-trained Walking On Air bolted up at Newbury on hurdles debut recently – in a similar manner to Pied Piper on Saturday – may finally make MT fully satisfied that his long-term and slightly unwilling project was worthwhile.

This column often descends into ageist talk and this week’s prime candidate for inclusion is one who made the century before his death last week. That worthy was Dick Duchossois, owner of Arlington Park racecourse in Chicago and founder of its Arlington Million.

I had one enjoyable evening at his posh estate outside the centre of Chicago when there to watch the race in the 1990’s. Arriving with festivities in full swing, I looked around for people I knew and recognised Michael Dickinson, by this time training in the US. Michael was holding forth to a table of admiring fans. As I approached, he called the table to order and said: “Meet Tony Stafford, a journalist from England. He taught me everything I know about handicapping!” As well as talking to me every night when he was still a jockey and returning back home after his sauna sessions, he was on to Colin Russell and Walter Glynn all the time, too. I never claimed a monopoly on the information, it was just me lucky enough to be there.

Michael and Joan Wakefield were at Newcastle racecourse the other night, obviously checking up on the well-being of the Tapeta surface he invented. He was chatting to Jim Goldie and Joanna Mason outside the weighing room when my pal Wilf Storey and daughter Stella came out with the colours bag after Joanna rode his horse.

Jim asked Michael if he knew Wilf, adding he’s the oldest trainer around. Michael said he did but Wilf corrected Goldie saying Joanna’s grand-father (Mick Easterby) is the oldest and Dai Burchill (to retire after a winner later in the week) was also older than him. Wilf said Michael looks as young as ever. He will be 72 on Thursday if you can believe that!

Talking of trainers packing up, it’s a great shame that Mick Quinn has called it a day after his big owner Kenny Bruce ended their relationship. Mick seemed to suggest that Bruce, a partner with his brother in Purple Bricks, who are now calling themselves in their advertising the biggest estate agency in the UK, might return some time in the future. Presumably when he can better afford it!

Mick trained a few horses for Raymond Tooth including Stanhope, a home-bred sprinter who won races before being sold to Ireland where he continued to do well. When he decided to hand in his licence, he gifted his two horses to the Northern Racing College.

One of them and the last to win him a prize was Great Hall, for his second in a Huntingdon hurdle race as an 11-year-old in October last year. A son of Halling, Great Hall was named on the way back from Manton to London as Ray and I were driven back by Steve Gilbey after Ray bought him from Brian Meehan.

He was a smart middle-distance horse who ran in the St Leger and won eight flat races and one hurdle.  He will be a wonderful schoolmaster. Mick’s colleagues on Talk Sport will be happy to welcome him back as he has more availability for punditry and commentaries, and he also looks forward to resuming his entertaining after dinner speaking.

A very nice family man, Mick Quinn is one of the most down-to-earth and cheerful of people. If he feels he didn’t get full reward for the 25 years of effort, generally with modest horses, often like with Great Hall in their declining days, he has helped make a day at the races very enjoyable for anyone he ever encountered.

- TS

Monday Musings: A Rare Weekend Indeed

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Rather more than fifty years ago, when I was serving my mercurial time at the Press Association in Fleet Street, if you had suggested staging a big-money jumps card at Lingfield in late January, they would have been sending the idea’s originators to the nearest psychiatric ward, writes Tony Stafford.

In those days the PA was the principal provider of all the information on racecourse going reports, jockey and trainers’ plans and the technological developments we all take for granted were still decades away. So we dozen or so on the in-house team, bolstered by at least as many outside reporters, would get all the information first.

It was quite handy in the days of Jockey Pools when some of the more unscrupulous members would withhold jockey changes to the newspapers, their principal clients, on a Friday night until James Lambie could get the teams’  last-minute coupons down to Euston station in time for the final permitted mail delivery for Liverpool.

We used to collect almost every week and sometimes for a nice few bob. In those days the office was split between journalists (so-called) and clerical staff, but it was we journos who master-minded the selections while generally the much bigger clerical team would simply spy and feast on them.

After seven or eight winning weeks in a row, one Sunday morning, one of their contingent came over to our desk and said: “How did we miss Edward Hide?” Cheeky bugger!

I just recalled that portion of those days when the biggest joke was about Lingfield. In the era either side of World War 2, and presumably before that, the minimum requirement for a clerk of the course was an army commission and Major was the most common.

Peter Beckwith-Smith at Lingfield had carried that rank during the war years and, as was also the tradition, into his civvy street activities for ever afterwards. He was one of the more optimistic of clerks.

The joke was that when going out on a boat to assess the prospects of racing a couple of days ahead of a Lingfield fixture, he took out his stick, leant precariously over the edge and searched for the bottom. Later in his bulletin to our office he pronounced without a hint of irony: “Underneath the water the going is good to soft”!

That’s just a flavour of how absurd it would have been in those days to schedule any meaningful meeting in January. They sometimes used to get away with the late December meeting which included one of the first informative juvenile tests of the year, but January was usually a write-off or, rather, a wash-out.

Drainage improvements have meant the abandonments are much fewer, but to say the course has been fortunate to go unscathed through their inaugural three-day (one all-weather) Winter Million bonanza is an understatement.

After about ten dry days the ground was still heavy with soft patches. Just one or two wet days would have been enough to scupper their ambitious, perhaps foolhardy, plan. I wouldn’t mind betting they might not be so lucky if they persevere with the deal next January. I hasten to add their bravery deserves to have paid off and friends who have been there all weekend have enjoyed the innovation.

It helped that ITV 4 were there as they were at Ascot on Saturday, otherwise I would have missed the best of the two tracks but most importantly the fantastic preliminary skirmish between the two Queen Mother Champion Chase contenders, Shishkin and Energumene, in Saturday’s Clarence House Chase at Ascot.

That Willie Mullins is a clever chap, sending over Energumene and asking Paul Townend to send him on from the start. That tactic surprised a few, expecting the only other serious opponent First Flow to set the pace. Rather shrewdly Luke Harvey suggested First Flow would not be quick enough and was entirely correct. But last year’s winner did figure for much of the middle part of the two miles when all three horses were in close formation.

Turning for home, though, it became a match and, with Energumene making no semblance of an error, racing close to the rails and not losing a millimetre, he was almost metronomic from start to finish.

It would clearly require a champion to beat him and with Shishkin not as fluent as his Irish rival and the occasional jump to the left losing a little ground, surely he had met his Waterloo (or at least Clapham Junction, as the final destination will not occur for another seven weeks). But Nico De Boinville still had time coming to the last to change his whip, settle the horse momentarily and then drive him to pick up and pass his rival with the characteristic flying finish he always contrives.

Meanwhile, the doughty First Flow was picking up the far from negligible third prize of sixteen grand which would have satisfied Kim Bailey even if 18 lengths adrift of the second and 19 from the winner. Amoola Gold, never mentioned before here or in the race either except as an onlooker from the rear as an 80-1 shot for the Skeltons, plotted his way home safely.

It made for a remunerative schooling round and his owners, the Pinks, had the excitement of sharing the paddock with, as Kim said beforehand, “Two of the racing Gods” and hopefully took advantage of the wonderful lunch available in the Ascot Owners’ Suite. After their race it would have been the ideal time for afternoon tea before going home.

I would not be shocked if that old shrewdie Dan hasn’t already sorted out a Festival target for Amoola Gold and his respectful distance adrift the top two and equally First Flow should not lead to a significant alteration to his tasty 151 rating. He’s the first contender on my list for one of the valuable handicaps.

The Clarence House, as befits a Grade 1, was worth £85,000 to the brilliant winner. Nicky Henderson is entitled to believe he has the boxes ticked for the big day but equally Willie Mullins will know more about how possibly to attack Shishkin. If Shishkin’s less secure or, rather, less accurate jumping is ironed out, there is probably no way back for the Irish but maybe a few more jumps upside him might make him uneasy. They need to try something, but whatever they come up with, the re-match promises to be the race of the week.

Yesterday’s Fleur De Lys Chase over two and three-quarter miles and worth £78,000 to the winner despite being ungraded, was another thriller, if one laced with regret as Master Tommytucker, having been smuggled into the race from a long way back by Harry Cobden, suffered a fatal injury when falling heavily at the third-last fence.

At this point Dashel Drasher, having been hounded for the lead by Lieutenant Rocco, now had to contend with Kim Bailey’s Two For Gold and old-timer Bristol De Mai, away from his Haydock comfort zone.

In a finish of swaying fortunes, the last thrust came from Two For Gold and David Bass just edging out the gallant but unfortunate Dashel Drasher and Rex Dingle, with Bristol De Mai just behind. A thriller indeed.

My favourite moment of the weekend was the opening bumper win yesterday of Hughie Morrison’s Our Jester, now a six-year-old, who followed his impressive Ascot bumper win last October with a spectacular eased-down success on the all-weather.

Hughie confessed beforehand that the owners have been keeping this excessive prize as far as bumpers are concerned in mind to brighten their January and he obliged in style under Tom O’Brien. They got £2,700 or so for Ascot but eight times as much – £21k yesterday!

Although a half-brother to the smart bumper but then Flat-race winner Urban Artist and out of bumper winning but then Royal Ascot heroine Cill Rialaig, there is one unique element to his career to date and one that strikes pertinently at my heart.

I was a great proponent of Our Jester’s sire, Garswood, in his early years at stud. Unfortunately, the former high-class sprinter-miler for Richard Fahey has long been disregarded by the never-forgiving breeding industry, consigning him to exile from Cheveley Park to a little-known nursery in France.

Trainers loved his first crop, almost to a man (or woman) big and strong, but they did not carry their physique meaningfully into battle. I mentioned a rarity with Our Jester and indeed it is. He is the only winning bumper horse (of six to try) by Garswood. I suggested to Hughie recently that maybe everyone got it wrong and despite his own speed, he should have been treated as a jumps stallion.

Knowing what his relatives have done, it could easily be that Our Jester might ply his trade later as a flat-racer; his two bumper wins will count as jumps successes but none of the other 15 Garswoods to go jumping, including those five bumper non-winners, have yet to pick up a single National Hunt race. Brave Hughie, as I’ve said before, is some trainer! He trains what he sees, not what people tell him to expect.

 - TS

Monday Musings: Hendo’s Stamping Ground

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Not much happened on another of those weeks which comprise the Phoney War between Christmas and You Know What, writes Tony Stafford. Apart that is from the septuagenarian trainer who recorded his 274th, 275th, 276th and 277th wins around Kempton’s jumping course since the Racing Post rather irresponsibly delayed its first issue in 1988 until after See You Then had already won his three Champion Hurdles from 1985-7.

That’s right. Nicholas Henderson LVO OBE, now 71 and newly recovered from Covid, would hardly have been in the best of form on Saturday morning. The fog had enveloped that much-beloved, dead flat slice of Sunbury-on-Thames from early morning and with the temperature being unhelpfully slow to rise, prospects for the meeting looked slim.

Two morning inspections came and went and I’m pretty sure that if it hadn’t been principally for the fact that Kempton’s greatest supporter both in terms of runners and with regard to its welfare, had a hatful ready to go, Barney Clifford might not have given it a final late-morning look.

It had been like that, too, earlier on Hendo’s private Lambourn gallop at just after dawn but there the fog never lifted and the stars having their top-ups with big targets imminent managed to get from A to B with only their riders having a clue of what went on. A fit-again trainer did, though, make it to Kempton.

And meanwhile, Barney did wait and magically the fog lifted rather fortuitously as the river can almost be heard gliding alongside the old but now-disused Jubilee course on its way to Hampton Court and thence the sea. Barney’s job done, it was left to Henderson, having already in the morning confirmed Shishkin for the Clarence House Chase next weekend – maybe Willie Mullins and Energumene might be the ones to blink and pass up the pre-Festival date with two-mile destiny – to fill his boots.

It was at Kempton over Christmas that Shishkin did his demolition job on Tingle Creek scorer, Greaneteen. On Saturday a quartet of winners at 7-1 (Falco Blitz), 15-8 (Mister Fisher) 9-2 Caribean Boy, and 11/2 First Street, equated to an 821-1 four-timer. If instead of finishing second at 22/1 in the finale and beating First Street, the four-timer involving Mengli Khan would have been 2908-1.

In addition Call Me Lord was third at 33-1 in the featured Lanzarote Handicap Hurdle, unbelievably well into its 40’s honouring the memory of the great Fred Winter-trained champion. Henderson spent his time as assistant and also stable amateur with Fred and ever since his training career has been conducted mainly on the top courses in the Southern part of the country, albeit with some diversions to such as Aintree, Doncaster and Haydock. It was good to see perennially under-rated Jack Quinlan get a chance in a big race and he took it with both hands on Ben Case’s runaway Lanzarote winner, Cobblers Dream.

This week, again with little to talk about, I thought I’d have a brief look at elements of the Henderson career and found one rather nice oddity. In the Lerner and Loewe musical My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle, being taught elocution as she attemps to turn herself from a Covent Garden flower girl to a lady fit for society, has to enunciate : ”In Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire hurricanes hardly ever happen”, managing  in true Cockney fashion to drop all the h’s. No such problem for ‘enderson!

There are no jumps racecourses in Hertford or Hampshire, but Nicky has his share of wins at Hereford. To draw out a rather unnecessary segment of his career totals, at three alphabetically consecutive northern tracks, which fit the tempo of that far-off line, we can say “To Carlisle, Cartmel and Catterick, Henderson hardly travels.” With respectively two from four, one from three and three from 11, his horses have been to each of them far fewer times than me!

Hoping that my arithmetic has not been too inaccurate, I believe Henderson has won around £47 million in stakes from his 3017 jumps winners in the post-1988 period of his momentous career. I had some great times from close up in the prime of life of Ray Tooth’s Punjabi, notably the four trips to Punchestown which, while bringing two Grade 1 wins, denied him a shot at any Chester Cup, a race I always believed would have suited him. When he won his Champion Hurdle I was home alone on the sofa recovering from a detached retina.

Newbury comes next numerically in the roll call of Henderson victories but it is with some surprise that while his 267 tally at his local track is only ten short of Kempton, his prize-money haul is a clear £1 million less, £3.4million to Kempton’s almost £4.5 million.

Prestbury Park has been only third in the winner count with 209 victories, but the financial return has been a massive £12.2 million. Aintree, Sandown and Ascot have all also been wonderful venues for this classiest of operations.

Over the years the constant characteristic, especially among the two-miler chasers, has been just how sleek and classy they all have looked. Even non-expert paddock watchers have a decent shot at recognising a Henderson horse without the aid of his distinctive sheet.

With the largely good-ground team firmly in form, and with the weather unseasonably dry for the time of year, hopes must be high for the Festival. Shishkin and last week’s brilliant Sandown Tolworth Hurdle hero Constitution Hill look two of the more obvious potential home winners.

I’ve had a number of Moaning Minnie shots at the handicappers throughout the last few months. Last week, though, talking to Nicky Richards he felt the new approach of giving more lenient initial marks to novice winners could help increase the number of horses running on their merits in those races.

I hate to think what the Irish officials make of the big-field novice events over there where five or six (at a stretch) with a chance are already detached from the rest of the field by a wide margin before the second flight. The second much larger group then has a private battle to fight out fifth or sixth place.

Where would you begin if you were a handicapper in those circumstances? Equally why should trainers of those inferior animals get into an early tussle with Messrs Mullins, De Bromhead and Elliott and have a hard race for no potential  benefit… rather get an 85 rating and come to England, off 95 as it now is, and where the finishing straights are paved with gold!

Insurance companies have been good supporters of races at various big UK meetings of late and the Jonathan Palmer-Brown influence was felt with successive sponsorships of the race with the registered BHA title of the Golden Miller Chase, remembering the five-time Gold Cup hero of the inter-war period.

Palmer-Brown, a successful flat-race owner with the Hannons, through his company JLT, supported the two and a half mile novice chase which opens day three. Then a few years ago when JLT was being absorbed in the Marsh McLennan Agency in a deal brokered among others with Marsh’s Dominic Burke, Palmer-Brown – with the Festival’s well-being in mind – negotiated a continued initial period of support under the Marsh banner.

Burke, Chairman of Newbury racecourse, has been in the news lately. Last week he was a partner with Tim Syder in two winners. Firstly, Dr T J Eckleburg, trained by Olly Murphy, won a novice hurdle at Ludlow; and then on Saturday the Emma Lavelle-trained Éclair Surf was the wide-margin winner of Warwick’s valuable long-distance Classic Chase for the pair. This year the Marsh name has disappeared from Thursday’s opening race title and the contest will be henceforth known as the Turners Chase.

Whether Marsh McLennan’s US principals deemed the Marsh Chase brought little publicity benefit in terms of value for money or not, they might well have been advised that it could have been a different story this year. The Turners – nice ring to it, don’t you think? - is the chosen target for Bob Olinger, who won well at Punchestown yesterday. In so doing he was maintaining an unbeaten chase record in his two starts since strolling home clear in his novice hurdle test last March.

He is a very hot favourite for that race and trainer Henry De Bromhead will be basing his team around him, along with Honeysuckle on the Tuesday in her repeat Champion Hurdle challenge and Minella Indo and A Plus Tard, last year’s Gold Cup one-two. Can’t wait, and also can’t believe I got through 1,400 words without using ‘the C word’! [No, not that one! Ed.]

- TS

Monday Musings: Hill has the Constitution for Cheltenham

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In these quality-starved weeks after the Christmas and New Year holiday periods, we seek largely in vain for a few strands of straw from which to build a brick or two of worthwhile form, writes Tony Stafford. The obsession with identifying UK horses capable of winning at Cheltenham 2022 is beginning to look a bit like Nicky Henderson – stricken at the weekend at home in Lambourn with Covid – alone against the world.

Actually the bricks-from-straw metaphor more accurately refers to my flimsy resources in putting together enough thoughts to make a 1200-1600-word weekly article at this time of year. Always the first glimmer of optimism is provided by the <clichés will say "rapidly-"> but for the sake of accuracy it’s "steadily-"increasing daylight.

I popped out on Sunday at 4.15 p.m. to the local shop and it was still light but already dark when I got home. Nine weeks to Cheltenham means 90 minutes more at either end of the day. Soon after, the clocks go forward and so do we. But that’s not saying much about racing.

The Henderson horse charged with defending his trainer’s and nation’s honour has instantly switched from the superb Shishkin, who some believe could find the brick wall of Willie Mullins’ former UK-raced pointer Energumene ending his Queen Mother Champion Chase hopes.

No, a new star emerged over the weekend in the shape of Constitution Hill, named after the road that flanks the big garden wall alongside Buckingham Palace on one side and Green Park in London’s West End on the other.

Constitution Hill, ridden by Nico De Boinville in the colours of Michael Buckley, put in an extraordinary performance in the mud at Sandown Park on Saturday, running right away from a quintet of nice novices, going two to their one as the old commentators used to put it.

Rarely do you witness horses coming up an incline in muddy conditions seemingly giving no mind to the arduous nature of the task. He could have been running up to the winning post on good ground at Royal Ascot so little did he look like a jumper somewhere near the end of his tether, as most animals have been this past couple of weeks.

Constitution Hill was the sixth Henderson winner of the Tolworth Hurdle, now sponsored by Unibet but a race of several guises and a few venues with seasonal abandonments, meaning Ascot, Warwick and Kempton have all played temporary host to this much-coveted novice prize.

A glance back at its history since inauguration in 1976 reveals the inevitable Desert Orchid in 1984, so he’s on that roll of honour as well as the Clarence House (initially Victor Chandler Chase) as was chronicled last week.

Henderson’s first of six, New York Rainbow in 1992, was also owned by Buckley, but I recall his owning smart horses even earlier than that. For almost three years between 1969 and late 1971 I was on the Press Association racing desk and just before I left, John De Moraville, son of the former trainer of the same name who handled the wonderful stayer and later breed-defining jumps stallion Vulgan, joined the team. John later became Bendex at the Daily Express, following the colourful Charles Benson in the role. He was still later a Jockey Club/BHA jumps handicapper.

John was half-brother to Peter Bailey, a successful jumping trainer at the time who had a youthful Michael Buckley among his owners. In those days his colours were white and black, halved I think, almost in the Oppenheimer manner and with sleeves reversed – one white, one black.

His best chaser at the time was Strombolus and while I could not find that horse’s career on wikipedia, I did find him participating in a race on the internet. I keyed in his name and was directed to the film of the 1979 King George VI Chase at Kempton Park, which was won by Tommy Carmody on Silver Buck.

As Peter O’Sullevan informed the gathered crowd, which included yours truly, victory would be the jockey’s second in a row as he had also ridden Gay Spartan to success 12 months earlier.

Tommy, who joined from Ireland as stable jockey to Tony Dickinson, would win it again on Silver Buck a year later for the hat-trick by which time Michael had taken over the licence from his father. It was during that time that Dickinson junior told me: “I’ve had that little sod William Haggas ringing me up from Harrow School again telling me how to train his mother’s horse!” Christine Feather owned Silver Buck.

The Harewood team was to make it five-in-a-row in the race when, after the 1981 renewal was lost to the weather, Wayward Lad collected the next two. Both horses featured in the Famous Five Gold Cup of 1983 but Carmody left after completing his hat-trick. He was supplanted principally by Robert Earnshaw – still working for the BHA as a stipe the last I saw – Graham <sorry mate, you can’t have a trainer’s licence> Bradley, Kevin Whyte, Dermot Browne (ahem!) but plenty more.

I used to talk to Michael most days then and when I heard Carmody, already a prominent rider in Ireland, was joining the team I decided to back him for the jump jockeys’ title and suggested to Robert Glendinning, the Daily Telegraph Racing Editor, he should back him too.

Bob duly agreed to take a tenner of my bet. A few months later, Bob was about to retire and on the Friday evening before Grand National Day as he was finishing that night he handed over the ten quid with a grunt – “worst bet I ever had!” in his best West Yorkshire tones.

It was one of my many impecunious days, so, aware there was one race still to run at Aintree, I dived down to Corals in Fleet Street and had a fiver each way on a Peter Easterby horse ridden by Alan Brown and it won at 15/2.

Also at that time I had a regular weekend slot on BBC Radio London with Wembley ice hockey announcer Norman De Mesquita – on his weeks off, substitute Simon (brother of outrageous actor Oliver) Reed, who still commentates on ice skating. I’d go off on my Friday lunch break to Marylebone High Street where Derek Thompson’s first wife (of three) Jenny was a producer.

My interview went out in a sports programme at tea-time majoring on the big meeting of the following day with a repeat on the Saturday morning show which ended at 11.30. When we did the interview I was very strong on the Gordon Richards-trained Tamalin, but by the time I got back with my winnings, he had been declared a non-runner.

A quick look through put me on to Rubstic, so I parlayed the winnings into 25 each way on him at 33’s,  then called Norman to offer to come in the following day and do the slot live. The complication was that I lived in Hertfordshire and needed to bring the family to my mother-in-law in Highbury. We left in plenty of time, but had to stop three or four times as the kids were all feeling car-sick. Listening to the show as I neared the studio, I heard Norman saying I was about to arrive. It was a tense few minutes but I made it to the studio at 11.22; duly tipped the winner and on Monday popped in to Corals again to collect. Six months later I was Racing Editor!

That 1979 King George had another link to the Tolworth Hurdle as the horse that won the first running, Grand Canyon, was in the line-up. A New Zealand-bred horse, he was trained in Sussex by Derek Kent and ridden by long-time Jockey Club/BHA starter Peter Haynes. Grand Canyon shared a good pace with Tied Cottage, later that season the disqualified winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, ruled out after his feed was found to be contaminated. Grand Canyon fell and Tied Cottage faded into fourth in the King George in question.

And a further link to this weekend was that Tied Cottage’s trainer was Dan Moore, who a decade earlier had been the highly assured handler of L’Escargot, my favourite jumper of all time and the most underrated, too, in my opinion. Dan and his wife Joan, parents of long-standing trainer Arthur, are commemorated every year in the big novice race on yesterday’s Fairyhouse card.

Silver Buck, later the 1982 Gold Cup hero, had to be ridden right out at Kempton to hold off Jack Of Trumps, one of the earliest high-class horses owned by a very youthful J P McManus. Third was another smart performer in Border Incident, trained by Richard (Lord) Head.

Strombolus was up there in the first four for a long way but gradually weakened; he subsequently won plenty of good long-distance handicaps. Buckley has done really well for almost half a century, but one of his lesser-known associations was with the 2008 Triumph Hurdle winner, Zaynar.

During the Victor Chandler Chase times, Nicky often tried to get the bookmaker into owning horses but ownership didn’t really interest him - unless he could have a major successful punt. Zaynar, who was an Aga Khan horse with a good jumping pedigree but a non-winner in three flat races in France, was offered to several people including Ray Tooth, who had Punjabi running in that year’s Champion Hurdle – he finished third. Eventually a mutual friend encouraged Chandler to buy the horse with him, initially 50/50.

Each half was later sub-divided in portions of varying size with an ownership name of Men In Our Position, an appropriate one to encompass any situation. Zaynar was unbeaten in his novice year winning the Triumph and his next two the following season before losing at 1/14 at Kelso after which he never reached the heights anticipated.

The entertaining Victor Chandler biography by the multi award-winning author Jamie Reid – Put Your Life On It – recalls that Triumph Hurdle. But the friend I mentioned remembers it for a different reason. He says with some irritation that while Michael Buckley had the smallest share, he left Prestbury Park that night with the magnificent trophy in his possession.

Buckley has had many great horses, and when for several years he reduced his involvement with jumpers and therefore Henderson, he built a significant flat-race team with Jamie Osborne. They had tremendous success together and it was by only a matter of inches that he was denied what would have been his biggest win of all.

In 2014 the three-year-old Toast Of New York, a £60k yearling buy, finished a neck runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita on the back of success in that year’s UAE Derby, and arguably should have been awarded the race in the stewards' room. He cashed in, selling the horse to Qatari interests.

Michael Buckley can look back with satisfaction at his life of involvement with top-class horses and big-race success. Who’s to say that the best of all is not still to come with Constitution Hill, starting at Cheltenham in two months?

  • TS

Monday Musings: A Quick Look Back Before We Advance

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With Boxing Day falling on a Sunday this festive season, the adjustments to the official handicap ratings for the entire Christmas to New Year period will be eagerly awaited by trainers and owners tomorrow (Tuesday) morning, writes Tony Stafford. I’d love to see the two-mile chase handicapper take full and realistic account of Shishkin after his flawless reappearance run at Kempton.

Equally, I’d expect him to allow him to take up the engagement in the Clarence House Stakes at Ascot, the sole early-closing UK jumps race in the coming three weekends, on January 22.

Nicky Henderson, having been vindicated by his decision to abort plans for the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown last month as Shishkin was not ready in favour of Kempton’s Grade 2 Desert Orchid Chase on the second day of the Christmas meeting, now faces another conundrum.

“Do we avoid Ascot and a pre-Cheltenham encounter with Energumene?” will be Henderson’s question as he ponders whether to take on Willie Mullins’ unbeaten chaser who had been equally silky on his return in another Grade 2 race, the Hilly Way, at Cork earlier last month.

Shishkin’s disdainful mastery of Tingle Creek winner Greaneteen and Bryony Frost last week was so emphatic that Mullins’ comment that Energumene will take his place in the Ascot field so early in the piece might have been a tactic to try to inject a shade of uncertainty in the Henderson psyche.

The Ascot race, initially a handicap sponsored by Victor Chandler, had its reputation immediately cemented in 1989 when Desert Orchid won the first running under 12st, getting up late under Simon Sherwood to deny Panto Prince who received 22lb. The valiant grey got up having lost the lead when making a rare mistake at the final fence.

That contest is sure to figure high up among the many memories for Desert Orchid’s trainer David Elsworth, who recently announced his retirement after an outstanding career as a dual-purpose handler spanning half a century.

In its handicap years two other top two-milers to grace its honours board were Waterloo Boy and Well Chief, but when it became a Grade 1 conditions event, the quality rose to the top. Fields were small from the outset but most of the true greats of two-mile chasing were directed there and usually won the race.

Paul Nicholls, as with most steeplechases of the modern era has been a leading light, firstly with two wins by Master Minded , whose second triumph in 2011 was by the then minimum short-head in the face of a flying finish from Somersby, trained by Best Mate’s handler Henrietta Knight and ridden by Bryony’s elder brother, Hadden Frost.

In 2008, Hadden, in his time as a flat-race apprentice with Richard Hannon, and still with a 5lb allowance, won a claiming race at Lingfield for Raymond Tooth with a filly called La Colombina. Hadden had his best season with 32 the previous season and another 18 including La Colombina in 2008.

With increasing weight taking over – he already had a first jumps success before Ray’s winner - he quickly showed that father Jimmy’s talent had been safely passed on. That second place on Somersby came in the second of six consecutive seasons when he made double figures before retirement.

Bryony had her first rides in 2012-13 and for the last five campaigns she has clocked up between 36 and 50 wins every year, standing on 36 so needing 15 more by the end of April to achieve a career best.

She will have been hoping for one of the major wins associated with the Nicholls stable over the holiday period. While that didn’t work out, she clearly has the trainer’s full confidence to the extent that she shares almost equal standing in the Ditcheat team with stable jockey Harry Cobden.

Let us return to the Ascot race. After Master Minded, the next big name was the peerless Sprinter Sacre, a 1/5 chance when the race had to be transferred to Cheltenham in 2013. The oddity was that Sprinter Sacre and his equally lauded stablemate Altior each won it only once. Altior’s victory came three years ago as a 10-1 on shot in a three-horse race.

Gary Moore’s Sire De Grugy was the intervening horse between Sprinter Sacre and the race’s most prolific hero Un De Sceaux, three times a winner for Willie Mullins and even as an 11-year-old in 2020 good enough to share favouritism with Defi Du Seuil and finish runner-up as the Philip Hobbs star won his second consecutive Clarence House.

Last year it was Defi Du Seuil’s time, as sure as the years turn, to pass on the baton, this time to Kim Bailey’s First Flow while he, Defi, laboured home in fifth.

Un De Sceaux won 23 of his 34 career starts and considering his class and admirable durability, has a very proletarian pedigree. His sire is the little-known French-bred and -raced high-class hurdler Denham Red. That horse’s sire Pampabird never raced but his paternal grandsire Pampapaul certainly did. A top Irish juvenile, winner of among others the National Stakes for Sir Noel Murless’ younger brother Stuart, he was a classic winner at three.

Pampapaul sprang a major surprise when defeating subsequent Epsom Derby hero The Minstrel, and earlier Newmarket 2,000 victor Nebbiolo (from The Minstrel), in the Irish 2,000 Guineas.

More pertinently for the present day, and no doubt a factor in Willie Mullins’ admiration of him before he joined the team, is that he is also the sire of Energumene.  So we’re in for a treat. Here we have two horses with unblemished chase records at a similar stage of their development, each with one overall defeat on his card, facing up. Pistols at dawn: who will blink first? Is it too good to be true?

Encouragingly, neither trainer, unusually for Mullins at any rate, has an alternative at the initial entry stage. It cost £150 and to run it’s another £600, fair enough for the £160k prize which brings £85,000 to the winner.

But there is a supplementary on the Monday, so two weeks from today, and that will set back any takers £5,000. With a chance of either of the big two’s standing aside, it was sensible to sit back and wait as that sort of equation might be worth chancing.

I began by musing whether Shishkin’s rating will have been altered after Kempton. He went into the race 2lb higher than Greaneteen – 169 to 167 – and was receiving 3lb. I would expect a rise but knowing official handicappers’ propensity to fudge, would not be shocked if he gave him 171, the same as Energumene.

Already after only a nascent chase career, that figure puts the young Irish horse within 1lb of Un De Sceaux. I believe Shishkin has the potential to eclipse his brilliant predecessors Sprinter Sacre and Altior. I just cannot get out of my mind the way he gathers and then finds extra pace and strength to dominate his opponents in the closing stages.

Nicky had a great holiday, also winning the Christmas Hurdle emphatically on King George Day with 2020 Champion, Epatante. The re-match with unbeaten Honeysuckle is another to savour.

Honeysuckle did not appear over the holiday period so remains blissfully unbeaten and a sure-fire favourite to defend her title in ten weeks’ time – yes that’s all it is! But some of her prime Henry De Bromhead stablemates did appear and after the eclipse of Minella Indo at Kempton, A Plus Tard’s position as Gold Cup favourite is far less secure after his last-stride defeat by Gordon Elliott’s Galvin in the Savills Chase at Leopardstown.

While Elliott (15 wins from 94 runners) and Mullins (23 from 81) have been cleaning up over the past two weeks, De Bromhead has had the paltry return of just four wins from 74 runners. Envoi Allen did scrape home less than impressively dropped in grade and distance at Leopardstown but hardly enhanced his reputation either.

In mitigation, only three of the 74 started favourite, but it doesn’t take long for the betting public and more pertinently the people who frame the odds on which their bets are based to sense a problem. Watch, if not this space, certainly the day-to-day progress of a man who has performed, along with stable jockey Rachael Blackmore, the training equivalent of a miracle to join the big time so quickly and effectively.

As perhaps Henry is beginning to discover It is one thing to get up there, quite another to continue to repel the legions of expensively-acquired and brilliantly-prepared horses that the two incumbent top table teams can throw into the action year on year.

In the UK the news of Charlie Johnston’s now sharing the licence to train at Kingsley House, Middleham, alongside rather than assisting father Mark, certainly surprised me, but equally obviously, as most of the coverage suggested, nothing will change save the letter headings.

Certainly I do not anticipate any reduction in the flow of winners with what is nowadays the routine target for the team of 200 a season. It’s an amazing record and while Mark alone will never make the 5000 winners we thought was inevitable, it is equally unlikely that anyone will beat his score for many years to come.

Kingsley House is a remarkable operation and not least for one fact I’ve never forgotten of what Alan Spence, a long-standing owner, told me one day. He said: “I was telling <trainer A> that Mark is my cheapest trainer in terms of cost. He/she <so no clue there either!> said what are you talking about? He charges £xxx a day, much more than me!”

“I replied, yes, and when I get his invoice every month, even if a horse of mine had to have an expensive operation, it’s all on one line – everything included. When I get yours it runs to four pages with all the extras!”

Good luck to the new team, well actually the old team, not forgetting the wonderful Deirdre. So it’s Happy New Year especially to them, but also everyone else who takes the time to read these words.

- TS

Monday Musings: A King George Head Scratcher

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The Irish duly won the 2021 Ladbrokes King George VI Chase, but not with either of the pair which shared in the five-strong short list suggested a week ago, writes Tony Stafford. The winner was 28-1 shot Tornado Flyer, ridden by Willie Mullins’ nephew Danny, successful for the third time over fences but after a losing sequence of nine.

Unusually, all five of the pretty obvious principals turned up, in one form or another and we certainly didn’t see the real Minella Indo, already well beaten when pulled up by a frustrated Rachael Blackmore a long way from home. He and Frodon, ridden by Bryony Frost, evidently wanted to put on a show of strength, not necessarily from the saddle, but certainly under them as their mounts shared a fast pace through the first part of the race.

Frodon and Bryony have been habitual and very successful front runners in their ten-win time together, three around Kempton, but this time the two heroines of 2021 (and a good while before) simply cancelled each other’s mounts out, compromising any chance of a finishing effort.

Perhaps it all goes down to the centuries-old presumption that Kempton is a sharp track: not when top-class horses share a fast pace over three miles on anything other than fast ground. We saw the same a race earlier when the nominal stayer Not So Sleepy pulled away his chance in the Christmas Hurdle leaving the more economical Epatante to gain an emphatic success.

Trainer Henry De Bromhead’s position atop the staying chase standings rests now on A Plus Tard’s seeing off three Gordon Elliott and four Willie Mullins opponents in the Savills Chase at Leopardstown tomorrow. The Gold Cup winner is looking rather tarnished at this point and it needs a big statement from A Plus Tard

So, team tactics anyone? It is probably tempting enough, one would think, especially for Elliott who is no longer a trainer for Cheveley Park Stud, owners of A Plus Tard. Mullins, whose Allaho ties in with the form of his two Kempton King George representatives, will need to be more circumspect although his stable’s owners have to get used to coming out on the wrong side in the very frequent event he has multiple contenders.

I expected it to be Asterion Forlonge yesterday, the horse that probably would have won the John Durkan Memorial for Mullins at Punchestown last time but unseated Brian Cooper when about to take the lead three fences from home.

That left Allaho to struggle home and Mullins clearly didn’t want to give him another tough race so soon after he looked pretty spent up the run-in.

Further back that day in fifth after some ordinary jumping was Tornado Flyer, and he had also been behind Allaho when that horse won at the Cheltenham Festival, but Mullins runs more than one if he thinks there is the slightest chance that he could pick up money further down the line in these valuable races.

I’m not convinced that Asterion Forlonge would have finished behind Tornado Flyer, who led him by three lengths going into the final fence with Clan Des Obeaux already beaten off. He appeared to jump the final fence the more spectacularly but this time crumpled on landing and Cooper again bit the dust.

It was left to Paul Nicholls to collect positions two to four with Clan Des Obeaux, a full nine lengths back, the outsider Saint Calvados almost four lengths behind in third and a spent Frodon toiling home another six lengths adrift in fourth.

Whereas Mullins was winning only the second King George of his illustrious career, Nicholls can point to 12 and with three, or rather two and a half realistic chances, he would have gone home less than chuffed even though they collected 95 grand between them as against £143k for the winner.

I must say I feel sorry for trainer Harry Whittington who could hardly have been accused of doing badly with Saint Calvados, winning five of his 14 chases and only narrowly failing to beat Min in a race at the Cheltenham Festival a couple of seasons back.

When it’s your stable star that gets whisked away to a man with a yard full of top-class animals, to the extent that your former horse will be a 25/1 outsider on debut, you can understand if his feelings are a little bitter. It’s a hard enough game and as we know the rich get richer and the rest get what’s left! Saint Calvados did actually look a possible winner inside the last mile but either insufficient stamina or simply limited ability at the top level took over.

The biggest disappointment of the King George for the home team was Chantry House, the 3-1 favourite on the day, who ran a shocker. He tied in with all the best form having beaten Asterion Forlonge back into third in the Marsh Chase at Cheltenham last season. A winner after that at Aintree and with the benefit of a comeback stroll round in a two-horse Sandown freebie should have put him right to run a big race but he was never travelling like a possible winner.

His performance was in stark contrast to the rest of the Henderson team who provided a treble for the trainer on a track which he loves so much he was sent into a state of apoplexy when the course’s management advocated the closure of its wonderful jumping track in favour of residential development.

I am with him on that, Kempton having provided many of my happiest racing experiences. It’s where I met Ray Tooth but also where I had a horse which won a mile and a half three-year-old maiden from 13 quite expensive horses by 20 lengths at 20-1 in heavy ground. Not many stayed that day either!

Epatante was the high point in Nicky’s treble, providing the filling in a sandwich between odds-on first-race winner Broomfield Burg, who must hold Festival novice hurdle aspirations for J P McManus, and Middleham Park’s last-race eye-opener Marie’s Rock who looked a mare with a future when adding a first hurdles success to three in bumpers two winters ago.

Last week I was suggesting that Christmas this year was falling ideally for me to circumnavigate the various requirements of work and family. Well here I am at almost 2.30 a m. on Monday morning absolutely knackered and spent of anything worth talking or writing about. So if you don’t mind, I’m turning in. It’s that or watching the cricket. Happy New Year!

  • TS

Monday Musings: Christmas Heroes and Heroines

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Christmas Day couldn’t fall better for this column than it does in 2021, writes Tony Stafford.

Okay, so we miss the Saturday’s racing as we’re tucking into the turkey and the boss-provided M & S hamper’s goodies, but Boxing Day on Sunday will have a special resonance.

As someone who still needs to maintain a daily interest in the bread-and-butter action, it will be nice not only to have a blank Saturday, but also a further two-day reprieve on Thursday and Friday. And later today we will get the acceptances for what is likely to be a vintage King George VI Chase.

The 2022 Cheltenham Gold Cup favourite will not be there but his remaining at home for a target on Dec 28 means stable-companion Minella Indo, the reigning title-holder, will have Rachael Blackmore’s assistance at Kempton. The pair will renew rivalry with Bryony Frost and Frodon who beat them in the Ladbrokes Gold Cup at Down Royal, Galvin interloping in second, at the end of November.

The Down Royal race was Minella Indo’s first since his Cheltenham triumph on the day Rachael stayed loyal to A Plus Tard and finished a close second, leaving Jack Kennedy to come in as super sub on Henry De Bromhead’s equal stable star.

These two fantastic female riders could hardly have had a more eventful 12 months since Bryony and Frodon upset stable companion and preferred-in-the-betting Clan Des Obeaux in last year’s King George. Twelve months on, again Clan Des Obeaux, the mount of Harry Cobden, heads the market in front of Minella Indo.

Bryony, as we touched on last week, won her case, and overwhelming public and industry approval, against the now 18-months banned (three suspended) Robbie Dunne. Frodon, an 18-time career winner, has had Frost as his regular partner for most of the past four years and Down Royal was their tenth triumph together.

It seems odd that Frodon is again the second choice for her stable on a track where he, having fallen on his first acquaintance, has won on his next three visits. Minella Indo, though, will be tougher to repel than on that domestic reappearance after his long break.

If Bryony has been getting the sentiments, Rachael has been collecting the plaudits. Within a few days at home in Ireland last week she cleaned up the Irish Racing Hero Award, the RTE Sportsperson of the Year and the Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year accolade.

Then last night, perhaps the biggest distinction of all – we in the UK like to think so! – on the evening when Emma Raducanu predictably won BBC Sports Personality of the Year, Ms Blackmore annexed World Sports Star of the Year.
So it was four awards for Rachael.

Admittedly Emma was the first British woman to win the US Open since Virginia Wade in 1968 and only the fourth ever to do so. Even so, Rachael’s catalogue of unique achievements was probably more unlikely. The first to win the Champion Hurdle on Honeysuckle in March, she also uniquely became first female to be champion rider at the Festival. Then in April her win on Minella Times was the first by a woman in the 182-year history of the Grand National.

The 2021 dominance at the top level among staying chasers enjoyed by Henry De Bromhead and illustrated by A Plus Tard’s bloodless victory in the Betfair Chase at Haydock has taken some of the gloss off the Willie Mullins chasers.

Mullins, after a 30-year training career where he had become the supreme big-race performer of these islands, had still not won the Cheltenham Gold Cup to 2018. Then Al Boum Photo, in 2019 and 2020, picked up two in a row. That gelding’s valiant attempt at the hat-trick resulted in a creditable third behind Minella Indo and A Plus Tard last March.

Al Boum Photo will probably take on A Plus Tard at home next week but Mullins does have a likely lad in the emerging talent of Asterion Forlonge lined up for Kempton

As a novice last season he was third behind Nicky Henderson’s Chantry House in the Marsh Novice Chase at Cheltenham but he has been transformed since then. He would clearly have won the John Durkan Memorial at Punchestown last time but as he came smoothly to challenge two fences out, he unseated Brian Cooper leaving Allaho to win gallantly.

Chantry House went on from Cheltenham last spring to win very easily at Aintree and resumed action last month with another bloodless win at Sandown. This pair, should they both run, will make up a five-horse nucleus with probably at least as many decent bit-players to ensure this is the race of the winter so far.

Nicky Henderson will be buoyed by the win in Ascot’s Long Walk Hurdle on Saturday by Champ, more normally regarded as his prime Gold Cup hope of recent years. It was especially so as his original favourite for the race, Buzz, had to be taken out through an injury sustained at home just before the stayers’ contest.

Champ’s stamina and talent have never been in doubt and it certainly looks that reverting to hurdles shows the J P McManus horse in his best light.
Injuries are such a part of jump racing and it was perhaps slightly ironic that so soon after Buzz’s former stable-companion Not So Sleepy shared the Fighting Fifth Hurdle that Buzz should succumb apparently with the world of long distance hurdling at his feet.

Injury on the home gallops also caused the demise of one of Not So Sleepy’s oldest rivals, Silver Streak. Evan Williams’ grey, a hugely popular multiple Graded hurdle winner, had been fourth behind the Morrison hurdler and fellow dead-heater Epatante at Newcastle and earlier sixth just behind fifth-placed Not So Sleepy in Honeysuckle’s Champion Hurdle.

Williams and jockey Adam Wedge dusted themselves down and replied in the best manner possible, winning the near £40k Howden Silver Cup, the race that followed the Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot on Saturday.

Xxxxx

Apocryphal evidence – and plenty of eye-witness stuff too – has accompanied the various evasions of triple champion flat-race jockey Oisin Murphy as he attempted to disguise his ongoing problems with alcohol over the years.

Last week, faced with the prospect of having to attend scheduled disciplinary hearings into two findings of excess alcohol in his system and also one into alleged breaches of the Covid-19 rules last year, he handed in his jockey’s licence.

In their reporting of the news, the BHA stated that it is their responsibility to be sensitive when riders get in difficulty. The news that there were two such alcohol-related inquiries pending – one previously unreported from May at Chester – suggest the leniency in the case of Oisin might have been inappropriate.

Murphy held on to win a third jockeys’ title by the skin of his teeth and by only two victories 153-151 over William Buick in a tussle that lasted until the final day of the season on Champions Day at Ascot in late October.

That first positive test’s being unreported and presumably not dealt with at the time made the second, which was followed by an altercation in a Newmarket pub, less likely to be adjudicated upon appropriately.

Several times, even in one interview since the end of the season that brought a third championship, he has made statements suggesting he has stopped drinking. Maybe he has, but even if he is being sincere in those sentiments, I believe his third title will always be tarnished. Everyone likes Oisin, but it’s time for the self-delusion to stop.

There are many instances of sportsmen’s careers being ruined by addictions of all kinds, with drink, drugs and excessive (and of course where jockeys are concerned, illegal) gambling most regularly. The true champions, people with the staying power of a Piggott and Eddery (11 titles each) and in the generation before Lester, Sir Gordon Richards with 26, had to stifle such temptations. Likewise, the remarkable Sir Anthony McCoy, winner of 20 jumps championships in a row, with no heed to injury or any other possible inconvenience, needed the utmost control.

Oisin Muphy is already a very good rider and still one young enough to change. If he ever wishes to aspire to their eminence, he first needs to start being honest with himself. He certainly has a fair bit of their talent – now he needs to show he has just a tiny portion of their resolve.

- TS

Monday Musings: Overseas Despatches

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Time was when a post-season challenge for the international races at Sha Tin racecourse was a fairly commonplace objective for high-class horses still in good heart, writes Tony Stafford. Four contests, each worth in excess of £1 million to the winner, were attraction enough. In the world of post- and apparently still-present Covid, things have changed.

Seven European-trained horses set off for Hong Kong at the end of their European seasons. None of the one French, two British and four Irish took back a victory from yesterday’s challenges, but such is the generosity of the prize pool, four will return with six-figure hauls.

Transportation difficulties have been a major adjunct to Covid times in all spheres with regulations for horse travel being especially onerous. That Willie Muir and joint-trainer Chris Grassick would have the foresight to send the partnership-owned Pyledriver for the Hong Kong Vase took courage and determination to see the project through.

Pyledriver didn’t manage to win, but in finishing a length second under Muir’s son-in-law Martin Dwyer to odds-on Japanese-trained favourite Glory Vase – it truly was a glory Vase for the winner! -  the Lambourn-trained runner matched anything he had ever previously achieved.

The second-favourite at 7-2, he lived up to that status, seeing off French-trained Ebaiyra to the tune of two-and-a-half lengths with Aidan O’Brien’s Mogul only sixth. In collecting £415,486 he easily eclipsed all the prizes he’d earned in his twelve previous starts, with five wins from his three seasons’ racing.

The equal youngest, at age four, with the other two Europeans, Pyledriver, who is still a colt – the winner is also an entire – must have more big pay-days ahead of him. Many plaudits, as well as Hong Kong dollars and other international currencies, can come the way of his entrepreneurial connections.

Only Mother Earth ran for European teams in the Mile and the hard-working 1000 Guineas heroine, coming on after Del Mar and the Breeders’ Cup, picked up fourth. That was worth £139k, supplementing Mogul's £37k for sixth in Pyledriver’s race. Ebaiyra picked up £188k for third there.

The Irish duo in the Hong Kong Cup, over 10 furlongs and the most valuable of the four races at £1.6 million to the winner, were unplaced, Bolshoi Ballet only ninth for O’Brien and Jim Bolger’s Irish 2000 Guineas winner Mac Swiney last of 12.

William Haggas, the only other UK trainer represented, did better, his Dubai Honour picking up £161k for his close fourth behind Japanese mare Loves Only You who was adding to her Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf win last month at Del Mar. Dubai Honour, under Tom Marquand, was running at least on a par to his second behind Sealiway in the Champion Stakes at Ascot last month.

I would imagine that Haggas and his horse’ s owner Mohamed Obaida will have pricked up their ears that Sealiway’s trainer Cedric Rossi, as well as Cedric’s father Charlie, who was Sealiway’s previous handler, and other members of the family have been arrested in Marseille in relation to enquiries into allegations of doping. Who knows, there could be some ramifications to come and maybe even a Group 1 disqualification in favour of Dubai Honour.

Back home in the UK, jumping continues apace but this past weekend must be possibly one of the least informative in relation to the Holy Grail of unearthing Cheltenham Festival winners. Indeed the two days of Cheltenham’s December fixture were more notable first for the astonishing level of demand for National Hunt stock at the Friday night sale at the track, and then for Bryony Frost’s absence from the meeting, than anything happening on the course itself.

True, My Drogo restored what in reality had been only a minor blemish on his record when smoothly erasing the memory of his earlier course fall to re-emphasise his candidature for the Festival, much to the relief of the Skeltons. Otherwise it was ordinary enough.

Bryony, cheered by the crowd at Warwick on Thursday upon the news of Robbie Dunne’s 18-month suspension with all four charges of bullying proven, was despatched by boss Paul Nicholls to Doncaster over the weekend where she had an anti-climactic two winner-free days.

I have been canvassing some trainer friends around the country and they have all noticed over the years instances of inappropriate behaviour by jockeys to female riders at different times. It may have been thought acceptable in the days when girls were far less commonplace in stable yards and on racecourses, but those days are long gone.

Now they are ever more prominent and respected thanks to the exploits of Hayley Turner, Josephine Gordon, Hollie Doyle and Nicola Currie on the Flat and in the UK Bryony and the Andrews sisters, Gina and Bridget, over jumps. In Ireland, Rachael Blackmore has picked up the baton relinquished by Nina Carberry and Katie Walsh and carried their achievements to unprecedented and unimagined heights.

In these days of improved nutrition and the resultant increasing in the size of successive generations more women, with their natural lighter weights have been needed to offset the scarcity of smaller male riders, especially for Flat racing. Some yards like Sir Mark Prescott’s would have to pack up – although his stable is a case of choice rather than necessity.

In those far-off days of Sir Gordon Richards and his generation, girl riders never got a look in and nor were they to be found too often in stables, despite their success at the top level in show jumping and eventing. Historic examples abound like Charlie Gordon-Watson’s sister, Mary, and Marion Mould, not to mention Princess Anne and daughter Zara Tindall.

In many other sporting spheres – football, cricket and rugby in the UK are the most obvious in terms of professionalism –women have become much more prominent and women’s golf has long been at the forefront of international sport at the highest level. Nowadays racing could not survive without its female participants.

***

Yesterday when I heard the words “Tornado” and “Kentucky” in the same breath I confess I was instantly confronted by an image of flattened barns, devastated meadows - possibly already under snow as is often the case in much of Kentucky through the heart of winter - with animals helplessly strewn far and wide.

Kentucky to me is first Lexington and its stud farms - an area I’d visited so many times between the early 1980’s and 15 years ago. Second is Louisville, birthplace of Mohammed Ali and home of the Kentucky Derby. I’ve been there a few times, too.

The tornado which on Saturday came in at 220 m.p.h. and flattened a candle factory in Mayfield, trapping it was thought more than 100 workers – 40 apparently managed to get out – was centred near the western border of the south-eastern state. Lexington is way across to the east and 75 miles due south of Cincinnati on the borders of Ohio.

That south-western part of Kentucky is apparently tornado country, a manifestation that occurs when cold dry air meets warm moist air. The cold air is denser so it settles on top of the warm air and forces it to the ground where the tornado is formed.

While the terrible loss of life and devastation to people and their property is tragic in the extreme my initial dread I confess did concern the horses. I feared the tornado could have reached considerably further east – Mayfield is 265 miles south-west of Lexington – but that it seems was unfounded. These occur regularly in the region near Mayfield, though never previously with this intensity or effect.

Declared the biggest tragedy in the history of Kentucky by Democrat Governor Andy Beshear, a 44- year-old lawyer who won the state’s top job by 0.2%, you could imagine the initial worries in the stud farms of the region as the mares prepare to foal down their valuable produce in the New Year.

Sales prices have been booming. We have been here before when studs have been enjoying good times only for the hammer blow to fall. It only takes a little adjustment to make things less rosy. Like a misplaced tornado for example!

Monday Musings: Who’d be a handicapper?

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I suppose I could mention the Bryony Frost issue and her triumphant return to race riding with a big win in the Tingle Creek on Saturday at Sandown Park, writes Tony Stafford. Certain writers thought that victory was vindication of her situation vis a vis Robbie Dunne and his alleged bullying, swearing and whatever else from last week’s enquiry.

The situation, though, was rather like a jury of 12 men and women true having not agreed a trial verdict on a Friday night then going off to watch together private videos of everything the accused had done throughout his life over the weekend before reconvening on Monday morning. Not exactly the best example of natural justice maybe but, like Hollie and Rachael, Bryony is one of the racing public’s favourites and understandably and rightly so.

Equally, I could refer to Protektorat’s arrogant dismissal of former Gold Cup winner Native River in the Many Clouds Chase at Aintree the same day, and again a woman rider, Bridget Andrews, doing the steering and presenting at the fences of brother-in-law Dan Skelton’s much-improved chaser. He now faces the prospect of challenging the Irish heavyweights in the Gold Cup next March.

You have to love the way Dan never, except in the most unavoidable situations, like multiple runners at different tracks, goes outside the family. Brother and Bridget’s husband Harry might not win the title again this year – with Brian Hughes taking it so seriously he is operating twice as fast as last season’s champion. He is however playing the sensible card and helping ensure his own longevity in the saddle by keeping it in the family.

I also loved the effort of the grey mare and proud mum of a two-year-old – “I was courted by a Derby winner don’t you know!”, says Snow Leopardess as she goes on the gallops every day. “I would show you a picture but I don’t have one on me. He’s a handsome chap, by Sir Percy, and it’s his birthday soon”.

I believe the youngster is rising three but could be corrected on that. The bold-jumping grey mare conceived and foaled during the 26 months between her successful trip over to France from Charlie Longsdon’s stable in 2017 and first run back at Newbury in late 2019.

On Saturday at Aintree she treated the Grand National fences with respect but total efficiency. It would have been an awful shame if the front-running performance clear of the field for much of the three miles and two furlongs would have resulted in defeat by a nose rather than victory by that margin over Hill Sixteen.

Lots to talk about, then, but instead I’m going to harp on about the sitting duck syndrome, brought upon domestic owners and trainers by the people whose mandate is to make handicap races a level playing field.

These well-paid officials continually err in several regards. Number one, letting Irish trainers take the mickey. Take the case of a horse who had previously raced in seven maiden and novice races and a single handicap before his owner-trainer, Ronan McNally, a notorious “touch” merchant, lined him up, cherry picking a Huntingdon 0-110 yesterday against ten unsuspecting locals.

The horse, a six-year-old, to tabulate his entire Rules career, had been successively 17th of 20 beaten 53 lengths (25/1); 10th of 20 beaten 64 lengths (50/1); 8th of 15 beaten 74 lengths (150/1); 11th of 20 beaten 63 lengths (200/1); 11th of 13, beaten 19 lengths (200/1); 16th of 18, beaten 33 lengths (50/1); and 10th of 13, beaten 19 lengths (150/1).

Just to make the job look right he was sixth of 20 in his first handicap hurdle at Down Royal, starting at 8/1. You could say that the money was down and he didn’t have a great run but if it was half down then, they went the whole hog on Vee Dancer yesterday.

Choosing a conditional jockeys’ handicap hurdle and therefore able to book leading claiming rider Kevin Brogan, such was the weight of money he started an improbable 2 to 1 on. It would not be accurate to say he was always going to win as he was on and off the bridle all the way, but he won comfortably by three lengths in the end.

My complaint is that horses like that coming from another racing authority should not be allowed to run in any handicap without achieving a minimum placing: getting at least in the first four let’s say. Watch out for another three or four wins in rapid fire fashion.

He had run off 90 in that Down Royal race and our hurdles handicapper probably thought he was safe letting in him on 10lb more, but these horses have stones not pounds in hand once the hand-brake is let off.

One of the cleverest UK trainers is undoubtedly Gary Moore and I think he has even outsmarted anything he’s done previously in handicaps with his training of ex-French six-year-old Naturally High. This gelding is not only the same age as Vee Dancer but was running in a Sandown handicap hurdle on Saturday off the identical mark of 100.

He duly bolted in, dismantling some progressive young hurdlers having shot the pre-race market to pieces too. He still started odds against but when you examine his life story and the part the UK handicappers played in it, I’m sure you will see my amazement is justified.

Runner-up at Sandown was another ex-Frenchman, the Roger Teal-trained Kamaxos who was conceding him 15lb. His French Flat race mark had been 32, which equates to 70, meaning a pretty routine 45lb difference.

I mentioned Naturally High had also been trained in France, and his last four runs there in 2018 had been two victories in April in a Chantilly conditions event and a Longchamp Listed. He went up in class for his next run but finished 15th of 16 as a 16/1 shot in the Prix Du Jockey Club (French Derby), starting at much shorter odds than three of the four Aidan O’Brien candidates.

After his last run, fifth of six in a Group 2, he was allotted a mark of 47, which he still holds and which translates to 103. That makes him 33lb superior to Kamaxos from whom he was receiving 15lb on Saturday. He arrived at 100 having strolled home in his first handicap at Lingfield running off 88.

How that 88 mark was arrived at beggars belief. Normally horses are required to complete the course three times to be allotted a mark, but first time Naturally High unseated Jamie Moore before running twice more a long way out of the money. He was allowed in on that sketchy evidence but then having won the first time off a gift rating, allowing him in again off 100 was naïve in the extreme. Basically he started 15lb lower over jumps than the French figure when it should be nearer 45 or 50lb the other way!

I’ve no gripe at all with Gary Moore who had a big job to bring back to life a horse that had been bought for €120,000 at the end of 2018. Those two big wins might have started to get certain people somewhere near level with that investment because there is no doubt the money has been well and truly down both times.

It’s hard to see what can stop the hat-trick, save some overdue retaliation by the two-mile hurdles handicapper. Does he have the bottle or will he treat Naturally High (France) and (UK) as two entirely different horses?

*

I’m feeling a little bereft with the breeding stock sales’ conclusion last week and over the weekend in France. High-class racehorses and well-bred mares have rarely been in such demand and for a while on Tuesday any female with the requisite number of limbs and the ability to conceive was almost guaranteed to go to at least six figures.

I do not intend identifying the young lady who relates to this little tale save to say her putative trips to the sales have been mentioned here recently. She had her eye on a Shadwell filly – there were 90 in the catalogue last week – in Wednesday’s sale and hoped to get it for a song as it hadn’t run.

I had suggested going on Thursday when all the big buyers had gone home and she could pick up something very cheaply but at the same time be prepared for its being modest enough. She persisted and when I checked that evening whether she had any luck, she said, “No, it went for 70 grand!”

Now I know people in her situation that might have claimed to have been the under-bidder, like the Irish trainer who made very public that distinction in regard to the sale of triple Champion Hurdle winner Istabraq.

I was changing planes one day in the US coming back from Keeneland sales when Timmy Hyde caught up with me and said: “You were the under-bidder for Istabraq weren’t you? I know you were, I was standing right behind you.

“Well that fe..ing D…. M…..is telling everyone he was!” Saudi Arabia’s loss was Ireland’s gain, although when I asked how much short my 36k bid had been, Timmy said: “J P told me to go to 100 grand!”

- TS

Monday Musings: Of Hughie’s Fighting Fifty-Fourth…

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They could have done a better job of it. After all, the two ITV racing presenters, Ed Chamberlin and Francesca Cumani, on Saturday sitting in their studio at Newbury and principally watching the Ladbrokes (morally the Hennessy) Trophy Chase did have some high-grade professional help, writes Tony Stafford.

You would have thought Ruby Walsh, normally the best race reader among television pundits who knows exactly where every rider and horse are throughout every race, jumps or flat, and Sir Anthony McCoy would have known better.

Their preamble to the Betfair Fighting Fifth Hurdle at snowy, windy Newcastle was restricted by its proximity to Newbury’s feature, but A P found plenty of time to laud former Champion Hurdler Epatante and, after the thrilling finish, praise Nicky Henderson for getting her back in top shape.

It was a fan club all round rather than an objective appraisal and they got half their wish, Epatante clinging on for a share of the £88k combined first and second prizes. I’ll come to her co-star in a moment, after saying there was plenty of mention in the short time available beforehand for Paul Nicholls’ second favourite Monmiral, evergreen Sceau Royal, and the striking grey, Silver Streak.

One name missing from their deliberations was that of Not So Sleepy, making his return to jumping following an unplaced effort at Aintree after a much better fifth in last year’s Champion Hurdle, two places and just over three lengths behind Epatante but ahead of Silver Streak.

As such, these were the first three home-trained finishers in Honeysuckle’s first Champion Hurdle and, Buzz apart if he takes the shorter route, there isn’t too much around that will obviously subvert their position come March. Neither, on the evidence of yesterday’s outstanding Hatton’s Grace hat-trick by the Champion, will the now 13-race unbeaten record for the mare be challenged seriously any day soon.

Saturday’s partisan attitude would be understandable if Epatante was still being considered as having a chance to avenge her defeat, but it is routine enough for serious Champion Hurdle contenders to begin their season at Newcastle. Nicky Henderson has achieved more mind-boggling feats of a revivalist nature than this. She really must be the apple of A P’s eye. It certainly sounded it.

Now seven years of age, J P McManus’ mare is the veteran of 14 races and nine victories, the first two coming from three runs as a three-year-old in AQPS Flat races in her native France.

Not So Sleepy has also won nine races, four on the Flat and five over hurdles for owner-breeder Lady Blyth and trainer Hughie Morrison. He is rising double digits in age, a factor that never phases Morrison who can always point to the victory of his ten-year-old gelding Alcazar in the 2005 Group 1 Prix Royal-Oak at Longchamp, a race in which the second and third home were respectively six years and seven his junior.

Not So Sleepy has had an unusual as well as a lengthy career for a high-class dual performer. He won first time out in October of 2014 as a juvenile over a mile and half a furlong at Nottingham. First time out at three, he was the narrow winner of Chester’s Dee Stakes, a Listed race but perhaps one long overdue a re-grading.

Successful before Not So Sleepy were Derby winners Oath (1999) and Kris Kin (2003), while since then, future Irish 2,000 Guineas and Breeders’ Cup winner Magical and the multiple Group 1-winning Circus Maximus (2019) have also won the race.

I was with the Oath team at the time and, forgive the after time, managed to get a nice price about Oath’s following up at Epsom from Simon Clare, Corals’ course rep at the time. If you think Not So Sleepy is long-lasting, then the same Mr Clare was presenting the prizes on behalf of Saturday’s sponsors to connections of Cloudy Glen who won the Ladbroke Trophy in the colours of the late Trevor Hemmings. Simon hardly looks a day older and deserves congratulations for the way he has sailed serenely through all the mergers and takeovers that have been so prevalent in the world’s biggest betting organisations.

The Chester 2015 win for Not So Sleepy understandably brought a reaction from the handicapper and he started life in that sphere on 107. Equally unsurprisingly, wins proved elusive and it was not until his 17th career run, on Oaks Day 2017, more than two years later, that he won a ten-furlong handicap off 98 under Adam Kirby.

Another 18 months were destined to pass with continued struggle meaning that not until January 19th 2019, after he had run 32 times, did Morrison experiment with hurdles. Sleepy ran three times, fourth running free at Kempton, then winning unchallenged at Wincanton before proving much too exuberant on a return to the West Country track where he finished a well beaten fifth of eight.

Back on the Flat and still with a mark in the 90’s, that summer he had a programme of six runs culminating with an excellent fourth of 30 to Stratum in the Cesarewitch. Here is where the Morrison imagination stepped in. Clearly believing a hurdles mark of 122 would be manageable given the jumping and the tearaway tendencies could be overcome, Morrison lined up an Ascot handicap that November. He bolted in and, a month later and raised just 5lb, he ran away with the £85k to the winner Ladbroke Hurdle back at Ascot on only his fifth jumping appearance.

Not So Sleepy was as a result one of the favourites for that season’s Betfair Hurdle at Newbury but after a couple of false starts he found himself on the wide outside of the massive field and was hampered at the start, losing all chance. His 15th of 24 was disappointing but not enough to dissuade connections of a Champion Hurdle challenge. This soon fizzled out as Epatante strode home up the hill to a popular success.

Back on the Flat he polished off a little race over a mile and a half in late summer at Pontefract under Graham Lee, the prelude to another fourth place in the Cesarewitch, as Willie Mullins completed a hat-trick in the great Autumn staying race.

That was the ideal preparation for another jumps campaign. Unfortunately in the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle he set off in front but unseated Johnny Burke at the first hurdle. Chastened, Hughie and Lady Blyth sent him to more familiar surroundings of Ascot where he delivered win number two in the Ladbroke.

This time, it was doubly satisfying as Buzz, a horse Hughie had nurtured (I used that word about their relationship last week and I still like the sound of it!) through his early career but had been whisked off by connections to Nicky Henderson for jumping, could get no nearer than second.

Buzz, two years his junior, was well ahead of Not So Sleepy later on when second at Aintree and he has since won the Cesarewitch, denying Mullins a fourth consecutive win in the race by beating Burning Victory and then the Coral Hurdle this month.

Although only fifth in the Champion Hurdle of 2021, Not So Sleepy far exceeded his handicap mark. At the time he was 7lb clear lowest in the entire field on 149, raised briefly to 155 before Aintree but again down to 152 for Saturday.

Again in a big race, he improved on anything he had done before. Epatante had been dropped to 154 after last season’s Champion Hurdle, but she received 7lb from the geldings on Saturday. Sceau Royal, another length and a half back in third and fourth-placed Silver Streak were both on 158 while the disappointing Monmiral is rated 153.

After Sceau Royal the gaps were six and a half and then eight and a half lengths. It seems inevitable that Not So Sleepy should be raised to at least 158, so his highest-ever figure will have been achieved as a rising ten-year-old. Not many trainers could manage that!

As to the way the race evolved, the complete outsider Voix Du Reve, Not So Sleepy and the grey Silver Streak formed the leading trio all the way round with the others grouping behind them.

One acknowledgement of Not So Sleepy’s performance was forthcoming afterwards, one of the experts saying he had been in the lead group but still rallied at the end.

My contention is that had he bothered to jump either of the last two flights properly, he would probably have won outright, and the verve with which he battled back, running in between the other pair up the run-in after the second mistake, spoke volumes.

Tough doesn’t cover it and when you consider how most of the way round with his unusual head motion out to the right between the jumps, you got the feeling he was playing rather than racing in a championship race, that is doubly valid.

I don’t suppose as a ten-year-old he will end the trainer’s Champion Hurdle blank – and something would need to cause Honeysuckle to miss the race on yesterday’s showing. Yet as long ago as 2002, Marble Arch, another of his Ladbroke Hurdle winners the previous December, finished second to Hors La Loi in the Champion Hurdle with a very youthful Ruby Walsh in the saddle.

Hughie is on target for his usual tally of around 50 Flat wins but at a markedly highest-ever strike rate of 18%. It is widely accepted he can train anything - juveniles, champion sprinters, middle-distance stars or top stayers. Indeed if he hadn’t come up against a future Irish St Leger winner, Sonnyboyliston, running off a gift mark in the Ebor, he would have easily beaten his best prizemoney tally too.

And what of Not So Sleepy, a veteran of 54 races, yet sound as a pound and honest – if quirky – as the day is long? He no doubt will continue to thrill and entertain us hopefully for a year or two to come. Maybe after Newcastle A P and Ruby will give him a little more pre-race respect next time he turns up when they are on the telly!

- TS

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