Windsor memories
Robin Oakley
If the suspension total mounts much further this season and Godolphin, Stoute and Dunlop have further trouble finding jockeys, I would like to let them know that my training programme has commenced. It may take me another couple of seasons to be able to do a racing weight, but after a 50-year lull since I was a boy in Zambia (in those days known as Northern Rhodesia) I resumed my riding career last Saturday. I have never felt quite so sorry for an animal as I did for poor Torey, the sturdy chestnut Icelandic horse who had to suffer me in the saddle for three hours as we followed a string of others across water meadows and farmland some 30 kilometres south of Reykjavik. Somehow he managed to follow my confused instructions and to wade through streams and walk up inclines beside water-filled drainage channels without ever dumping me in the drink. And as my muscles ache still in places where I did not know I had muscles I have resolved to be much kinder about the efforts of others in the saddle from now on.
Going evening racing at Windsor on Monday night on my return it was easy to feel benign. The sun shone, the steel band played, the Pimms flowed, Barrie Cope's fishcakes were on song and everybody clearly enjoyed themselves. Windsor isn't the smartest track in the world. It doesn't stage the grandest of races around its curious saucepan-shaped track, where the fields are a long time out of view. But none of that seems to matter. It has an easy informality and intimacy which makes spectators feel part of the action. Everybody seems to have a memory of Windsor, too. I had one of my earliest reminders of the fickle racing fates when I went there one night many years ago with MP Spencer Le Marchant. The normally amiable Spencer knew how to enjoy himself. After two double bloody marys with Spencer one morning. Cecil Parkinson declined a third, saying he couldn't really go on like that. 'Quite right, dear boy,' said Spencer, ordering 'two more doubles, without the tomato juice'. Spencer swept a group of us out of the Commons one night to see his horse run at Windsor, promising us dinner at the Waterside Inn at Bray on the proceeds of his expected victory. Alas, the horse ran a stinker, Spencer had an argument with Willy Carson and we finished up eating cold pizza from a car boot in a Holiday Inn carpark.
One former jockey recalled to me winning one of the first races of his career in a big field at Windsor, beating the incomparable Lester Piggott. Unfortunately for the raw, tongue-tied novice, Piggott objected, on the grounds that the apprentice's horse had 'intimidated' his mount and was given the race in the stewards room. 'Remember,' Piggott told the youngster afterwards, 'bullshit wins every time.' No bullshit was needed for Richard Quinn to win the first, a claiming race, on Further Outlook for David Nicholls. My money was on the second, the ten-year-old Fire Dome, once claimed by Andrew Reid out of Nicholls's stable and the winner of 15 races in all. Andrew, who combines training in Mill Hill with the higher reaches of the law, told me that he was planning to repeat history by claiming Further Outlook, a nice-looking grey who should certainly win more races. Andrew advised a punt on his runner in the next at Musselburgh, Willieconquertoo. Sadly, he too finished second, but there is clearly some stable belief in him.
Favourite in Windsor's next, a race for maiden fillies, was the Queen's horse Zafine, trained by Richard Hannon and ridden by Richard Hughes. So close to the Castle it seemed almost treasonous to back against her but the race went to John Hills's Fine Frenzy at 33-1, ridden by his brother Richard. Was John surprised? Not exactly. He'd had a winner at Newbury on Saturday, another at Bath earlier on Monday and Fine Frenzy had been going well at home. 'It's just that she ran so green first time out, she made a complete horlicks of it. So we treated this as if it was her first time. I am beginning to quite enjoy myself having to explain to the stewards the improved form of my horses.' In Fine Frenzy's race I had followed the money for the topweight All The Best, trained by Paul d'Arcy and ridden by John Egan, who is working his way back well, after having his licence suspended in Hong Kong. I like backing jockeys with a point to prove, but once again I was a touch premature. All The Best failed to oblige and in the next race. discouraged by the scornful notes on the racecard, I ignored the d'Arcy-trained, Egan-ridden Fantastic Champion, who was brought with a finely-timed late burst to win at 20-1. 'He's world-class,' said d'Arcy of his jockey. The horse with such a difficult name to live up to had originally been an inmate of Michael Stoute's yard and was bought for just £7,000 at the Horses In Training sale. At that price he was clearly a snip, and that's what he has had since, to help keep his mind on the job. He too will win again and another one for the notebook is Baron's Pit, an impressive winner of the five-furlong conditions race who had been beaten a neck when odds-on at Kempton on his first outing. This time Richard Hughes brought him home two lengths clear of the field to win in impressive style. Richard Hannon junior reckons he will get six furlongs too.
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