The turf
Ice-creams all round
Robin Oakley
Five minutes before the first, having backed Sean Woods's My Learned Friend, I encountered Epsom trainer Roger Ingram, who fancied his five-year-old geld- ing Random Kindness. I managed a wan smile as Random Kindness led all the way under a canny ride from Tony McGlone, holding off My Learned Friend as Roger, his daughter Rhian in his arms, whooped home his horse with shouts of 'Come on Randy'.
Noting that Lambourn handler Brian Meehan had won the second race the pre- vious year I had intended to back his La Tavernetta. But I fell into conversation with ex-trainer Gerry Blum, who had trav- elled to the course with another trainer who had a runner he fancied. Since Gerry Blum seems to be a lucky owner (he and his sister have won 13 races with four two- year-olds in three seasons trained by his old friend Jack Berry) I switched my bet. Only to see the animal fade out of contention as La Tavernetta broke clear of the field with Rod Simpson's newcomer Sampower Star and won by a short head.
The ever-colourful Simpson was stretch- ing even Brighton's informality as the first trainer I have ever seen in the unsaddling enclosure actually wearing trainers, com- bined with a colourful sweater and shorts bf a bagginess I had only ever glimpsed previously when encountering Denis Healey on holiday on the C6te Vermeille. When one fellow scribe asked if he had mistaken the way to the safari camp Simp- son replied pithily that there were plenty of camels down in the parade ring. And what- ever he looks like, he can certainly train horses.
Walter Swinburn was riding the sup- posed hotpot Aliabad, owned by the Aga Khan, in the next. But he was well beaten by Henry Cecil's Grimshaw, owned by Prince Fand Salman and ridden again by the underrated Cecil work rider Tony McGlone. When someone asked the dis- mounting McGlone when he had last rid- den a double he grinned and said, 'Surely it wasn't that long ago?' How sad that the Aga, the Prince and Henry Cecil all gave the race a miss. Next time they come to Brighton I'll buy them all ice-creams if they like.
In the next race I could not decide between the merits of Simon Dow's Perfect Poppy and Annabel King's May Queen Megan and I backed the pair, only for both to fall in the final furlong as Tony Clark's mount Natalie's Pet interfered with them. Yes, you are right, it was a flat race. There are not many who can back two horses in a flat race and pick two fallers.
Reasoning that Richard Hannon does not often leave the seaside track empty- handed, I backed his nine-year-old sprinter I. Cried For You in the next and restored the bank balance somewhat when Richard Hughes drove him home. The trainer was just telling me that this was I Cried For You's first success when up popped ex-car- salesman, ex-seaside-show crooner and ex- trainer Charlie Moore, a man who once hobbled a fellow singer who was getting better applause than he did by pulling out his microphone cord. 'Who owns that one then, Richard?' he inquired. 'Johnny Ray?' At Brighton you can rely on enough veter- ans being around to score with a joke like that. And there was even a happy ending in the last.
Stratford-upon-Avon trainer Annabel King was so upset by May Queen Megan's fall (both horses were unscathed although Matt Henry was taken to hospital with a suspected fractured cheekbone) that she could not bear to saddle her last race run- ner, especially because her previous flat runner at Nottingham had been a faller too. But the well-named Step On Degas, a bay mare by Superpower out of Vivid Impression, prevailed in a photo finish at 20-1. When the .result was announced she came bouncing out of the weighing-room dragging on a borrowed cigarette and in such voluble form she is probably still talk- ing. The team say they aren't going to let her saddle up a horse again. Who says rac- ing people aren't suspicious?
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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