The turf
English talent
Robin Oakley
It was definitely not my day at Newbury on Saturday. It is a bit of a giveaway when you are seen visiting the cash machine after the first four races. I lost much too much, despite ending up backing three in the Tote Gold Trophy. My placepot did not even survive the first. And when, after Jenny Pitman had greeted me with a cheery 'You look as cold as a frog', I sought to warm myself up, I burned the end off my tongue with a scalding cup of Bovril. But for Marcus Foley and Norman Williamson it was a very good day.
Young Marcus, the leading conditional jockey this year, now faces the crucial testing period in any jockey's career. He has to compete with the best now on equal terms, having ridden out his 31b allowance with a victory on Slooghy in the Stuart Eaton 40th Birthday handicap hurdle. But there cannot be a better way of doing that than on a Saturday, in front of the TV cameras, beating champion Tony McCoy in a ding-dong battle from the last. 'Didn't he get his head down?' said beaming trainer Nicky Henderson, in whose yard Marcus has now spent five years.
The trainer, for whom Marcus completed a double later on Piers Pottinger's Caracciola, and for whom he finished second in the big race, the Tote Gold Trophy, on Non So, said that Marcus had always been good at presenting a horse at an obstacle. Indeed, some have commented how much like the currently injured stable jockey Mick Fitzgerald he looks in doing so: But he showed there he can ride a finish too.'
The admirably level-headed Foley is a rarity these days among the riding talent in that he is an Englishman, rather than yet another import from Co. Cork or Donegal. He told us after his memorable win on Slooghy that he hadn't known at first who was alongside him. 'Then I saw Mr [David] Johnson's colours and thought, "Oh, that's it then, second place for me".' But he never thought of giving in and out-battled McCoy on a game horse whom Nicky Henderson is convinced will make a really nice threemile chaser. Marcus Foley has seized well the opportunities offered to him by Fitzgerald's series of injuries this season but he did not start badly either: his firstever winner was on the Queen Mother's Braes o'Mar. I was grateful to him too, Marcus's smooth win on the 11-2 Caraceiola was the one contribution on the credit side of my account all afternoon.
Caracciola's win was evidence that the market doesn't always get it right. He opened at 9-2 and drifted, although I am sure his cheerful owner had helped to stem the tide. Mick Fitzgerald had told Piers in the morning that he fancied him most of the Henderson runners.
The market was wrong last week too, doubly wrung, over Paul Nicholls's Kadarann, who ran out a smooth winner of the Sodexho Prestige Game Spirit Chase, one of the key Cheltenham Festival trials, from his stable companion Cenkos. There had been significant money in previous days for Kadarann for the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham, with his 40-1 ante-post odds more than halved. But at Newbury, although Paul Nicholls was making clear that Cenkos was not yet as fit as he could be, it was Cenkos who was made the favourite. He ran well enough, but when Kadarann loomed up alongside him three out it was clear who was going to take the honours. The sporting Newbury crowd warmly greeted the favourite's overthrow because the man in Kadarann's saddle was Joe Tizzard, whose first big winner this was since he broke his back last summer in an accident which would have seen most people quit the sport Every time I see Paul Nicholls in the parade ring I am struck by the sheer sense of purpose he exudes. Over Kadarann and Cenkos he was once again commendably clear and honest. For all the money poured on him Kadarann, he was insistent, is better suited by a flat track like Newbury than by the Cheltenham slopes. As for Cenkos, 'He needs to come in his coat and he will improve an awful lot. Kadarann was razor in his coat. Cenkos was not. Another month and you will see a different horse.' He would, though, like a warm spring.
Paul Nicholls was a happy man, too, after the Ann Chase, a recognised trial for the Gold Cup in which Valley Henry put behind him an abysmal run last time out at Cheltenham. The soft ground that day was clearly the trouble, as rider Barry Geraghty confirmed. On the better ground at Newbury Valley Henry confirmed himself a top notcher, beating Chives and Truckers Tavern while Marlborough faded and fell. Again Nicholls was clear: if it is good ground he will go for the Gold Cup. If it is soft he will not.' •So anybody fancying the each way prospects will need to wait a while for the weather man.
As for Norman Williamson's good fortune, that came in another way. He was due to have ridden Emotional Moment, who was balloted out of the race. So Jessica Harrington, whose cheerful language would make a trucker blush, took Timmy Murphy off her horse and gave the ride in the £120,000 contest to Norman, who brought home the plucky little mare as a worthy winner. 'I'll buy Timmy a bottle of water,' said the laconic Williamson afterwards of his now teetotal colleague.
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