The turf
Falling at the first
Robin Oakley
Fesse versus grit. Split-second timing inin going for a gap versus imparting conviction to an inexperienced jumper that he can do it. Sheer exhilarating speed accelerating away from the pack versus the bravery of risking all on going for one big jump. Flat and jumping codes both have their devotees but now, with the Nationals and the Betfred behind us and the first round of the British Classics already over, the focus is well and truly on the Flat.
Through the jumping season we had enjoyed the sheer class of Kauto Star, the still unflickering determination of Tony McCoy’s drive towards his 12th successive jockeys’ championship, the informative approachability of top trainers like Paul Nicholls, Alan King and Nicky Henderson (a lesson to some of their tight-lipped equivalents on the Flat). But Sandown’s finale reminded us of the sheer toughness of those who practise the winter game.
A week after winning the Scottish Grand National at Ayr, Ferdy Murphy’s Hot Weld came down from Middleham to Surrey to capture the Betfred Gold Cup in the hands of Graham Lee. Within seven days he had therefore tackled over 48 fences at racing speed, covering around eight miles.
Hot Weld put in a sluggish jump or two on the first circuit. ‘He was entitled to be a bit deliberate after the race at Ayr,’ said rider Graham Lee, who had there finished second on the same stable’s Nino de Sivola. But since the horse runs best from the front, grinding down his rivals, his jockey did not let him get shuffled back too far. Instead he gave Hot Weld three sharp reminders of what he was there for before they started on the second circuit. ‘I got stuck into him and then I filled him up going down the hill,’ as the rider put it, and Hot Weld responded magnificently.
But what a tough rider too, mentally and physically. Dropped by Howard Johnson’s yard at the end of the previous season, Graham Lee has come back happier than ever as Murphy’s first choice, valued especially for the way he debriefs on his races. But sometimes it is the throwaway remarks which tell you the most.
After a crunching fall in Ireland on the Tuesday, many thought Graham would have been out for weeks. Hadn’t he feared the worst as the field galloped on without him and Aces High? ‘Well, you know how you react to a broken bone and I didn’t react that way ... when you know it isn’t a broken bone you just bash on.’ It is that cool acceptance that there will some of the time be broken bones and worse which marks National Hunt jockeys out as the bravest sportsmen around.
As for bashing on, those of us hewing at the cliché-face have to accept our painful days, too. After our healthy profit over the last Flat season I have to report a setback with the winter’s Twelve to Follow. Well, to be honest, not so much a setback, more an opening-up of the ground beneath me, a first-class flaming disaster.
The 12 proved a reminder of what an achievement it is even getting a jumper to the racecourse fit to run. Of the 12, four did not make it: Celestial Gold (David Pipe), Money Trix (Nicky Richards), Sword of Damascus ( Donald McCain) and Far From Trouble (Christy Roche). Far From Trouble, once my National hope, is sadly now dead. The others should be back. Nicky Richards says Money Trix has had a minor joint injury but ‘we still hope he’s a very good horse’, and the trainer’s father Ginger McCain told me that, while Sword of Damascus has had a series of niggly problems, ‘we think a lot of him’. He is, apparently, a savage in the box, which has applied to some good ones. Roll on the next season for them.
The one horse I rolled over from the previous year, after he had given us a handy profit, was Idle Talk, then with Tom George. Top owner Trevor Hemmings was impressed enough with Idle Talk to buy him and transfer him to Donald McCain. But after a promising second first time out Idle Talk has managed to unseat his rider successively in Cheltenham’s Cotswold Chase (when disputing the lead), the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the Grand National and the Scottish National. A record of UUUU raises some questions but I remain convinced that one day he will win a big one.
Don’t Push It, running only in top company, won a couple, but he fell when going well in My Way De Solzen’s race at Cheltenham and his jumping on his Aintree comeback lacked confidence. Overall, I am sorry to say, we have had 26 completed outings which, apart from those two winners, have supplied two third placings and no fewer than ten seconds. Net return to a £10 winning stake — a loss of something over £260.
In my version of Heaven the angels are dressed like the ladies at Tote windows, bookies polish your shoes and you bring off a 7–1 shot just about every third race, having tipped it to a sceptical Mrs Oakley in advance. But sometimes you begin to wonder if some of the blood-and-thunder preachers weren’t right about the Almighty’s attitude to gambling. After the season he has had it takes rare skill to pick a horse of Alan King’s which did not win. But Esprit Saint ran fourth first time out as a beaten favourite. Made favourite again, he finished second the next time. He then went to Towcester and was beaten by a head. Could it get any worse? Oh, yes. Next time out, with my stake tripled, he went to Leicester and got beaten by a short head. Not much consolation that the rider of the winner got a three-day suspension for using his whip with excessive frequency.
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