8 SEPTEMBER 2001, Page 54

Wise counsel

Robin Oakley

Racing people do their bit for charity, and not just with their involuntary contributions to sunset homes for retired bookies on the Costa Lona. At glorious Goodwood, as you drive up the hill. the St John Ambulance usually seems to do brisk business with its roadside collecting blankets, and these days you rarely pass through a racecourse entrance without somebody brandishing a bucket at you.

On Friday Peter Walwyn, one of the key figures behind the Lambourn open days which have raised so much for racing welfare. tapped rue for a tenner for his latest cause. On Saturday at Sandown the crowd seemed in generous mood at the Variety Club of Great Britain meeting. Most did their bit to help towards the 2001st Sunshine Coach to be handed over by the club. And having been involved in recent months in trying to sell tickets for a cancer charity lunch I have noted how it is the racing people who have sent a cheque even when they couldn't come to the lunch.

Mind you, given the costs of owning a horse these days, the only people I know who might have enough in readies to contemplate attending a £100-a-ticket bash are racing people. What I have often wondered is whether the people waving the collecting buckets at racecourse entrances do better from punters on their way in, trying to buy themselves a bit of luck, or from those on the way out, grateful for having more than enough left to cover the bus fare home.

I will not, however, be taking up the suggestion of one owner-breeder who suggested a novel fund-raising scheme. Given my recent record, he suggested, I could make a fortune for my chosen charity by asking owners for a 11 per horse contribution never to mention the animal in this column as a likely winner next time out, with the levy rising to ES for a guarantee that it would never figure in my Ten to Follow for the season. So unkind.

Mind you, owners aren't infallible either. At Epsom I lunched, among others, with the genial Michael Buckley whose twoyear-old Mr Toad, trained by Jamie Osborne, was carrying top weight in the Vokera Nursery Handicap and who could definitely be fancied on the basis of a closeup fifth last time out in a hot Newmarket nursery. Watching the rain pelting down outside, Michael's face grew longer and longer and, having counselled us against Mr Toad's prospects in such conditions, he went off in search of Jamie to get him to scratch Mr Toad on account of the changed going. I backed National Park instead. And what happened? Jamie, who had his doubts about the ground too, persuaded Michael to let the horse take his chance. 'We're here, so what the hell.' In the event Mr Toad handled the soft ground perfectly and came away from National Park in the last furlong for a comfortable victory at 7-2.

Anyway Michael gave us all such a nice rueful smile in the unsaddling enclosure you had to forgive him. and I was pleased for Jamie. After a lean first year, the former jump jockey is coming good as a trainer and should be somewhere near his target of 40 winners for this season. He is doing so well now that he has become the butt of the dry humour of Newmarket trainer Sir Mark Prescott, who came up to Jamie recently and consoled him on the break-up of his marriage to the delectable Katie O'Sullivan, who was previously married to trainers Mikey Heaton-Ellis and Tim ThomsonJones. 'What do you mean'?' protested Osborne. 'We couldn't be happier together."Oh, so sorry.' drawled Prescott. 'It's just that I thought you must have separated since the last two stables your wife was associated with both had such trouble turning out a winner. I thought she must have left.' It was, in the droll Prescott style, a compliment. But they don't come much more back-handed than that.

I was going to say that we saw a typical Prescott success the next day at Sandown when Kirsten Rausing's filly I Do, with just the minimum three runs behind her to secure a handicap mark, ran out the comfortable winner of the two-year-old nursery handicap. But it wasn't really that typical, given that I Do opened at 8-1 and drifted to 10–I. It may be that just for once Sir Mark, who was not present, was surprised by the racecourse performance of one of his horses. Travelling head lass Alison West put I Do's improved performance down to the decision that Seb Sanders should let the filly bowl along in front instead of trying to settle her in behind as previously.

But then horses do surprise their trainers. After Counsel's Opinion had won the 1m if William Hill Sweepstakes, Newmarket trainer Sean Woods agreed cheerfully: 'I'd have shot him at two.' But owner Sally Roberts had insisted he be given another chance. The horse had won earlier in the season on the all-weather but had then been off for ten weeks with sore shins. Sean knew he would blow up in the latter stages of the race but luckily, with others treading water, the post came just in time. Sean now says that Counsel's Opinion will be quite a good horse if he learns to settle.