Tag Archive for: Bow Echo

Monday Musings: Nasty Business

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I’ll be missing the whole of Royal Ascot this week, so the freshly cleaned morning suit will remain on its hanger in the wardrobe, writes Tony Stafford. But the reason for it - ten days’ puppy watch while the beloved takes an educational language trip to Italy – brought home to me yet another reason why the UK is rapidly becoming the nastiest, most cynical and rapacious country in Europe

It’s long been annoying that Stansted airport – other airports are similarly greedy - charges a not inconsiderable amount just for dropping off a passenger at the Terminal. On Saturday, something since my last visit appeared to have changed.

I had never noticed directions to free drop-off – involves a bus – but this time I did. Anxious for a quick departure though, we made our way directly to the Terminal knowing a payment was needed. All my previous visits had involved paying by card at the end of the road after the Terminal but this time, all there is to see is a sign saying, “don’t forget to pay by tomorrow.”

At 3.30 am I jolted awake – “payment!” Trying to get on the right site, my bleary eyes were drawn to “airport-service.co.uk”. I went through the steps and was shocked to see an overall charge of £26, £10 for payment and £16 additional for “service”.  So, £26 for a one-minute slide through.

I knew I’d never paid even as much as £10 before and luckily, I was sufficiently awake to hesitate before pressing the button. I scanned the page again and noticed somewhere – “there are cheaper ways to pay this charge” or something of the like. I think it’s only when you get as close to paying as I had that this message appears.

“Airport-service.co.uk” was close enough to the top of the list that all drop-offees must visit - in second place behind the airport’s own payment site. The skilfully worded legend must draw many equally initially gullible people as me every day. Just while I was there, there was a non-stop succession of cars and taxis unloading. Nice work for the airport whether it was on their site or on that of the oh-so-helpful “Service” crowd, that no doubt passes on the tenner and pockets the rest.

There has been much discussion about the damaging effect of the internet on under-16s and the possible moves to ban them from using it over the past few days. How about a more general cleaning-up so that companies like Airport-service.co.uk are no longer allowed to fleece the public with such bare-faced misdirection?

So you’ve guessed. I’m annoyed to miss the five racing days of the year that I anticipate above all others – even more so than those two lovely spells at York with Mr and Mrs Cannon.

Those of you who can go will have a first-day feast in the clashes between the Charlie Appleby pair of Notable Speech and Opera Ballo and the William Haggas-trained More Thunder in the Queen Anne Stakes, and then the rematch between the 2,000 Guineas 1-2 Bow Echo (George Boughey) and Gstaad (Aidan O’Brien) in the St James’s Palace Stakes.

The lure of Royal Ascot means that in both races there are talented horses waiting for a slip-up from the anticipated principals. The Queen Anne’s straight mile has been the source of a host of surprises, not least when Brook got the race in 1974 (I was there) upon the disqualification of the first three finishers. Docklands’ success at 12/1 in the race last year ought not to count as one of those.

Harry Eustace’s six-year-old has never been out of the first four in seven runs on the track and that sole fourth place was close up and barely a length behind the 100/1 winner Cicero’s Gift in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Champions Day over the course and distance last October. Since then, he has been clocking up the air miles and annexing foreign currency with a series of good runs in the Far East, either side of an easy win at Doncaster in March.

Again, though, has he the resources to withstand the sort of acceleration that the 2024 2,000 Guineas winner Notable Speech can unleash? The latest version of that came with a devastating burst to win a very competitive renewal of the Lockinge Stakes at Newbury a month ago.

Charlie can back him up with the seven-time-winning (from nine) Opera Ballo, whose demolition of Field Of Gold in the bet365 Mile at Sandown elevated him into an elite category.

Then there’s More Thunder, from the William Haggas team and the one singled out by Tom Marquand as the pick of his stables’ riches over the week. Haggas comes into the week in form, again with some spectacular results from his handicappers (really?) over the past few days.

I read an article quoting my old pal Kieran Fallon suggesting that maybe his son Cieren (different spelling - and accent!) could make a challenge for the jockeys’ title with Oisin this year. If he keeps getting on the right Haggas ones – he did on Saturday at York while Tom Marquand was messing around at Sandown, and had the pleasant task of a steering job, even after repeated blockages on his way through on Extremely Zain in a modestly-endowed for the day seven-furlong handicap.

Runing off 93 in a 0-95 handicap after two wins from two, Extremely Zain was the proverbial Group horse running in a handicap, except he was more probably a Group 1 horse dancing though a handicap. I don’t now how the handicapper was expected to put a figure on his initial wide-margin debut win and then narrow second victory in a Newbury novice.

He must have thought he was safe with 93. One hundred and three wouldn’t have made much difference. The much more valuable six-furlong sprint will seem – when it appears on the screen as a result or on paper if anyone still reads form in that way – much more closely-fought.

The truth is that Zac Lloyd, son of English-born but top Australian jockey Jeff, had everything well under control in that big field. Thunder Call was on 85. He’s another almost sure to get to three figures with a couple of well-chosen and remunerative stopping points along the way.

The rematch between Bow Echo and Gstaad will be the main item for many. At Newmarket, Bow Echo comfortably had the measure of Gstaad while both had the rest of the Classic field miles behind. Gstaad went on to win in Ireland but, with Bow Echo enjoying a steady build-up under Boughey’s single-minded approach, it’s hard to see how this unbeaten colt could be relinquishing his position at the top of the miling tree. I can’t wait to see him get his hands (hooves) on the older bunch.

In the far-off olden days, they would have had a runoff over four miles to decide things later in the day.

Talking of history, one of my favourite races down the years has been the Ascot Stakes. This year, the 20 runners include one from France, six from England and 13 from Ireland, including seven from Oaks-winning trainer Joseph O’Brien. Where have our staying handicappers gone?

James Owen does run one and I’m sure he wishes the lower-rated Carlton could have been high enough to get in; maybe he would have without the Irish logjam. He’ll probably run on Saturday in the level weights and slightly longer Queen Alexandra. The way he finished in the Chester Plate suggests he’ll stay the trip. Get your topper and tails ready, Mick!

I often sound off about handicappers, but in going for one of the non-Joseph Irish contingent, I admit the task in assessing a horse with one win on debut over 1m4f, a third place over 1m6f behind fellow Stakes entry Kizlyar (O’Brien), and then, from his mark of 91 from two outings, a smooth win last time over one mile, is a tricky one!

Now trainer Henry De Bromhead is asking his five-year-old Tim Toe to travel two and a half times as far. Champion Hurdles are one thing, but Henry also loves to go for the posh pots on the flat and this would be a splendid addition to his lengthy jumps honours board.

- TS

Monday Musings: Bright Lights in Newmarket

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Irritatingly, I couldn’t make it to the two big races over the weekend, but watching from home didn’t diminish the experience of seeing three bright lights dominate the first Classic of the European season, writes Tony Stafford. Bow Echo, his young trainer George Boughey and barely-out-of-his-teens rider Billy Loughnane, treated Newmarket to its finest hour since Frankel slaughtered his opposition back in the 2000 Guineas of 2011.

Both Boughey and Loughnane have sprinted through the normal gestation period in their respective careers. Boughey went from a handful of horses and two wins in 2019, having left his role as assistant to Hugo Palmer in Newmarket, to the first of four successive centuries in 2022.

Loughnane’s rise has been even more meteoric. The son of trainer Mark had his first rides in 2022 on the all-weather yet by the end of that winter had 41 successes, winning the apprentices’ AW season award just beyond his 17th birthday.

Comparisons with Lester Piggott are inevitable, but Lester was able to start riding at age 12 whereas the earliest allowed nowadays is 16. At 20, Loughnane has what will prove the first of many Classic wins, I’m sure, and he will be a major threat to Oisin Murphy’s hold on the jockeys’ championship starting now.

Last year Loughnane rode 223 winners and was on 65 for this year after Saturday’s exploits. Of course, the jockeys’ championship, oddly, only includes racing between mid-April and October, but it isn’t far-fetched to suggest he might have a little more hunger than Murphy. The champion will need to keep his own well-publicised demons at bay in face of what will be the most serious human challenge yet to his pre-eminence.

Comparisons with horses of previous generations are often meaningless, but Bow Echo, who won by almost three lengths from Coolmore’s hastily re-entered Gstaad after a costly glitch from the Ballydoyle office computer, looks very much in the Frankel range of ability on their comparable Guineas runs.

 

 

Tom Queally allowed Frankel to run his rivals into submission a long way from home, winning by ten lengths on the way to a blemish-free lifetime tally of 14 from 14. Bow Echo is thus ten away from that after this exceptional performance. Had Gstaad not been included as the sole Aidan O’Brien runner, the margin theoretically could have been ten lengths, thus firmly in the Frankel range.

Had Bow Echo not been in the field or not lived fully up to Boughey’s expectations – a friend told me in the week that the trainer thought him a certainty – Gstaad would have won by eight, just the job to keep the Coolmore machine in full flow. Their PR department would have been Frankelising the performance.

Saturday’s winner, along with the third home, Distant Storm, the eventual joint-favourite with the runner-up, are both sons of the 2014 2000 Guineas winner Night Of Thunder. His Guineas success was notable in that he came right across the track in the closing stages yet still had enough under Kieren Fallon to catch market leaders Kingman and Australia as a 40/1 chance for Richard Hannon.

Night Of Thunder was hardly over-trumpeted in his first season as a stallion at Darley’s Kildangan Stud when his opening fee was €30k. Success breeds excess in terms of stud fees though and he is up to €200k as a result of his being champion stallion in the UK and Ireland last year.

In the 14-horse field on Saturday, he had four representatives – the others being Billecart in 12th and Needle Match in 13th. Three more 2000 Guineas winners were also represented. Apart from Frankel, they were Sea The Stars (2009), who went on to win the Derby and the Arc, and Saxon Warrior (2018).

The latter’s son Padraig Dawn is trained by 24-year-old Charlie Pike, who is in his first season with a licence. That horse gave him his first and, so far, sole winner at Southwell in February from 35 starters, although in finishing eighth only three lengths behind the third horse, he deserves a big mention.

So too, Coolmore-based and raced Saxon Warrior, result of a trip to Japan for his smart mother Maybe to be mated with Deep Impact. He won the Classic eight years ago and is still on Coolmore’s books but very much at the basement end. His 2026 fee is only €10k, as against £350k for Frankel and €300k for Sea The Stars. Two Coolmore stallions were doubly represented with Starspangledbanner and St Mark’s Basilica, so eight of the 14 were sired by only three stallions.

In yesterday’s 1,000 Guineas, looking from far away on the screen, as the fillies went into the stalls, you had to be impressed with how True Love looked: big, strong and also well found in the market. There had been doubts about whether Ryan Moore’s mount Precise would get to the race but as she shortened to 7/4 favouritism those had seemingly been dispelled.

Meanwhile, True Love, winner of the Cheveley Park last year and a returning winner this spring, had the time-honoured Classic profile and she won in fine style, making it an eighth 1000 for Aidan O’Brien, this time with Wayne Lordan in the saddle. She might not be an exact equivalent of Bow Echo, but she looks the type to progress through the year.

 

 

Most of the sires represented on Saturday are either at Coolmore or under Godolphin/Darley management. That is vastly at odds with the 18-strong line-up from Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby, first leg of the US Triple Crown, staged late on Saturday evening.

Only one stallion had more than a single runner and that was champion sire Into Mischief, whose fee is $250k. But only one stallion represented in the field had won the Kentucky Derby, the 2016 hero Nyquist, and as the line-up says, competitors in the Run For The Roses come from all directions.

Only Gun Runner of the other 16, at $250k matches Into Mischief’s covering fee, while the winner of the race Golden Tempo, was sired by Curlin, now a 22-year-old, most remembered for winning the 2008 Dubai World Cup. His fee is $225k.

 

 

Golden Tempo came from 'downtown', as they say, his jockey Jose Ortiz 18 lengths off the lead after half a mile, and deploying similarly exaggerated waiting tactics to brother Irad, on Renegade, who ran on for a close second. And this was a first Kentucky Derby win by a female trainer, Cherie DeVaux adding to her growing haul of records.

 

 

Gun Runner had a better day on Friday when he supplied the one-two with Always A Runner (Chad Brown) and Meaning (Michael McCarthy) as well as two of the backmarkers in a 13-strong field for the Kentucky Oaks. Brown was further cementing his reputation as a supreme trainer of fillies, on dirt as in the Oaks, but also on turf.

 

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I would have made this my lead today had it not been for the excellence of Saturday’s big race winner and to a slightly lesser extent the runner-up. I remember when Sea The Stars was going along, Aidan used to have a pop at him with different horses trying to find chinks in his impregnable armour without ever managing to do so. The rest of the season among the milers will be fascinating.

What wasn’t fascinating was the treatment meted out to the three-year-old King’s Courtier, trained by Julia and Shelley Birkett at Exning, near Newmarket.

Three, I must say, talentless runs at two brought the son of Bated Breath an initial mark of 30. In the past, horses so far out of the handicap were allowed to run, but off what is the nominally bottom-weighted mark of 45. Now, the Rules state you cannot run and must find a maiden to try to improve the rating.

So, four months after his feeble 12th of 13 at Chelmsford, he was loaded into the horsebox for the 250-mile round trip to Wolverhampton. Mindful to get the best possible placing, unlike a few less in need of such an urgent situation, the three-year-old started 66/1 and got within eight lengths of the winner.

The misfortune was that the horse immediately ahead of him was rated 53, questionable in that only once in three had he run anything remotely worth that mark.

Result, the BHA handicapper raised him 27lb – that’s near enough two stone for finishing fourth in a modest at best race.

Now Julia, an experienced and well-respected trainer since 2000, who joined forces with daughter Shelley last year, was in a right pickle. Recently, the rule which enabled horses 1lb and 2lb above the ceiling mark in handicaps to run, was taken away in Class 5 and Class 6. That meant King’s Courtier could not run in a 0-55 and would have to go to 0-60. “There aren’t any for him,” says Julia, so she had to go up to 0-65 for his first handicap run. “There’s no way he’s that class,” she lamented.

So, it was a shorter road and a bit easier on the diesel, trip last Thursday that was undertaken for King’s Courtier for a seven-runner race at Yarmouth. Julia/Shelley’s horse started 50/1 and finished 18 lengths behind the penultimate runner in the race. We all know that handicappers do not like dropping horses – except for certain top trainers it sometimes seems! – so Julia is anxiously waiting on tomorrow’s revised mark.

Unless they drop him to 45 it will be a travesty of justice, but they won’t. Indeed, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Civil Service types that seem to fill the job nowadays, say: “He couldn’t have run anything like to form, so let’s leave him where he is.”

Make no mistake this is a massive scandal, and I would suggest to Dominic Gardner-Hill (if he’s still the man?) that he has a serious look at the reasoning whereby life has been made so difficult for an honest, hard-working stable and the man who has been paying the bills for the past 20 months! Not no mention the ever-spiralling administration charges.

- TS

Haydock victor Bow Echo has Classic engagement on his radar

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Next year’s 2000 Guineas is the ultimate target for Bow Echo after George Boughey’s exciting juvenile lived up to his tall reputation with victory in the Betting.Betfair Ascendant Stakes at Haydock.

Having been rerouted from last weekend’s Solario Stakes at Sandown, John and Thady Gosden’s Publish was the early favourite for this one-mile Listed contest, but sustained support for Bow Echo – a dominant winner on his Newbury debut three weeks ago – saw him go off the 5-6 market leader.

Odds-on backers will have been smiling when the Night Of Thunder colt cruised to the lead in the hands of Billy Loughnane heading inside the final two furlongs and while Publish looked set to pick him up late in the day, Bow Echo found more once challenged and was a length in front at the line.

Boughey did not make the trip to Merseyside, but was delighted with what he saw.

“He’s a lovely horse who has shown plenty of ability at home, but he’s possibly still quite raw,” said the Newmarket handler.

“He probably didn’t learn too much on his debut at Newbury and he’s only had once piece of work since.

“Billy was of the opinion that he really wanted something to give him a lead for longer at Newbury and it was similar today. It looked like Publish was coming to win the race, but our horse was waiting for him and outbattled him in the end.

“I’m delighted to make him a Stakes winner for Sheikh Mohammed Obaid (owner) as he’s a homebred from a good family.”

While Publish holds big-race entries in the Royal Lodge and Dewhurst at Newmarket, Bow Echo does not, with Boughey keen to take a patient approach with a horse he views as a legitimate Classic contender.

He added: “I think we’ll just see how he comes out of the race. The reason we didn’t enter him in those races (Royal Lodge and Dewhurst) is because we see him as very much a horse for next year.

“Maybe we could step him up in class again this year, but I’d be quite happy to wait and run him in a Guineas trial next spring.

“He has plenty of pace, he’s a Guineas horse and that’s what we’ll be training him for.”

Bow Echo arrowing towards Haydock next

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George Boughey is struggling to contain his excitement for Bow Echo, with Haydock’s Betfair-sponsored Ascendant Stakes on Saturday week pencilled in for the impressive Newbury winner.

The son of Night Of Thunder created a deep impression with a dazzling display in the hands of Billy Loughnane on debut, with the Newmarket handler now seeing the one-mile Listed event as the perfect next step in the career of the budding star.

“The likelihood is he will probably go to the Ascendant Stakes at Haydock, he started over a mile and I think that is probably where he will be staying,” said Boughey.

“He was very impressive on debut and a very natural animal who hadn’t done a huge amount of work beforehand and was mainly there to have a nice experience, but he looked pretty good.

“He’s hard not to get excited about as he’s a very natural horse with a great pedigree and to see him go and do that on debut was great to see.”

The Sheikh Mohammed Obaid-owned Bow Echo holds an entry for Doncaster’s Betfred Champagne Stakes on September 13, but stablemate Protection Act – who is also one from one after a taking victory at Haydock – appears more likely to head to Town Moor on St Leger day.

“There’s no harm leaving Bow Echo in the Champagne with weather changing and then see how we go, but Protection Act looks like going to Doncaster and he was equally exciting on debut, albeit in a slightly different manner,” added Boughey.

“The race has worked out pretty well and he was a decisive winner at the line having missed the kick.

“He is a horse who was very weak at the time of his debut and is still developing. It’s all a learning curve for him at the minute, as like Bow Echo he is going to be a better three-year-old and is still very raw.

“But if he relaxes like he did on debut then I think Doncaster will suit him well.

“It can often be a small field which is always a bit of a shame and I just hope we get a properly-run race. If we can get Protection Act there in the same form he went into his debut, then he should be competitive.”

Boughey is entitled to have high hopes for the smart team of youngsters assembled at his Craven House base which includes the classy Albany Stakes runner-up Awaken.

However, one who will remain in calmer waters for the immediate future is taking Windsor winner Hilitany who will be kept to novice company for his next start despite holding entries for both the Mill Reef and Middle Park Stakes next month.

“He’s a nice colt who is well-entered up,” continued Boughey.

“He’s probably going to stick to the novice route for now and we’ll see, he’s still weak.

“I was happy with him going into his novice win, but he’s a horse who is going to keep improving into the winter and into next year and we’ll take him step by step. He’ll definitely go to another novice before he steps up in grade.”