Until a day or so after the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket, my mind briefly projected back 39 years to the 1986 Derby early in June at Epsom, writes Tony Stafford. The Khalid Abdullah-owned Dancing Brave was the hot favourite for the race having won the Guineas easily but, after turning Tattenham Corner, virtually last on the wide outside under Greville Starkey, his long run up the middle of the track never looked like wresting the prize, and he finished second.
Shahrastani (HH the Aga Khan, Michael Stoute and Walter Swinburn) was the beneficiary of Starkey’s over-confidence. From that point, nobody believed the two horses were in the same parish in terms of ability, not even when Shahrastani won the Irish Derby by eight lengths later that month.
When Dancing Brave turned out next time in the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown, Starkey shot himself in the foot and lost the mount on the best horse in the world. After Dancing Brave came out on top, reversing the form with Shahrastani, the jockey turned and gestured to the grandstands (and probably intending the press box) in a manner that suggested HE was the man.
The publicity-shy Prince Khalid and trainer Guy Harwood clearly did not enjoy the histrionics and immediately switched horses in midstream as it were, leaving Pat Eddery to step into Greville’s misguided shoes. Pat was on Dancing Brave for the rest of his illustrious career, which culminated in an eighth win in ten career starts in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, again coming from a Starkey-like position way out of his ground to beat Bering and Shahrastani.
Neither Prince Karim Aga Khan, who died this year, nor Prince Khalid is with us now but their long-established bloodstock empires remain largely undiminished by the inevitable family transition. Both have been heavily involved in the 2025 Guineas Classics of the three major European racing countries, which culminated in Ireland this weekend.
Aga Khan IV, who died this year aged 88, still seems to cast a hypnotic spell over the racing administrators in France where the bulk of the operation’s horses are housed.
How else could the authorities that demoted Charlie Fellowes’ Shes Perfect from the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches have had their cockeyed verdict maintained by the French appeals system. Fellowes and jockey Kieran Shoemark both said they were received and treated very well when they travelled over to state their case.
As if one was needed. As I said somewhere before, it was a case of legalised thieving.
Shoemark was thus suffering a third career-shattering setback within a week and a half of Classic action on and off the track. My initial mention above of Dancing Brave and Greville Starkey is apt enough but could have been more so. Both Dancing Brave and the 2025 beaten 2,000 Guineas favourite Field Of Gold sported the Abdullah silks.
John Gosden so obviously blamed Shoemark, but I doubt the jockey, who had ridden Field Of Gold in all his previous starts and accepted blame for the defeat, would have expected such summary justice. How many jockeys have been guilty of a similar blunder but kept their jobs? Obviously, having never won a 2,000 Guineas meant defeat hurt him badly, but as they say… That’s racing BJ.
It must have been so galling for Shoemark to have sat and watched as Ireland’s habitual champion jockey Colin Keane stepped in to perform the steering job in Saturday’s Irish 2,000 Guineas and win as he liked. Roy Keane or even the legendary Clapton-based dog trainer of the 1960s, 20 stone Paddy Keane, could have won on him!
That was one instance when the error was obvious. But Big Johnny Gosden sacked him for a misjudgement. At least Starkey got a second go and if he’d done a Ryan Moore or William Buick and just professionally went over the line with maybe a tiny hint of a smile, all probably would have been well.
Shoemark’s sacking denied me a more concrete excuse for drumming up the earlier Abdullah superstar story. Colin Keane didn’t err by over-celebrating as Field Of Gold won Saturday’s Irish 2,000 Guineas in a common canter. Why do they say a common canter, by the way? Canters like the one exhibited by the son of Kingman are anything but common.
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If I can digress to an element of my extensive recent use of NHS facilities, I hope nobody is offended. I had an MRI scan on my brain recently and when the results eventually came through, I jumped for joy.
Further interpretation revealed all the individual complicated areas were “unremarkable”. To think I once considered myself contrastingly remarkable in that area. The bottom line is that I’m not suffering from Alzheimer’s! Hurrah.
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Sunday’s results affirmed that when Aidan O’Brien claims to be a couple of weeks behind, he’s not kidding. Look at the 1,000 Guineas result from Newmarket where his top-class 2yo of 2024, Lake Victoria, had finished only sixth. Yet here she started odds-on against several of the fillies that finished ahead of her, suggesting we would get a different result.
So it proved, Ryan Moore bringing Lake Victoria to challenge a furlong out and then easing clear for a margin of a little more than two lengths. That was a third win for his upwardly mobile team on the day at the Curragh. Earlier, the juvenile Albert Einstein won the Marble Hill Stakes and was inserted as favourite for Royal Ascot’s Coventry Stakes, while Los Angeles, brave winner of the Tattersalls Gold Cup (Group 1) will have a host of options to choose from.
But enough of Aidan and his 11th Irish 1,000 win. I was inclined to think it would have been a few more. Returning to Mr Gosden (now augmented by son Thaddeus), the stable’s long-standing number two rider Robert Havlin, conjured a win from the air at Goodwood a few minutes after the Classic success when hot favourite French Master Houdini-ed his way along the rail to nick the 1m6f handicap.
No hint was given by the joint trainers, nor expected by their faithful servant, that he might be in line for some star rides. The 2004 Directory of the Turf – I like to keep up to date – lists his address as Manton House, where Gosden was the trainer for Robert Sangster at the time.
Havlin moved with him as the back-up man in the next few years and at the age of 51 is one of the senior riders in the weighing room.
His situation – nice enough as he picked up a couple of grand for that ride the other day – reminds me of a time in the mid-1970’s when the Racing Editor at the DT, Robert Glendinning, was coming up to retirement age.
He had served during the war in a unit where Kingsley Wright, an irascible gentleman, was an officer. Blow me down, Kingsley was the sports editor when I came to the racing desk and Bob, who had no compunction about telling US what to do, used to behave as though they were still Captain and non-commissioned officer (if that, I never found out).
Both were Yorkshiremen, as was Noel Blunt, who had been a redcap (the hated Military Police) in his conscription time and had climbed the pole to be deputy racing editor, to the extent he would sit in Bob’s chair on Bob’s day off.
We used to go to a pub called the Albion for Sunday lunch as did lots of people from the St Paul’s Church Choir, so in need were they of the gargantuan portions. My shifts didn’t always work for me to have lunch, but Noel’s did and he used to buttonhole the boss whenever he could, considering there were always sports journalists from the Daily Mail and Daily Express hanging on every word.
So Bob is retiring, and one Sunday Noel plucked up the courage to ask the question he’d been agonising over for months. “What’s happening when Bob retires, Kingsley?” Kingsley: – I wasn’t there, but I know what his movements would have been – says, taking off his glasses and leaving them next to his pint: “Noel, your present position is assured.” Still the most ingenious put-down line I’ve heard. Later that day, Noel announced that he wouldn’t be going to the Albion any more. “It’s no longer value-for-money.”
Soon after, we heard a guy was coming down from the Manchester office to take the job, Kingsley’s son Chris, whose favourite times of the day were when he took his breaks in the local hostelries. Within weeks Noel was off to the Sporting Life! Who says nepotism is dead?
There is no question that sitting in as number two has been full value to Havlin. No doubt Kingsley’s response would have been Big John’s answer if at any time over the last 20 years Rab had had the cheek to ask that question.
