Ten To Follow
Robin Oakley
We all have our rituals. Swans and ducks migrate, the ones that aren’t riddled with H5N1 anyway. At an appropriate season, starlets and cameramen cluster in Cannes. Canny financiers ‘sell in May and go away’. And invariably at a weekend around the time of the 2,000 Guineas I retreat to my study with a bottle of good malt, the floppy Raceform weekly formbook and Timeform’s latest chunky little bible, this year the Racehorses of 2005 (£70, post free, from Timeform, 25 Timeform House, Halifax, West Yorkshire HX1 1XF), in an attempt to find a few winners for the Flat racing season, a season which I refuse to take seriously until the time of the first Classic. So here goes with Ten To Follow between now and November.
At former footballer Mick Channon’s stable before the Guineas, as we watched his Flashy Wings on the gallops, somebody asked the great man if he had ever fancied being England manager instead. ‘No,’ came the answer right away. ‘Horses don’t answer you back.’ He is far too good at training horses to consider anything else for a moment. The old yard, which used to belong to the Queen and from which Major Dick Hern sent out so many big winners, has been beautifully restored and has a real bustle about it. That first Classic still eludes Mick Channon — the ground went against Flashy Wings on 1,000 Guineas day — but year on year the quality improves. ‘Until the past couple of years,’ he says, ‘I didn’t have a horse which would get one and a half miles on a bus.’ But this year he has at least three possible Derby hopes in the likes of Championship Point, Hazymm and Youmzain.
For the Ten, however, I am going for Queen of Fire, whom Mick described as a good filly with plenty of ability of whom we had not seen the best. A 50–1 winner at Newbury on her first outing, she was then narrowly beaten behind Donna Blini in the Cherry Hinton. Racehorses reckons she will get a mile.
Peter Chapple-Hyam has experienced the swings and roundabouts of racing, training in Hong Kong for a spell after losing his tenure at Manton. Back at Newmarket, he found himself last year with a bunch of slow-developing two-yearolds who were, he said, ‘three-year-olds waiting to happen’. One was Aeroplane, whom he described to the Racing Post as a ‘serious machine’. The Danehill Dancer colt, who cracked his pelvis when runnerup on his only two-year-old outing, made an impressive return at Newmarket in April to win his maiden and should go on to better things.
Yorkshire trainer Kevin Ryan made his mark last year with the two-year-olds Amadeus Wolf and Palace Episode, who was snapped up by Godolphin to move south after taking the Racing Post Trophy. I am including in my ten Mutamared, a 65,000-guinea purchase out of Marcus Tregoning’s yard, who has since been gelded and who gave Ryan a winner on 2,000 Guineas day by winning the Stan James Heritage Handicap over six furlongs. A horse who has to be brought late in his races, he is being aimed at the Wokingham at Royal Ascot.
Another astute northern trainer, Alan Swinbank, scored a notable success last year with Collier Hill, winner of the Irish St Leger as well as races in Germany and Dubai after scoring his first win in a Catterick bumper (a Flat race for jumpers) and winning a novice hurdle at Kelso. Wise observers reckon Swinbank could do something similar with Alfie Flits, winner of three straight bumpers.
A filly who went into my notebook last season was John Gosden’s Nannina, not when she won the Group One Fillies’ Mile at Newmarket but when she took the Meon Valley Stud Fillies’ Mile at Newbury. She had to do it the hard way after being shut in and having to pull wide, and she showed determination as well as speed. Like Flashy Wings, she found the soaked ground on 1,000 Guineas day against her. Trainer John Gosden said all along that he needed another ten days to have her right. I am sure there is a big race in her and the 25–1 for the Oaks looks a nice each-way bet.
I have a soft spot for the battle-hardened sprinters you see out regularly, and nobody handles them better than Dandy Nicholls. I was tempted to include Nicholls’s Tax Free, who did not race as a juvenile but won four out of five last year, including the William Hill Trophy at York. Instead, I will take a chance with Kenmore, an edgy sort whom Racehorses warns is inclined to sweat up before his races. Bought out of Barry Hills’ yard, where he mostly ran over seven furlongs, he was only 21st out of 25 on his seasonal debut behind Mutamared but is just the sort his trainer improves.
Another sprinter who should pay his way is Hughie Morrison’s Prince Tamino, who was unluckily drawn when second at Kempton on his first outing and should progress.
The ever-open Marcus Tregoning has had problems with Sir Percy since the Guineas so I am leaving him out. We might get a better-priced winner later in the season, though, with his two-year-old Sea Land.
One good judge among the layers tells me that there is a good deal of belief in Sir Michael Stoute’s yard in Final Verse, who started at 50–1 for the 2,000 Guineas but finished a creditable sixth despite pulling hard early on. And, finally, Racehorses seems to agree with me that there is more improvement to be had from Walter Swinburn’s winning 7f handicapper Serre Chevalier this year. Let’s hope we can dent a satchel or two.
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