Monday Musings: Waiting…

W H Smith said the 2024 version of Horses In Training would be available for dispatching from March 20^th, writes Tony Stafford. Normally, I would buy my copy a few days earlier than that, at Cheltenham, but this time I wasn’t there, and rather inconveniently forgot to ask the Editor, who was, to collect one for me.

Age doesn’t help. A few years ago, I bought a copy from the Racing Post shop there and duly left it in the box that was obligingly made available – necessary as I’d not bothered to book a press badge for the week.

WHS said – or rather its web site did, it seems they don’t have any actual people working for them nowadays – that it would take two or three days to arrive. It hasn’t. I’m a bit worried because on the same ordering page, they still have Horses In Training 2023 available at the same price. Few authors can share editor Graham Dench’s smugness that an out-of-date issue is as valuable as the new one.

You might ask why I should be worried that a company with the worldwide reputation of W H Smith to protect could be thought to be that slipshod. Last year, when the wonderful Sir Rupert Mackeson arranged through his sources to get me HIT 2023, it duly arrived from the year before so I’m holding (or not) my breath. They did send the correct one out eventually.

Why am I so het up about it? Well, it’s the start of the flat and I always like to look at which yards have accumulated more horses than before and note the trainers who prefer not to reveal their equine strengths.

In general, the big get bigger, the small struggle and it needs something a little different for a trainer to make an early impact. As George Boughey has shown over the past few years, being youthful as well as able comes into it, and he was up to 165 officially last year. I wonder how many in 2024 – no don’t tell me – I’ll wait until tomorrow or whenever the priceless volume arrives.

When I was introduced by our mutual friend Michelle Fernandes to Dylan Cunha at the April sale in Newmarket last year, I confess I hadn’t heard of him, or if I had, it would have skimmed over my consciousness like so many things do nowadays. But looking at HIT after our chat, I saw he had 17 horses in his yard in Windsor Road, Newmarket.

Dylan is from South Africa and left the land of his birth a couple of years ago to see if he could make it over here. A winning Group 1 trainer back home, he had chanced him arm but with the help of the highly-talented Silver Sword in the yard – an impressive winner of the last race at York’s Ebor meeting last year – he made quite a stir.

Needing a larger premises as the numbers crept up, he did a deal to take over the famed Phantom House Stables of William Jarvis when the last trainer of that revered surname decided to call time – understandably keeping the family home on the premises.

A great friend and contemporary from Harrow school of William Haggas, it must have become in part a frustration to see his pal’s career travelling in the opposite direction, perhaps one day even to the extent that Haggas might make it to champion trainer, but it will need a slowing-down from the Gosdens and Aidan O’Brien, maybe even Roger Varian, to permit that.

The move sorted, Dylan was always active at the sales and by this point he has 50 horses under his care – I’m not sure whether HIT will have caught up with it. Last week I read an article in the admirable South African Monday to Friday racing publication Turf Talk that published an interview with the family man who is doing his home country proud.

It revealed that he was running a two-year-old in the Brocklesby on the opening day of the flat. Traditionally the first juvenile race of the season from its time until 1964 at Lincoln racecourse, it often brings out a nice debutant.

Zminiature, named for his size but clearly not his ability, dealt with his 14 opponents in authoritative style, expertly guided home by Rhys Clutterbuck, nicely settled into his new role as Dylan’s stable jockey. They also had a winner together with 9/1 shot Gogo Yubari the previous afternoon at Lingfield.

Zminiature was the first of his 25 juveniles to be seen out and the win gives him the enviable position of putting down a marker for the rest of them when getting close to running. I do fear for the South African bookmakers who must have been subjected to a bit of a hammering from this well-touted, over there at least, first-day winner.

Another new partnership on the opening day provided an even more significant, and unexpected, result for the talented David Egan, new first rider for Amo Racing. David had spent some of the weeks leading up to Saturday with a few choice rides and wins in the US for Amo’s boss, football agent Kia Joorabchian, and this first UK winner together since the announcement of their new partnership couldn’t have been better timed for the rider.

The five-year-old Mr Professor, a 33/1 shot, was one of seven Amo horses listed in Alice Haynes’ 2023 team, but they, like so many others, have moved on. Likewise, Alice, who has added the spacious Machell Place to her existing yard around the corner at Cadland stables at the foot of Warren Hill in Newmarket as her numbers increase.

Dominic Ffrench Davis has always been a popular man with his fellow trainers and one who has proved he can succeed over jumps and on the flat. This year will be his 31st with a licence and promises to be his best yet.

When the 2023 book came out, it listed just one Amo horse. In the event, 32 individual horses for the mercurial owner won 16 races, double Dominic’s previous best from 14 years ago. His prizemoney haul of £480k was almost five times his existing record.

Victory in the Lincoln already has Dominic above £80k for the year, a figure he has only three times previously exceeded, with a maximum of just over £100k in 2022. Egan meanwhile cannot wait to partner King Of Steel, still in training as a four-year-old with Roger Varian, for whom he has ridden so many winners.

Having finished second to Auguste Rodin in the Derby, King Of Steel won at Royal Ascot and again on Champions Day there, gaining a first Group 1. Where Kevin Stott did not gel with the owner for whatever reason, the ultra-sharp Egan, whose father John is still riding well into his 50’s when he has time between his bloodstock dealing, will be hoping his relationship with Kia lasts rather longer.

The new season also provided a big welcome back for Silvestre de Sousa, after his ban in the ultra-sensitive world of Hong Kong racing. The triple UK champion returned with a winner on his first ride at Newcastle less than a fortnight ago, and he is up to four after Varian’s Charyn, three times toiling last year in the wake of Paddington, took his chance to win the first turf flat race of the year – a Listed affair – under de Sousa.

Races like the Lockinge were immediately mentioned on his likely agenda and de Sousa, who has ridden off 8st3lb over the past year, is one of those rare creatures that can do light when a top trainer needs one. He will be hard to resist in such circumstances and might even make a play at challenging William Buick and Oisin Murphy for the title.

- TS

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