One week nearer Armageddon, or as UK trainers have come to call it, the Cheltenham Festival, and those trainers have just endured another week without any NH racing, writes Tony Stafford. Hereford last Monday went ahead and now Ffos Las on Monday looks hopeful, but with only 50 days to go, spirits in those jumping yards could hardly be at a lower ebb.
Take Gary Moore. Situated due south of London, between Brighton and slightly further Lingfield, he was looking forward to gorging himself on the fabulous riches made available in the second Winter Million extravaganza offered by the often-maligned Arena Racing Group at Lingfield.
The first and third days, last Friday and this Sunday, interspersed with a flat card on the Saturday, which did go ahead as planned, were to provide a string of valuable races and Moore had fancied runners in most of them.
The Friday abandonment as frost gripped the country for the whole week, stretched the Sunday card to nine races. It offered obvious chances for fast-improving Haddex Des Obeaux, a scintillating winner at Doncaster last time out; emerging long-distance handicap chaser Movethechains; and stable favourite Goshen, who seems to have found his true metier as a three-mile hurdler.
Moore had made his frustrations known after the first long frozen spell in the south and southeast, that one accompanied by a heavy one-shot snowfall that refused to go away. Trainers had already endured the hottest (and driest) summer on record making working on grass gallops almost redundant for much of the year, even in places as well-endowed with them (and permanent staff to maintain them) as Newmarket.
Then, when the ground on the tracks started to become acceptable to even the most ground-dependent jumpers, along came Mr Frost to halt their progress.
So here we are with only 50 days to the Festival, and Moore and also Kim Bailey, who was denied a run both at Ascot on Saturday in the Clarence House Chase and Sunday at Lingfield with Two For Gold will now be looking to Cheltenham next Saturday. The Clarence House has been added to the card to make it another nine-race programme. Hopefully it will enjoy better luck with the weather than Lingfield, and Kim has also described the season so far as “brutal”.
Also added to the normal run of January fare at Prestbury Park is the Glenfarclas Cross-Country Handicap Chase, expunged from its normal December slot owing to the aftermath of the dry summer, but now apparently all – or most! – is well.
The BHA forecast going for the Cross-Country course on Sunday morning was good to soft, soft in places, frozen in places. The BBC Weather forecast for Cheltenham this week promises minus 4 for Monday night, plus 1 for Tuesday and plus 2 for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
It cannot be a certainty that all the frozen bits will have been expunged by Saturday morning, especially with an 11.40 a.m. start for the Triumph Hurdle Trial, with day-time temperatures not expected to be higher than plus 7 at any time this week. We do have, though, around 105 minutes’ extra daylight now compared with the shortest day just over five weeks ago to help the thawing process.
Of course, mention of the Triumph Trial reminds me of that day in 1986 when Tangognat won the corresponding race in my (now David Armstrong’s) colours, though he got well stuffed in the Triumph itself. It was some (not much) consolation that Brunico, which I originally bought in a package deal from Malcolm Parrish, and had a share in when he won on debut at Windsor for Rod Simpson, was a fast-finishing second for Terry Ramsden to 50/1 shot Solar Cloud, ridden by Tangognat’s twice successful rider Peter Scudamore, now claimed by David ‘the Duke’ Nicholson.
Talking of Rod and Terry, a few weeks back I was chatting to my seafood business-owning friend Kevin Howard, who said one of his regular customers, Denis Rankoff (apologies Denis if Kev got the name wrong!), had been an owner with Simpson “ages ago” and Kevin thought I might be interested in meeting him.
A couple of weeks ago, I called in for some jellied eels and on a very quiet Sunday there was just one other (and also venerable) gentleman there and it turned out to be the said Mr Rankoff. He told me he had been more involved with greyhounds, preferring to be, as he termed it, a “big fish in a small pond” rather than be consumed in the ocean of horse racing, so he didn’t stay long in the business and wasn’t much interested in it either.
“I had a couple of nice wins but when you added it all up, the losers more than outweighed the winners, so I sold my horse and that was that”, said Rankoff..
Of all the horses, the one that won him his money later had a rather big involvement with me, Terry Ramsden and David Wintle, to whom we moved him on, purchasing him out of the Simpson yard. At the time Wilf Storey was making hay with another horse from the Parrish consignment, Santopadre, exiled from Rod with the instruction: “shoot him”, a comment also reserved for Seram, the companion in the box from Lambourn to Co Durham the same day.
The Simpson exhortation did come to pass for poor Seram who almost got Chris Grant killed first day on the gallop when aiming straight for another horse, but Santopadre was actually very talented, winning three in a row, each time carrying plenty of Ramsden money. And, after the third win, by 15 lengths with a double penalty at Wetherby (for two seller/claimer wins), his blue and white colours too. He finished a close fifth in that same Triumph Hurdle, not lasting up the hill as well as the better stayers in a fast-run race.
As I said, Wilf had been winning races with Santopadre, and Fiefdom, and the bookmakers were beginning to panic at the prospect of another Storey gamble, so a plot was hatched. Ramsden bought Topsoil and switched him to David Wintle while we suggested to Wilf that he might want to buy something very moderate but enter him for the same race as Topsoil, and somehow convince the bookies this “secret” horse was the “buzzer”.
He found one from Bob Johnson, Kenny’s father, and the race was also identified, on January 3, 1986, a selling hurdle at Haydock Park. On the strength of his recent winners, Wilf opened an account with one of the major firms with a substantial limit and 45 minutes before the race, fortuitously the first on the card, marched down to the rails and put the whole lot on his horse Darwina.
We had looked closely at the race beforehand and could see only one possible danger, a John Jenkins horse, so Terry’s plan was a big win bet and a forecast. As the time of the race approached, Topsoil and the Jenkins runner were close in the market with Darwina just a shade longer, the firmness encouraged by the fact that Peter Scudamore was booked. He’d ridden Tangognat to success in the New Year’s Day 4yo hurdle at Cheltenham just two days earlier.
The race went pretty much to script. In those days you couldn’t watch, so on the phone we heard as Topsoil got the better of his obvious rival by three-parts of a length with 25 lengths back to the third and Darwina pulled up before halfway. Peter smiled when in the paddock he was told, “you get paid, win or lose!” Darwina was given back to Bob Johnson straight after and Terry, presumably expecting an easier win, asked: “What went wrong?” He expected certainties to win like one!
Back to this weekend, Cheltenham offers a total of £605k for its nine races which also include a £100,000 Paddy Power-backed handicap chase over 2m4f and the three-mile Cleeve Hurdle with 70 grand in the offing. The Triumph Trial, like the big race itself, after many years still supported by JCB, is worth £80k.
Doncaster also are scheduled for Saturday and there’s another £263,000 to be divvied up there. These are the days trainers and owners of good horses need to have to shoot at. Meanwhile, the Irish usually fare much better on the weather front and of course their prizemoney, even for the most mundane card, puts ours to shame, but that’s another story entirely.
- TS
Further to my article last week concerning the death of my friend Roger Hales, his funeral will be at Gorleston (near Great Yarmouth) Crematorium at 11.30 a.m. on Monday, February 20.
Other Recent Posts by This Author:
- Monday Musings: BBC Shows National Apathy
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