Stars of the future
Robin Oakley
Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin said the other day that he had got on better first time at George Bush’s ranch than he had expected. ‘He must have thought: “What’s going to happen if he invites in a former Intelligence officer?” But Bush himself is the son of a former head of the CIA, so we were a nice little family circle.’ It reminded me of asking Tony Blair after his first meeting with Putin how it had felt doing business with a guy who had made his way in the world not as a democratic politician but as a KGB spook. ‘Well,’ mused the PM, ‘there are some advantages. It was the first of my overseas trips that didn’t leak in advance.’ In racing, too, many trainers seem to have taken their public relations training from the KGB manual, finding it hard even to confirm to the betting public the blindingly obvious. So what was good at Sandown last Saturday was to see two stars of the future emerge from yards which are bywords for civility and open dealing. In Paul Nicholls’s Kauto Star and Henrietta Knight’s Racing Demon we may well have seen the Cheltenham Festival winners next March of the Queen Mother Champion Chase and the Arkle. In bottomless ground both five-year-olds saw off topquality opponents in a style which confirms them as stars of the future.
Kauto Star, who missed most of last season with injury, was having only his fourth run over fences in the Tingle Creek Chase, yet he jumped like a stag in the hands of Mick Fitzgerald and saw off a renewed challenge from the talented Ashley Brook in the final stages despite veering left in his inexperience. Champion jockey Tony McCoy had actually been smiling when he left the parade ring on the handsome milkchocolate-coloured Ashley Brook, but he had the pensive look on return of someone who has been beaten by a very useful horse. Both winner and second will be better, their jockeys and trainers asserted, on a left-handed track like Cheltenham. ‘He’s only five and there is room for improvement,’ said trainer Paul Nicholls. ‘This is a proper horse. He jumps well and he keeps galloping. It’s all very well having potential. You’ve got to live up to it and he’s gone and done that now.’ Kevin Bishop, Ashley Brook’s trainer, was not despondent at being beaten by a horse which, he pointed out, had good form on the soft French tracks before he came to England. Ashley Brook, he insisted, hadn’t given an inch on a track and going which did not suit. He and the winner now represent a challenge to the older Moscow Flyer, Azertyuiop and Well Chief, none of them well enough to renew their thrilling battle of the previous year in the Tingle Creek. The new generation is on the way.
Racing Demon, too, showed real quality in winning the Grade Two novices chase from the previously unbeaten Hoo La Baloo, trained by Paul Nicholls. Racing Demon first caught the eye when he won at Exeter on the day his great stablemate Best Mate died. ‘He has raised everybody’s spirits and we are grateful to him,’ said Henrietta Knight, who revealed that Racing Demon, like Best Mate, was bought from Tom Costello Junior. She confirmed that the Arkle Trophy will be his target, even though he won over further than two miles over hurdles. Curiously, she has never even had a runner, let alone a winner, in the Arkle: the year Best Mate was due to run in the Arkle, Cheltenham was cancelled because of the foot-and-mouth epidemic.
Racing Demon, she says, is a horse who loves a bit of cut in the ground but is not that fussy about the going. ‘He’s not one of those horses you’d be saying can’t run tomorrow because of the state of the ground.’ Nor does he worry about rightor left-handed tracks. ‘He doesn’t show any preference whatsoever.’ An uncomplicated horse, then, easier to handle than Best Mate? Not exactly. ‘This is an exciting horse. He’s got an amazing cruising speed and he’s learning to settle. He’s a very intelligent horse. But he’s more highly strung than Best Mate. Matey was stronger. Racing Demon is more like a hyperactive schoolchild.’ A former schoolmistress knows how to spot those. It sounds, though, as if we will be seeing more of Racing Demon on the racecourse than we did the great Best Mate, who had to be campaigned carefully.
So he is an intelligent animal, I remarked to Terry Biddlecombe. ‘Not too intelligent, I hope,’ growled Henrietta’s other half, with all the instincts of the extop jockey. Horse pilots are wary of a horse that does too much thinking for himself. What was noticeable was the surge of affection around the unsaddling enclosure after Racing Demon’s success, and the warm applause after the trainer’s publicaddress interview.
Two other horses went into my notebook after the day’s slogging in the mud at Sandown. The conditions were totally against front runners, but two horses which made a brave attempt to lead all the way because that is their natural style still nearly managed to bring it off. Mark Bradstock’s Nonantais, ridden by conditional rider Pat Stringer, almost stole the 2m 6f handicap hurdle after slipping his field coming out of the back straight, only to be caught in the dying stages by Tony McCoy on the favourite. And in the day’s most competitive race, the William Hill Handicap Hurdle, Emma Lavelle’s Cloudy Grey showed that he is back to his impressive best under a hefty 11st 10lb, only fading on the flat after the last. After a season or two of problems, he owes his patient trainer a victory.
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