The turf
Special Eclipse
Robin Oakley
Never mind El Nino and soggy June. The turf has its own sunny micro climate provided by the people you meet when you go racing. For a start there is Frankie Det- tori, whose acrobatic leap from the saddle after he had ridden Daylami to victory in the Coral Eclipse, heading a 1-2-3 for Godolphin with Faithful Son and Central Park, had a special exuberance about it. `I'll talk about anything except football,' said the ever-ebullient Italian, who had always wanted to match his father's Eclipse success on Wollow in 1976 but who had previously found it his hoodoo race.
Frankie could have ridden Opera House, the victor in 1993, but had accepted anoth- er mount two hours before Michael Stoute offered him the chance. The first time Hailing won for Godolphin in 1995 Frankie had picked Godolphin's other runner and when Halling won again the next year he missed the ride with a broken elbow. He had faced a difficult choice again. At Ascot super-sub John Reid, riding Faithful Son, had beaten Dettori on Daylami in the Prince of Wales Stakes and Faithful Son had been looking better in his work since then than had Daylami. But with a 51b turnaround in the weights Frankie opted for Daylami and was proved right, despite the powerful late surge John Reid pro- duced from Faithful Son. 'I could hear John screaming and riding as he closed,' said Frankie, 'but my horse kept on really well.'
Racing owes Corals a real debt for their 23-year sponsorship of the Eclipse. Book- makers usually opt to support big-betting handicaps rather than quality races like the Eclipse, where the three-year-olds first take on their elders. If the Ladbrokes take-over of Corals goes through then let us hope they will be equally generous and long- sighted.
If Frankie was all bounce it was equally heart-warming to hear Brian Meehan after Pat Eddery had ridden John Manley's four- year-old Life of Riley to a head victory in the two-miler on Eclipse Day. Most train- ers these days tell you what a great job they have done in getting to the bottom of a horse after other people's failures. I do not altogether blame them. It is a competitive business. But Brian Meehan, who is turning out winners these days nearly as frequently as the government moans about the BBC, immediately paid tribute to Life of Riley's previous trainer Geoff Lewis for giving him the time the horse needed to develop, say- ing he was enjoying the benefit.
Such professional courtesy is rare, and Brian Meehan, modestly, paid tribute to Eddery too: 'He's riding like a man pos- sessed. It is a great privilege for a young man like me to have him riding for me.' Well, yes. But one reason Pat Eddery is doing so is that Brian Meehan happens to be a damned good trainer.
The third pleasure of Eclipse Day was encountering John Ranson before the Porcelanosa Sprint Stakes. We had met once before on St Leger Day when, taking pity on a weary-looking hack breaking his journey back from the Scottish referendum campaign at Doncaster, he kindly tipped me the winner of the last race. The York- shire farmer, once an England rugby tourist to New Zealand in the days when our amateur side lost only 9-6, was on his first visit to Sandown to see his Fire Dome, trained by David Nicholls and ridden by the trainer's wife Alex Greaves, run in the listed sprint. It was, he suggested modestly, `worth a pound each way', having smashed Tomba earlier in the season and been under a cloud in subsequent runnings. Not- ing that the shrewd Nicholls had won the same race the year before with Ya Malak, I followed the owner's advice with a touch more than his suggested stake and cheered him home mightily when Alex Greaves brought the 33-1 shot to win with a blind- ing burst of speed in the final furlong. How many times does this talented rider have to prove that if the horse is good enough then she is too?
As the Ransons and I enjoyed a celebra- tory glass of the Sandown executive's champagne, his wife Liz revealed that when Fire Dome had not been well after his pre- vious race she had sent him some Guinness to the yard. She telephoned a few days later to ask how it was going down. 'I don't like Guinness,' said the trainer, a touch grumpily. 'It wasn't meant for you,' she replied. 'How is Fire Dome liking it?"0h, the horse,' he said, 'well, he's permanently pissed.'
The Ransons started out in racing after an unavailing search for something more solid for a silver wedding present. Current- ly along with the six-year-old Fire Dome they have Minah Bird with the soon-to- retire Lynda Ramsden and Jacobena with Brian Rothwell. They are the kind of peo- ple who keep racing going and the kind of people who make it fun to go racing. Good luck to them, and watch out for Fire Dome at Goodwood.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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