Juliette's weekly frolic
It would be nice to pretend I'd spent the past fortnight in the Kentucky grasslands surveying the ups and downs of Secretariat's stud career or perhaps on a lightning run round Hong Kong, Madras and Natal as Britain's flat jockey's take their busmen's holidays in the sun. Alas, I can claim no such dedication to duty since Christmas was passed way up the French Alps in a place where Brigitte Bardots are two-apen'ny but horses a rarity.
Reading racecards in ancient newspapers can hardly be called keeping abreast of events, so on Saturday it was off to Sandown for a quick refresher course before presuming to air-my views on the sport. With no ' Frolic' loyalties to inhibit the betting style, money tended to flow a trifle freely, none of it unfortunately landing on the back of High Ken, a horse I actually visited in his box last September. After his big race victory, connections were speaking seriously of a crack at the Gold Cup and while that might appear wishful thinking at this stage, it is interesting to note that Unwell won the same race with a similar low weight and a similar horse :n third place (Devon Loch, as opposed to Well to Do) the year before his Cheltenham triumph.
Next weekend the entertainment moves to the South's other concrete complex. Ascot where the decor's more stylish, the crowd better bred but the thrills and spills of the 'chase considerably less immediate. The two-mile chasers were a hard-done-by band until the advent of such guardian angels as Blue Circle Cement whose £4,000added 'chase has its second running this Saturday. The sponsors can congratulate themselves on having lured the Yankee superstar, Tingle Creek, away from an engagement at his happy hunting ground, Sandown, but since his only previous visit to Ascot was a big disappointment, I could well succumb to the charms of Canasta Lad who beckons invitingly from the lower regions of the handicap. A novice he may be but one with an appetite for the two-mile 'chase — he'd already won three in a row before tasting defeat, first at a longer distance and then on reverting to hurdling.
While I was twiddling my thumbs at Gatwick airport shortly before Christmas Dan'l Widden was far more usefully employed giving King of Shoa a jumping lesson at Folkestone. After a further effortless triumph last Saturday — admittedly eased by the departure of his two nearest market rivals in quick succession — he could well make light of a rise in class for Friday's Thunder and Lightning Chase.
My finances have certainly seen better days, but one of the few to have paid me a handsome dividend this season is Tom Jones's Swift Shadow. It seems he only has to line up for the Teal and Green Hurdle at Ascot on Saturday to collect'the prize and establish himself as the top long-distance hurdler in the country.
Assets: £66.95. Outlay: to win Canasta Lad, Dan'l Widden and Swift Shadow.
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