The problem with the international and even domestic racing programme is that when you get older, and appreciably so in my case, it spins ever faster, writes Tony Stafford.
It seems it was only a few months ago that I was looking back at a just concluded UK jumps season and saying that by the time of my next offering, 40 per cent of the UK Classic races will have come and gone. This time round we’ll have had a Coronation too – the second in my lifetime!
Thank goodness we had the Craven meeting to wean us back to flat racing of young, well-bred, and beautifully prepared horses, just in time for the 2000 Guineas on Saturday when Messrs O’Brien Sr., Balding, Appleby, C., and the Gosdens, father and son, will move back into focus.
Saturday at Sandown was a joyous event in many ways with top-class performances through the card, staged on the first spring-like afternoon of the year it seemed. Even if Paul Nicholls was unable to conjure the earnings needed to break the UK trainers’ record for a season, such as Kitty’s Light, giving another boost for Christian Williams as his family tries to cope with his daughter’s illness, and Jonbon, taking another sure upward step as a two-mile chaser with Nicky Henderson, enthused the massive crowd.
It was less of a cliff-hanger though in the normal way of a Nicholls/Martin Pipe or Nicholls/ Henderson last-day tussle and the jockeys’ championship, a third for Brian Hughes, was a one-horse race probably from October.
The identity of the top trainers on its prizemoney, rather than winners, criterion, was pretty much set in stone. Nicholls, Henderson (sneaking into second with a memorable last day double), Dan Skelton and, solely due to his Cheltenham Festival domination, Willie Mullins, predictably led the way.
That Mullins could add £1.72 million in the UK to the more than €7m in Ireland is remarkable. What may be less appreciated is that he sent 88 individual horses over here for the 106 combined runs it needed to earn the big bucks, considering only eight were wins.
As my former associate Derek Hatter always used to say, it’s only different numbers and that applies to everything in life. Racing is certainly a numbers game. The top three UK trainers had respectively 166, 142 and 212 individual horses representing them; fifth-placed Fergal O’Brien saddled 208 individuals on his way to 141 wins and £1.61 million in earnings.
Mullins’ domination of Irish racing – for a while challenged by Gordon Elliott who, though still a factor, in championship terms has been put firmly back in his box – extended to 17 winners over the five days of the recently-concluded Punchestown Festival. His earnings last week alone – €1,783,905 according to my admittedly questionable addition – almost exactly matched his whole UK season’s tally, depending on whose currency rates you use.
The domination of the top four trainers depends entirely on their purchasing power and having a stable full of owners who will pay the ever-increasing prices needed to acquire raw material from the Irish pointing field or the plethora of spring juvenile races in Auteuil and other French tracks.
These are more often of fillies who, like Lossiemouth, the outstanding juvenile of the season and a dual Grade 1 winner (in the Triumph at Cheltenham and again at Punchestown on Saturday) won or ran well on debut thus catching the attention of Harold Kirk, Mullins’ principal French talent scout.
Their shopping trips do not always produce instant gold. One private purchase, a gelding bought after two second places from Guillaume Macaire, the most successful French jumps trainer of the past two decades, illustrates that point. He was acquired on behalf of Sullivan Racing Ltd, whose red colours, previously associated on the flat with Richard Hannon, had become a significant part of the Mullins team.
The horse was called Lucky One, a gelded son of Authorized, the 2007 Derby winner and sire of Tiger Roll. He was no doubt selected as a prospect to rank alongside such as Sullivan’s smart winners Duc De Genievres and Eglantine Du Seuil, among several others.
Incidentally the narrow winner and favourite of that race, Aveiro, trained by Francois Nicolle, was bought on behalf of the Coolmore owners and so far, four years on, hasn’t made it to the track since.
Mullins did get Lucky One to the races, but only once and then a full 14 months after that French race. He finished fourth of 16 in a novice hurdle at Punchestown in February 2020.
The following winter he had moved to Paul Nicholls where he had two wide margin wins in eight starts and by the end of that season was rated 143, so smart. Moved again to Dan Skelton, he struggled with that high mark, and after five runs, was passed on at the Doncaster May sale for £18,000.
The trainer willing to take a chance on a horse that had been originally with a French legend and since had been under the care of three of the four outstanding handers in these isles as the stats show (only Nicky Henderson can plead innocence) was Sophie Leech.
Sophie and husband Christian have a 30-box yard at Westbury-on-Severn, near Gloucester, once occupied by my mate the late David Wintle and owned by another pal Keith Bell. Christian was formerly racecourse manager at Warwick and he and Sophie started training in 2007.
On Saturday at Auteuil, the same Lucky One, a 12/1 shot, who had been nurtured and developed in those prestigious environments for the larger part of his life, won the most valuable jumps race run in France so far this year.
Mme Sophie Leech, as France Galop describes her, picked up the Grand Course de Haies de Printemps, and £70k as near as makes no difference, at Auteuil on Saturday afternoon. By Sunday morning – “We go via Calais and it’s only ten hours”, said Christian, “and he’s already in the field.”
The Leech duo have successfully exploited the system of French jumping which has far fewer handicaps than is the case in the UK. “Older horses, like Lucky One, who might now be struggling in handicaps, have plenty of conditions races available to them. It’s almost as though they are back in novice company, and they are obviously much easier to win. Also, these old boys seem to enjoy the travelling,” he said.
It truly is a route to gold and Christian, still revelling in the enormity of the win, says Sophie has already decided on challenging for the French Champion Hurdle, over just more than three miles, on May 20.
Christian says: “He’s unexposed over further, but the way he kept battling over 2m5f suggests he’ll stay. The company will be hotter, but the top French hurdlers keep beating each other. No doubt Willie Mullins will send over one or two as usual. I wonder how he will feel if Lucky One was to beat him!”
Now though this upwardly mobile couple will be hoping that the 20 horses at present in their yard might be increased because of this amazing success. Their three winning horses, the other two are Demoiselle Kap and John Locke, have earned almost £180k just this year.
“In the UK, as we find with our runners here, the expected return is around 10-15% in our experience. In France, we’ve found you must be hopeless if you can’t at least break even with a jumper.”
Clearly the Leeches – there, I had to say it at least once! – are thinking about applying for a three-month licence for next winter. “We would be based at Cagnes-sur-Mer and that would make that course and Pau, whose season follows, much easier to reach, We have done well down there, race programmes clearly suit our horses. Paris is okay, but getting to the Riviera or to Pau, which is near Spain,is much more difficult,” he said.
Lucky One is the right name for a horse that is helping put this talented double act on the map, not that they have had much attention paid to them by the racing media. “It’s like flogging a dead horse,” says Christian. At least where the racehorses are concerned their training talent clearly has the desired effect, making it pay for their owners and themselves. And rather than flogging dead horses, they are extending their effective racing careers.
- TS
