The turf
Flat out
Robin Oakley
When that electric two-miler Tingle Creek was alive and racing, the best that jockeys like Ian Watkinson and Steve Smith-Eccles could do was to aim him in the right direction and sit tight. The flam- boyant jumper, who in fact never fell in his 49 races, had only one way of racing: flat out. If there is a horse heaven, then Tingle Creek would surely have been nodding his approval from above — between munches of Elysian horse nuts — at the conduct of the race named after him at Sandown last Saturday.
The first thing you look for in a class two-miler is speed and there was plenty of that on display as Tony McCoy and Mick Fitzgerald, on Edredon Bleu and the giant Get Real respectively, went lickety-split over the first three fences. A mistake down the back straight did for Get Real. Celibate was running his usual good race close behind the leaders and Edredon Bleu kept on, but as they came to the last it was clear that the early season two-mile champi- onship was between two horses: last year's winner Direct Route, trained at Crook, Co Durham by Howard Johnson, and Paul Nicholls's Flagship Uberalles, who had nar- rowly beaten him when in receipt of weight at Exeter last time out.
The two landed over the last together and fought it out head to head every yard to the line, urged on respectively by the in- form Norman Williamson and 19-year-old wunderkind Joe Tizzard. The fresh-faced West Countryman need not wait for his 21st. Beating the ever-determined Williamson by a neck as he did surely was his coming of age. At one point Direct Route edged his nose in front but Flagship Uberalles fought back. 'The closer to the line we got the more he stuck his head out,' said Tizzard, who had been accused of coming too soon when the pair had met previously, and who must have felt the strain with Direct Route looming beside him this time at level weights.
You could not expect to witness a better finish, two more resolute jockeys or two braver horses. I cannot wait to see them tackle each other again in the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham. Flagship Uberalles, a half brother to the great two-miler Viking Flagship, is now unbeaten in six outings. Paul Nicholls's charge showed immense maturity for a five-year-old and Howard Johnson declared that the eight-year-old Direct Route's task at Cheltenham would be easi- er if the other fellow stayed in his box. But racing needs the re-match. Buy your Festi- val tickets now.
Flagship Uberalles won the Arkle at Cheltenham last year, and Saturday showed us one to give the Irish raiders something to think about for this season's race in Charles Egerton's Decoupage. Tony McCoy had once again set a scorching pace on Gloria Victis in the Extraman Novices Chase but Norman Williamson was looking comfortable all the way on the former top hurdler. Decoupage has that precious asset of a high cruising speed. He came to take them when he chose and, despite a mistake at the last fence, went right away to win in only his second race over fences.
'We all know how many eggs get broken in this game,' said his sensible trainer. But let's hope this is another one that stays sound until Festival time. The Chaddle- worth handler, I learned from an old family friend at Sandown, honed his competitive training instincts early. Having arrived to stay as a youngster with his own rabbits, he was observed staging garden races with the resident bobtails. Appropriately, since it was a National Hunt yard, the contests were over hurdles.
Both of the Sandown contests mentioned were races to have got out of bed for, which is where any sensible man would have remained, given the collection of lurgi I was carrying on Saturday. Having backed both Direct Route and Gloria Victis, and, as a great believer in course specialists at Sandown, having failed to note that Henri- etta Knight's Sounds Life Fun had won the first race at the same meeting last year (which he did comfortably once more car- rying 12 stone, beating my selection Tom Brodie by two lengths), I felt at times like crawling back. But there may yet be long- term profit to be had. The shrewd Henriet- ta Knight said after the 2m 4f race that Sounds Like Fun has never run a bad race at Sandown, that he will probably stay the marathon distance of the Whitbread, in which he would carry only a low weight, and that they are minded to go for it next year if he gets the good to soft ground he needs. You read it here first.
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the big race, the William Hill Hurdle, hav- ing first opted for Simon Dow's Majesty, I heard that Martin Pipe had won the Chep- stow race he was sponsoring with the stable outsider. Being disinclined to back his Sandown favourite Rodock with top weight, I backed him to do the same with the 7-1 Copeland, ridden by the recently- arrived David Casey, who is not yet a household name here but who I believe will become one.
Despite his jockey seemingly confusing the Sandown winning-posts, the enterpris- ingly ridden Copeland just held on to win from the fast-finishing Rodock. And if there was a stable plan, then clearly cham- pion jockey Tony McCoy wasn't in on it. He came in with a face like thunder, mut- tering Irish curses. If the McCoy cat had his wits about him he would surely have slept with the neighbours on Saturday night. And if you heard and saw a croaky- voiced BBC journalist grinning maniacally and congratulating trainer's son David Pipe in the winner's enclosure as the hailstones beat down and most of the rest had fled, you know now the explanation why. David was happy too. Since he had made the entry for Copeland to go for the £26,000 prize he asked his father, on the mobile, for a wage rise. And it looked as though he got it.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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