Monday Musings | geegeez.co.uk

Monday Musings: Racing Chess via Knight, Queen’s and a Check mate

17 April 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

I have a friend who, whenever he sees the name Fast Company against a runner in a race on soft ground or worse, thinks it’s going to win, writes Tony Stafford. More often than not, his inability to back anything much beyond 5-2 prevents his turning intuition to action, thereby preventing his backing a nice long-priced winner.

The fact Fast Company horses do win in extreme conditions exercised my curiosity yesterday morning and I thought I’d better look at the facts. Actually there is little difference between the late stallion’s stats - he died two years ago at a time when his fee at Kildangan Stud was €12,000, the highest of his ten-year career.

From good to firm through all readings to heavy, his winning ratio moved little away from the 23% achieved on heavy ground. What he hasn’t got so far though is a top-class three-year-old colt. Jet Setting, trained by Adrian Keatley, did break the mould with an unexpected defeat of the brilliant Minding in the 2016 Irish 1,000 Guineas, a run that was out of kilter for much of her form. Twice well behind Minding either side of that, she did win a Group 3 easily as an older filly.

Now, though, Fast Company has a Classic contender, and from an unexpected source. In Friday’s opening Listed race on Newcastle’s All-Weather finals day, Checkandchallenge thrust himself into the consciousness with a smooth defeat of a trio of 100-plus rated colts.

Winner of his only previous start at two, when he got up to beat a Karl Burke horse (rated 80 before Friday) he had only inches to spare, but that was after having at least six lengths to make up inside the last furlong.

I was at William’s stable coincidentally last Tuesday when we saw Checkandchallenge quite by luck in the distance. “There’s my Guineas horse”, said William with a laugh, adding that Newcastle on Friday would tell him whether the idea was fatuous or had legs.

Legs it certainly has. With Danny Tudhope at his unobtrusive, business-like best, Checkandchallenge sat at the back of a six-runner field leavened with a couple of three-year-olds who had followed Godolphin’s number two for Saturday week over the line at Newmarket last October.

Coroebus, preferred in some quarters last year to the number one and European champion 2021 juvenile, Noble Trail, won the Autumn Stakes by two lengths from Imperial Fighter with Dubai Poet third. At Newcastle, Checkandchallenge had that pair behind him but in reverse order when the winning margin was slightly less, although Tudhope hardly had to exercise his arm muscles to achieve the result.

Obviously now, after his 4-1 on cakewalk in the Craven Stakes last week, Noble Trail is shorter than ever as the 5-4 market leader, but Coroebus is still next in line at 7-2 ahead of the leading Coolmore / Aidan O’Brien contender Luxembourg, who is a 9-2 chance.

As one very long-tested punter always used to tell me: “you can’t eat value”, but there seems to be a wider disparity in the prices of said Coroebus and Checkandchallenge than the collateral form merits. Ladbrokes and Coral, who work in concert (same firm) for the most part these days, both offer 40-1 about the Rathmoy Stables horse, whereas he is more like 16-1 elsewhere.

Incidentally, when with my Editor I ventured up the steps to meet the trainer in the luxuriously-appointed owners’ room, among the guests enjoying the facilities and watching the day’s racing was Karl Burke.

On Friday morning, when discussing Checkandchallenge with his trainer, Knight ventured: “Karl really likes Aasser <the horse Checkandchallenge beat at Wolverhampton> and thinks he’s much better than 80. That’s why he runs in the handicap at Lingfield today!” He won it comfortably if narrowly at 7-2!

By then Checkandchallenge had already endorsed the previous form and the wonder of it was how little the Lingfield market was affected in the last moments before the race. He’ll go up a few pounds tomorrow while Checkandchallenge, having won both his races, will be eligible for a mark and it won’t be anywhere in the 80’s!

Imperial Fighter, about whom the Sky Sports Racing team laboured to find an excuse to explain the reversal of his form with Dubai Poet, ended 2021 rated 110 and Dubai Poet was 104. Coroebus was 115 and Noble Trail 122. I reckon Checkandchallenge deserves 114 but the officials might go with the “favourite didn’t get a run at a crucial time” get-out and mark Knight’s horse down accordingly.

William Knight spent much of his early career assisting Ed Dunlop at Newmarket before moving to Sussex for ten years, training with success at the late Anne, Lady Herries’, Angmering Park.

When the chance unexpectedly came around two years ago to take over a vacancy left by David Lanigan at Neville Callaghan’s former Rathmoy Stables in the Hamilton Road, he jumped at the opportunity. No wonder! The yard had been totally rebuilt – apart from the trainer’s house – by its new absentee owner.

Last year, his first full season, brought an equal best number of winners and a clear best in terms of prize money. Sir Busker, a large part of the success in recent years, collected $150,000 for finishing fifth in one of the Dubai World Cup feature races last month and the signs already are that better is to come for this upwardly-mobile trainer.

New owners are the life-blood of established trainers and at Newbury on Saturday, Moktasaab, a Shadwell discard picked up for 110,000 guineas last autumn, adorned Harry Redknapp’s colours and won most impressively first time out from a big field.

Moktasaab is due for a big hike and looks a natural for the valuable summer handicaps around ten furlongs, and another of Saturday’s winners is in line for even more drastic attention by the officials.

Last autumn, Ian Williams took the opportunity to strengthen his stable with a few judicious purchases from Arqana and the most dramatic result from the new intake came at Musselburgh in the £100k, better than half of which to the winner, Betway Queen’s Cup over one mile, six furlongs. Ridden chilly at the back, again by Tudhope, Enemy came through in the last two furlongs, eased clear and, while winning by four-and-a-half lengths, ten would be a closer estimate of his superiority.

Williams is one of the more innovative of trainers and Enemy, before he’d broken sweat in the UK was sent as part of the team to Dubai earlier in the year. Originally with John Gosden but transferred midway through his three-year-old season, he joined the Graffard stable which now houses the bulk of the Aga Khan horses.

A consistent strong finisher in his French races, he had been running at just short of ten furlongs there but after Williams secured him for €92k for Tracey Bell and Caroline Lyons, he made the team for Meydan.

Non-country-owning proprietors have the chance to have their horses’ travel paid if they can get two runs on the board during the Carnival and Williams is an ace at contriving that for his inmates. East Asia, Dubai-owned and a money-spinner from nowhere in the UK last year, was lined up for a Group 3 where Godolphin’s Manobo was the stand-out in February, but Williams added Enemy to the field to secure the reimbursement, having given him a warm-up run on arrival.

After East Asia finished well, vastly exceeding anything he’d achieved before to take a lucrative second place behind the favourite, Enemy came through in his wake for a closing fourth. Unfortunately, whereas it is possible to find films of pretty much every horse race around the world, it proved beyond the wit of me to do so.

I just had the trainer’s assurance that if he had not been baulked on the home turn, Enemy would have come out on top in the domestic battle of the 66-1 shots. That resulted in a rise in his mark from 94 to 99, matching East Asia’s new rating.

When I sat down in the buffet at Park Paddocks on Tuesday for the first stage of the Craven Breeze-Up sales, Williams and his shrewd assistant Ben Brookhouse told me they had got 8-1 with four places about Enemy, by which time he had shortened generally to 4-1.

I resolved then to make him my nap for Saturday in the ongoing quest for the William Hill Radio Naps Table prize but deserted him on the morning, idiotically noting a “suspicious drift” back out to 8’s. Ian tried to reassure me. “It won’t start that price!” he asserted. It didn’t, the SP was a ridiculous 11-1.

I guessed the Chester Cup might be the target but yesterday Ian said that he’s always wanted a proper Melbourne Cup challenger and this very sound animal fitted the bill, as he surely does class-wise. With the ability to quicken at the end of a 14-furlong handicap here, the racing requirements of Flemington look assured.

“We had Magic Circle a few years back. He won the Henry II and the Chester Cup but he didn’t have the soundness you need for the race. Hopefully this horse has the full armoury”, said the trainer. You wouldn’t put it past him.

- TS

Monday Musings: Of Sam’s Fairy Tale Last Hurrah

11 April 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

It wasn’t necessarily the story we were expecting beforehand but Grand National day always delivers, writes Tony Stafford. Sam Waley-Cohen obviously had his retirement speech ready on Thursday when, partnering Jett - the horse on which he led the 2021 Grand National field a merry dance until tying up half a mile from home - he and everyone else assumed he would make all the running in the Foxhunters’ Chase.

After his failure even to get to the front thanks to an uncooperative James King riding the 2021 winner of the race, Cousin Pascal, Jett went the way of most horses denied their customary lead – he gradually went back through the field before pulling up.

After being quizzed by Luke Harvey at the top of the steps going into the world’s highest weighing room, Sam went over his great career in a few moments before announcing to Luke’s shock, that Saturday would be his last ride.

Jett, formerly with Jim Dreaper (son of Tom, Arkle’s trainer) in Ireland but now playing the family game with Sam’s father Robert at the homestead farm in Warwickshire, had been backed down to a ridiculous price (5-2) considering the demands of any race around these obstacles.

But, of course, he had the Sam factor, six wins in 40 rides around the track I think he said in that great chat. The ability to find gaps where others run into traffic has always been his friend – helped by the fact that, for many of his races, especially in the Foxhunters’, he was meeting riders of a lesser ability.

Now within days of his 40^th birthday, too busy in his business life – he runs a dental empire with 3,500 employees – to be anything but (according to dad) a 30-rides-a-year man, he is the potential champion jockey that might have challenged A P and Ruby if he had come from a different family.

Instead, he has been the true embodiment of the old Corinthian tradition and, in Thursday’s race, his nearest equivalent, David Maxwell, went close to winning it, his Cat Tiger just failing to see off the strong finish of the brilliant Gina Andrews on Latenightpass, last year’s runner-up in the race.

The difference? Maxwell uses his own money to buy the horses. Covid must have questioned him as to whether, given he was already in his 40’s, he should continue to shell out the training fees to Paul Nicholls and the rest. Then we saw his face – nothing like an A P or Ruby countenance after a near miss in a big race – beaming in an ecstasy that no other experience could match.

But where Maxwell looks more from the Chris Collins, Dick Saunders, John Thorne and dare I say it the late, lamented (by me anyway) Brod Munro-Wilson riding book, Sam could be another Aidan Coleman as watching his wins up the run-in at Aintree didn’t look too much different on Noble Yeats.

Yes. Finally I’ve got there. A horse bought by Robert Waley-Cohen, not out of the Emmet Mullins stable, but very much to stay with his already upwardly-mobile young trainer. Nephew to Willie, cousin of Danny, whose dad, Tony, of Dawn Run fame, has been such a help to my life.

Emmet Mullins has master-minded, with his pal Paul Byrne, not just the rise of Noble Yeats but many of the gambles such as that with The Shunter at the 2021 Cheltenham Festival that Mullins has delivered.

Byrne was approached to see whether Noble Yeats was available for sale back in February and as he says, “you have to keep turning them over when you can take a profit”. Asked whether he regretted missing out on the £500k winner’s prize, he simply said he was delighted for everyone concerned.

After the race you had to scratch your head. The winner, obviously by the great flat-race multiple Gold Cup scorer, Yeats, was a seven-year-old. I know my memory isn’t what it was – ask the Editor – but I couldn’t remember the last time it happened. Looking through the records, no wonder. The last one was in 1940, years before I was born.

In the last pre-War decade victory for that vintage was almost de rigueur, with Gregalach, Kellsboro Jack and Golden Miller – during his five-time winning spell in the Gold Cup – all great names of jumping, each winning as a seven-year-old. But Bogskar in the first Wartime National, was the last so to do, 82 years ago.

I sat on my son’s sofa to watch the race on Saturday and as soon as I noticed the brown and orange colours – the orange sleeves actually – inching forward I exclaimed: “The best rider over Aintree fences is going to win on his last ride!”

He came there and jumped ahead two out but then he was outjumped at the last by Mark Walsh on the 2021 runner-up, Any Second Now. Surely the top youthful Irish pro would be able to put away the near 40-year-old amateur? But there was no amateur to be seen as he re-rallied Noble Yeats for a memorable win. It cost him a £400 fine for excessive use of the whip and, as he said later, “I’m the first rider ever to be out of pocket for winning the race!” – I’m sure dad will pay the fine if nothing else from his half-million pay-day!

The problem for Waley-Cohen senior is where to find anyone with his son’s ability when he returns for a repeat in 2023. This was only a second win over fences for Noble Yeats, but surely once Ahoy Senor had seen off the best of the staying novices earlier in the week we should have taken notice. Had Noble Yeats not run Lucinda Russell’s top-class young horse close when they met at Wetherby in February?

It was Sam’s second ride on dad’s bright new hope - they had a nice spin round together at Cheltenham last month when after making a little ground out wide he gradually weakened. Quite a nice warm-up for horse and rider you might say.

There was no weakening on Saturday and another measure of the performance was the 20 lengths back to the third, Delta Work, a five-time Grade 1 winner who did best of the seven Gordon Elliott runners.

There was no Fairy Story 2 for Rachael Blackmore on the day the wonderful documentary of her life, broadcast astutely on the morning of her repeat attempt by ITV, answered many of the questions to her talent and toughness. An outgoing, confident girl from the outset, she has transformed into a captivating woman and exceptional rider.

The morning on ITV also offered a computerised prelude to the race. Minella Times, to the shock of the watching Bob Champion fell and, in the race itself, was brought down at Valentine’s, the ninth fence. Snow Leopardess, who won that computer event, never got to her desired place near the front of the huge field and was eventually pulled up.

Red Rum, of course, came out on top in the Champions’ race, just outbattling Arkle – 1970’s course form bettering 1960’s and probably all-time world best. Noble Yeats, with Tiger Roll out of the equation, has the best chance for decades to match Rummy’s record with time on his side.

After Cheltenham it took me at least a week to get over what I felt was the immense injustice done to Party Business in the boys’ race. Stopped dead twice he came from miles back to be fifth. Our each-way bet paid off at 25/1 with so many runners but when you are trying to win a naps table that was a blow and a half.

Ian Williams said afterwards he would probably find a nice novice race for him and aim at a big handicap next season. Williams and owner Mark Sheasby, boss of Eventmasters, decided to go again at the last minute and their decision paid a deserved dividend in Saturday’s opening three-miler.

In a forerunner of the big race, two horses came to the last obstacle in close contention, one in the McManus colours later to be denied on Any Second Now, and Party Business. I had reckoned that his troubles probably cost Party Business upwards of 15 lengths, but on Saturday the horse that confronted him had finished a place behind him there.

Ilikedwayurthinkin was now on only 1lb better terms but he ran Party Business a couple of lengths closer than at Prestbury Park. It was great for Sheasby, a client and friend of Williams’ for 20 years, and the thousand guests he had at the track for the big day.

Did I nap him again? Of course not, but Micky Hammond came good at Wolverhampton on Saturday night. Thirteen days left to scour the William Hill Radio Naps table to see whether their assorted experts can catch From The Stables, under whose banner I nominate my pick of the trainer’s reports each day. Given I can select only from our trainers’ horses, it speaks volumes of their skill and vitally, their openness, that FTS is again top of the pops, for the time being at least. 🤞

- TS

Monday Musings: Having a mare for the National

4 April 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

He could hardly have stage-managed it any better, writes Tony Stafford. Trainer Charlie Longsdon faces five days of anxiety and excitement as he prepares his grey mare, Snow Leopardess, to attempt what will be a doubly unique achievement in Saturday’s Randox Grand National.

Not only is the ten-year-old a mare and a grey to boot, but also uniquely one that has had a foal which has now reached racing age.

For the record – repeating (and I hope accurately) facts I trotted out when the aim was mooted a few weeks back – there have been 13 winning mares of Liverpool’s great race, but only two, Sheila’s Cottage (1948) and Nickel Coin three years later, in the past 120 years.

Three grey horses have won the race in its 183-year history since Lottery won the inaugural race in 1839. The Lamb in 1868 and 1871, Nicolaus Silver in 1961, and Paul Nicholls’ Neptune Collonges ten years ago, were the trio.

As far as I know none of the first 11 winners taking us up to 1902 had a foal, but in those days of milk-cart pullers turning up to have a go round the fences having walked miles to get there, who can say?

Snow Leopardess fulfils all three requirements and can also boast a win around the Aintree fences – in the Becher Chase, the middle of three unblemished appearances this season. And as if the portents hadn’t been positive already, having been some way out of the top 40 before her last win at Exeter, withdrawals mean she is safely in at number 38.

Longsdon sent her to that mares’ Listed race to gain the few extra pounds he reckoned it would take to guarantee her place in the field, but the jumps handicapper was unimpressed, leaving her unchanged on 145 after a ten-length romp. The Grand National gets special treatment and she resides there 1lb higher and, in these days of blanket Irish entries, it was just as well.

Looking at the race I think we should deal not much lower than the top 40 as it would take an idiot to neglect the opportunity to run for half a million sterling on a track presently officially good to soft and with a few showers to top it up. So little used, Aintree’s Grand National course invariably offers a sympathetic surface.

When the dry spell was continuing, the prospect of fast ground on Saturday was a worry for Longsdon, but if it stays as advertised she should be fine. Also, she is ideally placed, right at the bottom of the weights and therefore not in danger from a lightweight taking advantage of a hefty weight allowance.

The make-up of the race is interesting. Looking at the top 40 horses, 24 are trained in Ireland and 16 in the UK. Gordon Elliott (or rather owner Michael O’Leary) has declined to allow Tiger Roll to attempt the Red Rum-equalling third win, but they do have Delta Work, the horse that beat him in that thrilling battle in last month’s Cheltenham Foxhunters, to carry the maroon and white colours.

Delta Work, 8-1 equal-favourite at this stage with compatriot Any Second Now (Ted Walsh/J P McManus) and Snow Leopardess, is one of eight Elliott horses, all in the top 22, which can represent the trainer.

While he is no longer pilloried for the events which led to a suspension last year, he must have found Cheltenham an ordeal as he watched his great rival and obvious role model Willie Mullins winning ten races at the Festival. Mullins has a low-key trio (among the top 40) in on Saturday of which Burrows Saint looks his best chance.

If he had not run his last race, when beaten miles in third behind close contenders Any Second Now and Elliott’s Escaria Ten, Burrows Saint would surely have been higher in the market especially as he started favourite that day. He remains one under the radar and everyone knows Mullins’ capability of pulling rabbits out of hats.

It’s always fun to hear trainers and owners moaning about their horses’ treatment at the Grand National weights unveiling and Henry De Bromhead duly joined that group in complaining that Minella Times, last year’s record-breaking winner under Rachael Blackmore, had too much weight.

Pointing to this year’s two runs – a pulled up and then a fall as evidence – he reckoned he should not have been higher than when running in those two races. I am 100% behind the handicapper and 2lb for the long-established Aintree factor looks fair enough for me, especially remembering how easily he won last year’s race for J P McManus.

There is no incentive for trainers guaranteed to get their horses in the race to over-exert them in the season leading up to it, but I think Colin Tizzard deserves credit for the attacking policy he has pursued with Fiddlerontheroof, runner-up giving away plenty of weight in last November’s Ladbrokes Trophy at Newbury.

The Fiddler then went to Ascot for an excellent second to Fortescue in the Swinley Chase attempting to concede 17lb. He jumped the last in front of Henry Daly’s horse and subsequent revelation that he lost a shoe possibly enhances the merit of the performance.

Sometimes one modest run is enough to convince the betting public that a horse’s improvement may have come to an end. When Chatham Street Lad toiled home 22 and again 22 lengths third behind A Plus Tard and Royale Pagaille in the Betfair Chase at Haydock in November, he immediately dropped out of the subconscious.

But Michael Winters, his trainer, is a dab hand at the big races and it is probably wise to remember the ease of his runaway Cheltenham win in December 2020 and last May’s equally impressive victory in a Graded chase at Limerick.

A combination of Kauto Star and Denman would not have stopped A Plus Tard that day, nor indeed at Cheltenham last month when he was the most impressive of Gold Cup winners. Chatham Street Lad is my best outsider.

De Bromhead got A Plus Tard back to that peak – and what a peak! - at the right time for Cheltenham after a hit-and-miss campaign for much of the winter, and now you have to think Minella Times will have been precisely and single-mindedly aimed at this second shot. Repeat wins are less infrequent than you might think, and he could easily do it again. Imagine the noise if they did. Champion Hurdle, Gold Cup and another Grand National for Rachael in the space of three weeks? It could easily happen.

Apologies for another truncated offering – trouble getting my Internet sorted! – but I must end with a salute to Christian Williams and his achievement in supplying the first two in the Scottish Grand National last weekend.

His nine-year-old mare, Win My Wings, was held up a long way back for much of the four miles at Ayr but came through strongly in the straight. Leading halfway down she moved easily into the lead and scooted clear of stable-mate Kitty’s Light in a show of complete control.

Williams can now be sure she will be raised enough to qualify rating-wise for next year’s Grand National proper – her 140 will be raised at least to 150 unless the official was looking elsewhere on Saturday.

In the meantime a mare one year senior to her will have her chance to make the headlines and history. I hope Snow Leopardess can add a final accolade to her already impressive tally of achievement and win the Grand National. Chatham Street Lad, Fiddlerontheroof and Minella Times complete my four for the exotics. Good luck to everyone and let’s hope they all come home safe and sound.

- TS

Monday Musings: Of The Rising Sun in Dubai

28 March 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

Plenty of people from the UK still apparently enjoy the experience of Dubai in late March, writes Tony Stafford. A number of my friends and acquaintances, most barely recovered from the bruising four days at Cheltenham – they might baulk at five – were off again for another cash-devouring few days in the Gulf.

They are the same grouping who also find time to contribute to the well-being of the people that own Las Vegas hotels. I always fancied a few days there, but no doubt the funds would immediately run out at the tables and I would need to try to fiddle a replacement flight home without penalty.

The nearest in my lifetime of a similar jaunt was when a school friend, Harry Hillier, a genius who, when he sat his masters’ degree, the rubric asked him to answer at least two of the ten questions on the paper. As the remaining students on his course canvassed each other and revealed they had managed maybe two or three, when they asked Harry, he answered: “Well I did them all, but I wasn’t happy about a couple of them.”

A clever chap, then, but not, as he always conceded, as good as me in our teens at digging out winners. Be it on the horses or on our almost nightly forays to Clapton and other favourites of the many dog tracks in London – more than 20 at the time, I usually had final say on our corporate wagers. He became a university lecturer in econometrics (I’ve still no idea what that is!): at around that time I became Chief Reporter on the Greyhound Express.

My parents – with me – had often holidayed in Ostend, my dad loving the fact the races there in those days went on five days a week and you could walk there from the hotel. Before Harry went off to university and I started my first job, we decided to go there and got cheap flights from Southend Airport.

We had five nights arranged at the sub-budget hotel, but went skint after the first two days, and had to leave, managing to get a replacement flight. I’ve never been back in the intervening almost 60 years and suddenly have the urge to do so. Vegas, Dubai and even Cheltenham, you can keep them. I heard reports of extortionate prices at Cheltenham – someone said £14 for a gin and tonic? – the track obviously trying to get back the losses from 2021. I doubt it was any better value in Meydan.

In most years over the past two decades, all the invading hordes of UK punters needed to wrest back some of that cash at Meydan was to follow the overwhelming power of the home team. Surely Charlie Appleby, champion trainer in the UK for the first time in 2021, would provide them with the requisite winners as usual.

But for once the royal blue of Godolphin did not pass the post in front even once in the seven championship races. The die was soon cast by Charlie and William Buick’s two bankers: Manobo in the two-mile Gold Cup, a 9-4 on flop, was followed 40 minutes later when Man Of Promise, 10-11 in the Al Quoz Sprint, could do no better than third to a couple of Irish and UK challengers.

Ado McGuinness’s 14-1 shot A Case Of You under Ronan Whelan, got the better of the Richard Hannon-trained Happy Promise (20-1). Two more Appleby runners, the Frankie Dettori-partnered Naval Crown who finished fourth, and the team’s second string and race second favourite, Creative Force, who finished 14^th of 16 completed their unsuccesful challenge.

Once again on the world stage, the Japanese were out in force, their Stay Foolish, ridden by Christophe Lemaire, outstaying the perceived as unbeatable Manobo, to follow up trainer Yoshito Yahagi’s 66/1 shocker Bathrat Leon in the opening Group 2 Mile.

Manobo, who had so entranced the Racing TV experts when winning his trial for the big race recently, probably still has plenty to offer when returning to Newmarket this summer, but his defeat must have been a severe shock for Sheikh Mohammed as well as his trainer and jockey.

The best performance, Manobo apart, from an Appleby runner was Yibir’s second place behind another Japanese, Shahryar in the Sheema Classic over a mile and a half on the turf track. Christian Demuro had the mount here and the 13/2 shot bravely held off Yibir’s challenge.

Fourth, with Dettori in the saddle deputising for injured regular rider Martin Dwyer, was the William Muir and Chris Grassick runner Pyledriver, beaten a length having looked booked for second 100 yards from home when Yibir started his late rally.

Having won his last three 2021 starts in the Great Voltigeur at York, an Invitation race at Belmont Park and finally the Breeders’ Cup Turf, this was an excellent comeback run by Yibir, but with no feasible representative in a World Cup which was left to the devices of the Americans, the home team’s uncharacteristic blank would have been a severe blow.

Having won the Sprint it was Japan’s turn again two races later, when the 12-1 shot Crown Pride collected the UAE Derby, a Group 2 race over one mile one furlong for three-year-olds on the dirt, under Australian jockey Damian Lane. Saeed Bin Suroor, who had plenty of runners on a card he had often dominated in the days before Charlie’s pre-eminence within the team, saddled the third placed Island Falcon at 33-1.

The unexpected happening in that race was the performance of Bob Baffert’s Pinehurst, returning with another long journey to the Middle East from California following his triumph four weeks earlier in the Saudi Derby over a mile in Riyadh. Starting 7-4 favourite that day, he battled well to land the massive prize.

Here he was a 4-1 joint favourite for a big-money follow up, but obviously went wrong, trailing the field home as a tailed-off last of 16. Baffert, though, would enjoy the last laugh at the meeting, but first let’s deal with a fourth Japanese success.

Their horses were to the fore at the Breeders’ Cup and in Saudi Arabia and, in between the triumphs of Bathrat Leon, Stay Foolish, Crown Pride and Shahryar, front-running Panthalassa (8/1) had to share the honours in the Dubai Turf. He was joined on the line in the one mile, one furlong contest by the Gosdens’ money-spinner Lord North (100-30).

Yet another Japanese, 28-1 shot Vin Du Garde, finished fastest of all a nose behind the dead-heaters. Two more UK runners, multiple Group 1-winning filly Saffron Beach (Jane Chapple-Hyam) and William Knight’s Sir Busker were respectively fourth and fifth, picking up plenty of place money. In Sir Busker’s case, the $150,000 greatly exceeded what he would have earned had he carried out his alternative role and run in and won Saturday’s Lincoln Handicap on the opening day of the 2022 turf season.

Baffert’s day in the sun arrived courtesy of Country Grammer. Having been caught late on by 50-1 home-trained Emblem Road in the Saudi Cup last month, he became the underdog defeating the hitherto regarded as best in the world dirt runner in the mile and a quarter Dubai World Cup.

Life Is Good had won five of his six races before Saturday and the Todd Pledger representative started the 8/13 favourite but ended only fourth, his stamina patently failing him on this first attempt at beyond nine furlongs. Now Country Grammer has total earnings of more than £8 million, but still trails a good way behind Mishriff (£11million-plus) who finished last in the Saudi race he won 12 months earlier.

Back home, everyone and especially the bookmakers, expected William Haggas to collect another Lincoln Handicap with the front two in the betting and another lively outsider to represent him. The third string Irish Admiral, at 22/1, was fourth to the Mick Channon-trained 28-1 shot Johan, who won nicely, with 3/1 favourite Mujtaba only 12^th and heavily-backed Ametist finishing last of the 22 runners.

Ironically, Johan had been in the Haggas stable until last autumn when owner-breeders Jon and Julia Aisbitt decided a change of scenery was in order. Channon traditionally has his team in trim for the start of the season even though son Harry declared after the win: “It’s colder at West Ilsley than up here!” Imagine what Mick will do when they come in their coats!

- TS

Monday Musings: Reflecting from the Sofa

21 March 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

Two years ago I happily trudged through four days of Cheltenham, impervious to the threat of Covid-19 which had yet fully to take a grip on this country, writes Tony Stafford. Allowing the meeting to go ahead was one of the biggest sticks the authorities had to deal with at that time as, by the weekend, lockdown was announced.

Last year’s eerie atmosphere when only the most closely connected – and the best of the well-tried chancers – were admitted went on without me and again last week I watched, by choice this time, the events unwinding from the sofa.

With an otherwise empty house it was no surprise that Champion Hurdle Day 2022 quickly morphed in my mind to 13 years earlier when Punjabi’s 33-1 win in the race was accomplished with barely a cheer from the chair: just a smile of satisfaction.

When Honeysuckle made it two out of two in the race, and 15 out of 15 in all, the smile was just as wide and, like everyone else, my mind was scanning forward to next year as we’d already savoured the extraordinary performance of Nicky Henderson’s Constitution Hill in the Supreme.

Over the years Henderson’s best animals have all enjoyed better ground and the first day after a dry spell provided a surface that enabled a spectacular course record in that Festival opener. Not only that, Constitution Hill was much faster than Honeysuckle’s Champion Hurdle – a race where we hadn’t believed the gallop to have been in any way pedestrian.

Second home behind Honeysuckle and Dame Rachael Blackmore – if you could have Sir Terry Wogan, then why not? – was Henderson’s 2020 winner, Epatante. Afterwards, Nicky ceded greatness to the winner and great merit to his mare. It’s possibly easy to be charitable after witnessing a performance from one of your own horses that promises to keep you near the top for another few seasons, but it was nice anyway.

Coming to race seven on the opening day, the score was UK four, Ireland two and W P Mullins zero. And at that stage there were only 22 races still to be contested. Willie and son Patrick supplied a fuss-free winner of the astonishingly denuded six-horse field for the National Hunt Chase, but who could have thought he would win ten of those remaining races?

There is no question that he is the greatest trainer of jumping horses since his late compatriot Vincent O’Brien. The first master of Ballydoyle used to win Gold Cups, Champion Hurdles and Grand Nationals in the early post-War years in much the way Gary Moore knocks off little races around Plumpton and Fontwell.

The first inkling of what was to come was in the opener on Wednesday when Sir Gerhard strolled home in the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle. Last year’s Festival Bumper hero carried what was to be the first of three Cheveley Park Stud victories during the week and he was possibly the least spectacular of the trio.

Energumene was the next major Mullins winner, but sadly the anticipated re-match with Shishkin failed to materialise, Henderson’s hitherto unbeatable young chaser never going a yard and pulling up.

As I hinted earlier, the Seven Barrows maestro’s horses are usually better on faster ground – not that Constitution Hill minds mud, he was just as impressive up Sandown’s hill in desperate going on his previous Grade 1 start; but I can imagine the trainer’s thoughts on that evening when the new clerk of the course John Pullin decided to water, even though rain was expected in many forecasts.

It was almost as though Willie Mullins had sent the boys round to demand a level playing-field. UK four, Ireland three. That’s unfair!

“I didn’t think we would be getting the rain we did,” paraphrases the beleaguered new boy’s response to turning the previously pristine acres to a midwinter Thurles peat bog. The die was cast and the tide turned irrevocably.

The nice runs continued, especially for Venetia Williams whose strength every season comes in muddy midwinter. Even if it may more usually be in January at Hereford or Haydock, the hurricanes can happen at Cheltenham too as L’Homme Presse showed with a fine performance in the three-mile Brown Advisory – the Sun Alliance for old-timers like me.

The next day Venetia sent out two long-priced handicappers in the Kim Muir. This race, happily restored as an amateur riders’ event post Covid, went to her Chambard, a 40-1 shot. She also supplied the 66/1 third, the 3,000-1 plus forecast only denied by joint-favourite Mister Coffey, yet another Henderson horse to impress.

The Irish did not exactly replicate their total monopoly of the handicaps as had been the case in 2021 but the old chestnut of allowing the always questionable form in France for qualification in handicaps reared its ugly head once more.

I mentioned last week that contrary to an alleged inside source, I doubted Colonel Mustard would be running against Sir Gerhard again, trainer Lorna Fowler being much too shrewd to waste her breath tilting at that particular windmill.

The County Hurdle had to be the answer. By the morning of the race Colonel Mustard was down to second favouritism, but the snag was that Mullins had State Man, a horse with only three runs on his card in the field.

A win in France as long ago as May 2020; a fall switched to Ireland when 8-13 for a maiden on Leopardstown’s St Stephen’s Day card and then a facile maiden romp at Limerick brought a 141 initial mark. Incidentally that put him 1lb higher than the well-tested and openly raced Colonel Mustard.

Lorna’s horse actually hit the front between the last two flights but you could see State Man galloping all over the field. While at the line it was less than a two-length margin over First Street, another fine run by a Henderson horse, with Colonel Mustard (in the conservatory with the lead pipe), battling on for third.

Mullins had already come out on top in the opening Triumph Hurdle. His Vauban always had the edge over the Gordon Elliott pair Fil Dor and Pied Piper with the rest, and therefore the home team, nowhere. It seems even before Vauban carried the resurgent and always on the box Mrs Ricci colours, the Melbourne Cup was being mooted. You wouldn’t put that past him either.

Five wins on the final day for Mullins did not prevent the 2021 star turn Henry de Bromhead striking back in the most emphatic way. Last year in the Gold Cup Minella Indo gained a big enough advantage over stablemate A Plus Tard to hold off Rachael Blackmore’s mount up the final hill.

This time, as the Betfair Chase at Haydock virtuoso performance prepared us for, it was Pas Trop Loin rather than later that French-mangling turfistes might have greeted the Cheveley Park-owned chaser.

Richard Thompson, once a prodigal son who was perceived as having wasted some of the family fortune as briefly chairman of Queen’s Park Rangers but now restored in the bosom of the Cheveley Park management, was centre stage all week. But on Friday mum Patricia was on hand for the starring role.

She is the nearest to my mind in non-Regal terms to the Queen Mother in her status in horse racing. This has been achieved, not only through these great horses – to which we can add Ryanair winner Allaho – but also the wonderful flat-race breeding and racing operation in Newmarket. Lest we forget, she owned Party Politics when he won the 1992 Grand National.

Now, by winning a Gold Cup and a Grand National, she emulates L’Escargot’s owner, Raymond Guest. He did win a Derby, too, with Sir Ivor. I think Messrs Haggas, Stoute and the rest better line up one for that classic before too long.

- TS

Monday Musings: Cheltenham Chat

14 March 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

Oh dear! The Irish sent out a single scout on Saturday to assess the strength of the UK jumps defence in advance of Cheltenham this week, writes Tony Stafford. What was his report back to HQ? “They are wide open and ripe for picking. Not just in the graded races either – they still haven’t got a clue how to stop our horses improving a stone when they come over for the Festival handicaps!”

Twenty-two horses lined up for the Paddy Power-sponsored Imperial Cup at Sandown Park. All bar one were trained in the UK, the exception was a 12 times-raced with one win gelding called Suprise Package, rated 135, 5lb higher than his Irish mark.

Number four on the list, so conceding weight to all apart from the top three, he is trained by Peter Fahey, in Co Kildare. Fahey has had 18 winners from the 55 individual horses he has run at home this jumps season.

That puts him towards the upper-middle echelon with home earnings of €353,000 in 2021-22, a total boosted by the exploits of his seven-year-old mare, Royal Kahala. A Grade 2 winner last time she is by-passing tomorrow’s Mares’ Hurdle in favour of a shot at the Stayers’ later in the week.

If she is the star, Suprise Package will be pressing up behind her very soon as, under birthday boy James Bowen, he cantered up to the leaders in the straight and sauntered clear to win by nine lengths as his rivals strained in vain up the Sandown hill in rain-softened ground.

If the ability of the appropriately-named winner wasn’t obvious beforehand – there was none of the standard flood of money that we’ve been seeing in recent seasons about Irish-trained Cheltenham handicap winners – his 20/1 starting price was amazing just the same as the only Irish contender.

The win and the 5lb extra it would entail should Fahey be tempted to follow the time-honoured pattern of an Imperial Cup – Cheltenham Festival race double, in his case in Friday’s County Hurdle, he must be a candidate. Nowadays, though, there’s no big insurance-covered bonus to entice Fahey, who anyway has one higher in the weights for that race.

If he wants to run, he’ll be number 22 of the 50-odd entered, one above the one handicap runner of the meeting I wanted to see in this race rather than take up a level-weights engagement. I have been advised by someone in the know with one of his owners that Colonel Mustard goes for the Ballymore on Wednesday but he is unproven at that trip.

I can’t believe the very shrewd and painstaking Lorna Fowler will pass up the chance of running in the handicap. The option is to take a second shot at Sir Gerhard – now sure to be going there on Wednesday after Dysart Dynamo, Bring On The Night and Kilcruit all represent the Mullins stable in the opening Supreme tomorrow.

Colonel Mustard was a well-beaten third to Sir Gerhard at the Dublin Racing Festival having previously chased home Jonbon at Ascot. His 140 mark looks a gift and I’d love to see my occasional Racing Channel co-partner from a generation ago get a Cheltenham winner on her record. As Lorna Bradburne she was a wonderful amateur rider from a top Scottish racing family and she has melded perfectly into the spectacular private facilities of husband Harry’s family estate.

Tomorrow there are two handicaps on the graded-race-dominated opening-day card. Seven of the 24 acceptors for the Ultima Handicap Chase are Irish while there are double that in the 22-runner Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle.

Gordon Elliott, as well as two of the three favourites for Friday’s Triumph Hurdle, has another five four-year-olds, all bar one in the top half dozen and the fifth equal weights with the 11^th and 12^th in the list.

The inescapable conclusion is that there are many more juvenile races during the autumn and early winter for the Irish stables to test their horses and run them often enough to get a mark. [Alternatively, there is the recalibration of UK hurdles ratings downwards this season – Ed.] Without straying too far into the results from this season my impression is that Gary Moore is one of the few UK trainers to take preparing juvenile hurdlers seriously. He sources them in the manner of Willie Mullins and Elliott and knows how to win with them.

He has decided against tackling the Irish hordes in the Boodles, several of his potential candidates for that race having been skilfully placed to advantage in much calmer opportunities recently. He does have the talented pair of Porticello and Teddy Blue as two serious mid-range contenders for the Triumph and how he would love to make amends for the dreadful luck of his Goshen in that race two years ago with that one’s stumble when well clear at the final flight.

We will not be seeing Goshen in this year’s Champion Hurdle, connections wisely opting to keep him to nice races on right-handed tracks as with his two latest wins, impressively by a wide margin at Sandown and then in a battling effort in Wincanton’s Kingwell Hurdle last month.

Both Porticello and Teddy Blue came from France and there was plenty of money for the latter son of Sea The Moon when he made his jumps debut at Lingfield after good form on the level in his native land. He was comfortably brushed aside that day but there was quite a transformation when upped in class for the Adonis Hurdle at Kempton. There he might have given unbeaten Knight Salute a closer battle if he had been slightly more accurate over either or preferably both of the last two flights.

Porticello won another of the requisite UK Triumph trials with a spread-eagling display in Haydock’s Victor Ludorum run in very testing ground. Accurate jumping, as with Knight Salute, is his forte too but the home trio will have it all to do against Vauban, Fil Dor and the one graduate from the UK, the ex-Her Majesty-owned and Gosden-trained Pied Piper.

Strangely, all three have a defeat on their cards and I favour Pied Piper, one half of the Elliott squad, against Mullins’ singleton Vauban. It will be a race to savour and one in which the English trio will probably on the day be value each-way bets as the invaders play up their meeting winnings.

That said, it isn’t always easily to identify the right one, for all last year’s succession of heavily-backed winners in the handicaps often from smaller stables. There will be double-figure Irish representation in most of the handicaps and therefore it will be correspondingly difficult to find the right one. Follow the money. That usually works.

The opening day reflects the almost obscene power of the two main stables with Mullins supplying 15 and Elliott 14 of Tuesday’s total of 93 final declarations. Half of Elliott’s team are involved in the two handicaps but 13 of the Mullins contingent go for the Graded races with just two “throw-aways” in the Boodles and none in the Ultima.

That he can go in the opener with two unbeaten runners bolstered by Kilcruit, odds-on when beaten by stablemate Sir Gerhard in last year’s Champion Bumper, indicates the depth of strength. Dysart Dynamo had two easy bumper victories last term and two 19-length hurdle romps this as the faultless marks on his card. Bring On The Night was an eight-length winner of his sole Mullins hurdles run following two nice flat wins in France for Andre Fabre. This Gleneagles gelding has great potential yet is tomorrow’s third string.

Nicky Henderson is sending out two of his absolutely top novices, Constitution Hill and Jonbon, to face the invaders and a sense of where the power is these days can be seen that Nicky has only two more runners on that opening day card. So much depends for him on Shishkin.

He did have some joy at Sandown on Saturday when his previously once-raced four-year-old Luccia rolled over the Mullins-trained Eabha Grace in the Listed fillies’ and mares’ bumper. She didn’t just beat the older Irish mare, she annihilated her, going 17 lengths clear. She looks a dish for the Aintree mares’ bumper but it will be interesting to see first how Poetic Music fares against the older boys in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper on Wednesday.

She and fellow four-year-old filly Rosy Redrum are intriguing elements to a race with 16 Irish entries, seven for the voracious Mullins who has won the race 11 times starting from Wither Or Which in 1996. He has won the last two, while he and Elliott have monopolised the last five renewals.

Milton Harris, who has been a revelation this winter after a chequered career, is adopting a fighting policy with Rosy Redrum, just as he has Knight Salute in a busy juvenile hurdle season. But I think there are far more concrete reasons why the 16.3hh Poetic Music might give Mullins and co a run for their money.

A course winner when she powered up the hill on New Year’s Day to pull back a large deficit on her front-running market rival, she too defends an unbeaten record like many of the challengers. I’ve not really been convinced that Paddy Brennan got it right in either of their runs together, the filly getting him out of trouble both at Newbury and Cheltenham.

If Paddy does put in one of his vintage Cheltenham rides, of which there have been plenty over the years, and the filly wins it will be one of the achievements of the meeting for the Fergal O’Brien team and especially Sally Randell. It was Fergal’s partner and assistant who was so keen to buy her when she came up for sale last November after winning her junior bumper at Market Rasen.

- TS

Monday Musings: Cheltenham Memory Lane

7 March 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

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

28 February 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

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 17^th 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.

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

21 February 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

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 20^th 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 11^th 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

14 February 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

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

7 February 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

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

31 January 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

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

24 January 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

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

17 January 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

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 274^th, 275^th, 276^th and 277^th 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

10 January 2022/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

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?

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