Tag Archive for: Westover

Monday Musings: A Smack in the Mouth

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Now I know what it feels like, writes Tony Stafford. Coming to the end of my eighth decade, I can now honestly tell you what it is to experience pain. Thinking back to my football days, a broken wrist and a regularly sprained ankle were about the size of it.

I’m sure every woman past puberty has been doubled up on a regular basis and most sportsmen – none more so than jockeys – accept it as part and parcel of their lives. Sorry Keith - and boxers!

But I’ve poodled along and, despite the odd bit of skin cancer on my face and Type 2 diabetes for the past 15 years which has realistically only involved taking the tablets (and not passing up biscuits and cakes), have had a trouble-free run. My friend George Hill, who has had his share of scary medical issues over the years, always says I’m made of tungsten. The tungsten has run out.

It started a few months ago with a twinge in the corner of the mouth, usually when eating. That developed to such an extent that I went to a dentist to see if there was a problem. Nothing on the X-ray.

The pain got worse – not permanent, just intermittent concentrated bursts for seconds or minutes, often while eating in company with friends at the races or in restaurants with my wife. How embarrassing! Ask the editor!

I finally booked an appointment with the doctor for last Thursday but went to watch Ray Tooth’s Glen Again at Sandown the previous evening. It was after his race, trying to have something in the owners’ room that the pain got unbearable.

The nice guy who monitors the room and likes Chelsea FC and Surrey CCC said: “If you need painkillers go to the First Aid room in the main stand.” I did, to be greeted with a: “Painkillers won’t make a difference. I think I know what you have.”

To my shame, I didn’t take down her name, but this highly capable woman told me that she had been originally a dental nurse and for 30 years a paramedic. She was clearly the boss, working very congenially it seemed with her two male colleagues: “It’s trigeminal neuralgia.” Relief, I know what it is. I’ll tell the doctor tomorrow.

Then I Googled it after I left her room and, for relief, read horror as I realised I will have this condition for the rest of my life.

I slunk to the surgery on Thursday, telling the GP the symptoms and it took about ten seconds for him to repeat the dreaded name. “I’m pretty sure it’s trigeminal neuralgia, but it’s not entirely certain. We’ll prescribe the usual drug for the condition. Start with one a day for a few days, then go to two.

Thursday, Friday, I had one each day. Saturday, I went to Ascot, had the good fortune to be in a box where the food was laid out in glorious, nay luxurious profusion. To that point, all I’d managed to get down me from Wednesday had been a couple of coffees and a diet coke, but anything that involved access to the right-hand side of my mouth was the inevitable trigger for another shooting pain.

On Wednesday evening, post paramedic, I was trying to put away a little soft dessert, to no avail, and recently retired trainer Harry Dunlop hove into view. I was keen to ask him what he was doing now and just as I began, the pain came at maximum force. All I could do was stand there like a moron; mouth open trying to stave off the agony. Kindly, with an apologetic smile, he moved away.

So what is trigeminal neuralgia? It stems from the trigeminal nerve, the biggest nerve in the brain. That sends signals of pain to the face, ear, upper and lower jaw and teeth. When it gets damaged for whatever reason, the neuralgia follows.

The literature says that the sharp pain, like an electric shock, can be induced by talking, smiling, chewing, brushing your teeth, washing your face, a light touch, shaving (or putting on make-up – pass), swallowing, kissing, a cool breeze or air conditioning, head movements, vibrations, such as walking or travelling in a car. If that catalogue wasn’t comprehensive enough, it can happen spontaneously with no trigger at all.

Looks like I’ll have to change many of the things I thought I could do!

The literature suggests it can never be cured, the medication – a smaller dose, but the same that is given to epilepsy patients, great news eh -  can help ease or even stave it off for periods, but it’s always lurking in the background. A bit like the tablets I must take for the diabetes.

If you’d have asked me yesterday morning how I felt, it was still at stage one. I was beginning to see why patients with this condition can go into depression or even worse. I won’t. At Ascot, I drank a coffee without incident, but thinking soup would be the only sensible option, I asked if they had any and a nice bowl of tomato was put in front of me.

I needed two goes. The first when I managed three spoonfuls; the second, a third of a bowl, before the wave of pain sailed in. That was game, set and match and after the King George I went straight home.

Yesterday, though, the fourth day of medication and the second with the full daily dose of two tablets, I thought I would try to drink my soup rather than eat in the conventional way, for lunch. That worked. For dinner, a Tesco Fish Pie, spooned minutely so that it took 25 minutes to consume, also went without a problem, although two or three times, the hint was there. So, you pause, take even more care for the positioning of the next morsel. For now, I’m still clear.

The menu is to go back for a blood test tomorrow (Tuesday) and see the doctor again on Thursday week. As I write this, for the first time in weeks I’m feeling optimistic. Maybe the tungsten is still in there somewhere, but boy does it hurt when that shockwave of pain comes!

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Two years ago, I sat down – eating again, in the days when I could – having a bite before racing at Brighton racecourse and for the first time, met and had a chat with Owen Burrows. He was clearly anxious about his future as Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum had recently died and the entire Shadwell Estate Company organisation was very much up in the air.

He told me: “There’s a big meeting in Dubai next week and all the trainers are worried that the Sheikh’s daughter Sheikha Hissa and the rest of the family won’t be inclined or even able to keep it going.”

At that time most of Owen’s horses ran in the blue and white Hamdan livery and with the prospect of massive numbers of mares, horses in training and young stock on their way to market, it was understandable the uncertainty, indeed trepidation, that all the Shadwell trainers were feeling.

Project forward two years to Saturday July 29th 2023 and within 25 minutes, Owen’s older generation horses in the Shadwell ownership collected two big prizes. The four-year-old Alflaila, in his first run since last autumn, made it four wins in a row and six from 13 career, in the £70k to the winner Sky Bet Stakes at York.

Then at Ascot in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes, his Hukum picked up almost exactly ten times that in beating last year’s Irish Derby winner Westover after a sustained battle. Jim Crowley, used to winning big races as recently as last year on Baaed, expressed great joy at picking up this massive pot with a six-year-old entire, whose tally over five seasons’ racing is 11 from 17. At six, he matches dual winner Swain and triple heroine Enable, the only previous horses of that age to win the race in its 73-year history.

This was a second flop of the year for Derby and Irish Derby winner Auguste Rodin, whose sudden capitulation before the home turn after which Ryan Moore looked after him, coasting home a long way behind, was a shock, no doubt especially to connections. Minute medical checks will be taken, but Auguste Rodin was not the only disappointment in the race.

Emily Upjohn, who gave Paddington such a brave fight in the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown three weeks earlier, probably left her race on the Esher slopes, and never looked like getting Frankie Dettori a last King George winner, finishing 27 lengths behind the first two in seventh.

The Classic generation form was given a small nudge by King Of Steel, second in the Derby clear of the rest and an easy Royal Ascot winner. For a while it looked as though Kevin Stott was bringing the Amo Racing/ Roger Varian representative with a telling run, but he weakened and had to be content with an honourable third.

Tough stuff this Group 1 racing, especially in soft ground. Hukum is tough and Owen Burrows knows how to keep his golden oldies going.

- TS

Monday Musings: Dry Summer Frankie’s Downfall?

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The only people with a worse record than racecourse tipsters must be the weather forecasters who, in the early summer of 2022, have repeatedly predicted copious amounts of rainfall, only most often to have to admit they were wrong, writes Tony Stafford.

The latest example to affect me, or rather not, was Friday’s warning of serious flooding in East London and most of Essex and no doubt elsewhere. We barely saw a drop. Neither did they the previous week at Royal Ascot. Had the predicted precipitation happened, Frankie Dettori might still have been in a job.

It all revolved around Trueshan, three times the victor in tussles with Stradivarius, twice in the Long Distance Cup (Group 2) at Ascot in October 2020 and 2021 and also in the Group 1 Prix Du Cadran at Longchamp a couple of weeks before their second Ascot encounter.

Twice in the week before last Alan King and the owners of Trueshan agonised long and late about whether to allow the six-year-old to take his place in the field, in the Gold Cup on the Thursday and then in the Queen Alexandra Stakes, the meeting finale a couple of days later.

Probably an hour and a half before the Saturday race first Andrew Gemmell, one of the ownership group in Trueshan, walked past my table in the owners’ restaurant – I hasten to add I was a guest, not an owner! – and upon my question: “Does he run?” replied, “I don’t know.”

Maybe half a minute later, King came along the same pathway between the tables and gave a resigned shake of the head, not emphatic, but close enough. No Queen Alex or Gold Cup, so they would have to wait for the Northumberland Plate, a race in which he’d finished sixth 12 months earlier running off 118.

Since Newcastle he had been unbeaten in four races, the Goodwood Cup preceding the two Stradivarius defeats and a Listed prep when accounting for Hughie Morrison’s subsequent Henry II Stakes winner, Quickthorn, comfortably over an inadequate 1m6f at Nottingham in April.

In some ways it was difficult to suggest he should be running off just a 2lb higher mark on Saturday, but he was actually having to carry a full 9lb more as Alan King chose to take 5lb off his back last year, employing talented claimer Rhys Clutterbuck.

This time he allowed Hollie Doyle to retain her partnership with the gelding and as this year’s race was effectively 2lb inferior in quality, he carried the almost unfathomable weight of 10st 8lb. That he should come through and win merely made a certainty in retrospect that he would have beaten Kyprios, 2021 Derby and St Leger runner-up Mojo Star, and his “bunny”, Stradivarius.

But of course in the interim, by the time Trueshan did get his day in the Gosforth Park sun, Dettori had already been dumped by John and Thady Gosden as they and owner Bjorn Neilsen refused to compromise their dissatisfaction for his Gold Cup ride. It seemed they preferred to judge him on a single ride against the 15 wins in 24 previous associations between the eight-year-old entire horse and 51-year-old rider.

The various statements from Gosden senior showed only irritation at Dettori’s perceived allowing his mount to drift back in the field at a crucial stage. I and many people close to where I watched the race were admiring of Ryan Moore’s tactical nous in preventing Dettori’s getting out as he attempted to switch off the inside.

One man’s meat is another man’s poison. If Trueshan had been able to run, Stradivarius would probably have played one of his bum notes. Winning the Plate off 10st 8lb, conceding 28lb to the regally-bred five-times-winning stayer Spirit Mixer and 18 others should ensure a few pounds more to his mark tomorrow morning.

Over the years the Gosden axe has fallen on a number of jockeys. There is no doubt – and Frankie’s reception after his win from his sole ride at Newmarket on Saturday when he was eviscerated from two Gosden horses demonstrated as much – where the public sentiments lie. Could you imagine Big John, or even Thady, jumping off a horse in a winner’s enclosure? Silly observation? Never have I said anything sillier!

Trueshan’s performance was exceptional and confirmed once again that Alan King is a masterful trainer, equally adept at the top table on the flat as over the jumps where his talent was honed at the side of the much-missed David Nicholson. I only have to mention the Duke’s name to feel again the pain of his weighty right boot crashing against my shin bone when we met on the soccer field a lifetime ago.

Newcastle provided a tasty aperitif to an equally remarkable result in the Irish Derby, won by an eye-opening seven lengths by the Ralph Beckett-trained and Juddmonte-owned Frankel colt, Westover.

Third to the unbeaten Desert Crown in the Derby at Epsom when denied a run at a crucial stage in the last two furlongs, he had been only mildly supported as a 25-1 shot with his rating of 109. That was raised by 7lb before Saturday, and it will be intriguing where Dominic Gardner-Hill rates him in relation to Sir Michael Stoute’s colt tomorrow.

I would imagine Beckett, who until last autumn had dealt exclusively with fillies for his Group 1 successes, would love to take on Desert Crown again. On Saturday Westover had Piz Badile, a disappointment at Epsom, well beaten in second while it may not be a reliable line to point to Oaks winner Tuesday, who finished in a well-beaten fourth.

Joint-favourite with the winner, it was her turn to have a less than perfect run round under Ryan Moore. I doubt that Aidan O’Brien or the Coolmore owners will be looking to sever their association with their retained jockey who has been riding at the top of his game this year.

Last October, Beckett sent his two-year-old Angel Bleu on two trips to France and he came back with Group 1 wins in the  Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere on Arc Day at Longchamp and the Criterium International at Saint-Cloud. He has yet to match that form in two runs since, including behind Coroebus at Royal Ascot.

Scope, a Teofilo three-year-old, collected the Prix Royal-Oak (Group 1) at Longchamp late that month in the style of a potential top stayer. There was nothing in his promising second over a short for him mile-and-a-half in a Newbury Group 3 last month to suggest he might not be up there challenging Trueshan, Kyprios, and Mojo Star, not to mention Stradivarius, for the remainder of an interesting season for the stayers.

The first of the one mile Classics were run less than two months ago but already we are getting word of possible Ballydoyle colts and fillies with aspirations of winning next year’s Guineas races.

Auguste Rodin, beaten on debut at the beginning of June, but a son of Deep Impact out of the multiple Group 1 winner Rhododendron (by Galileo) was expected to put that right in yesterday’s opener at the Curragh before missing the race owing to the rain-softened ground.

There was no hesitation on the part of Aidan O’Brien, though, in the following fillies’ Group 2 over six furlongs. Here, Statuette, a daughter of US Triple Crown winner Justify, a Coolmore America stallion, out of Immortal Verse, was “expected” and duly delivered.

The word beforehand was that she was superior to Royal Ascot winner Meditate, so impressive when making all in the Albany Stakes. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t, but it’s a nice talking point as the season progresses.

Even more interesting was Ryan Moore’s observation after the runaway victory of 20-1 shot Aikhal in the ten-furlong Group 3 on Saturday. Aikhal, rated 109, was previously seen when last of 11 in the St James’s Palace Stakes, but the son of Galileo had placed juvenile form behind such as Angel Bleu and Coroebus.

“I think we ran the wrong one in the Derby,” was Ryan’s alleged whispered aside. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that this Galileo colt might be another dramatic improver to bolster the stable’s big-race armoury in the coming months.

- TS