Head over heart
Robin Oakley
Iheard from a Nato general not long ago the story of two hot air balloonists in the US who got lost. They descended to check their bearings from visible landmarks and found themselves above a massive and curiously shaped building. Seeing a man crossing the car park one balloonist shouted, ‘Where are we?’ ‘In a balloon,’ the man yelled back. At which the other man in the basket stoked up the hot air and took them back up through the clouds. When his companion queried his action, arguing that their informant had been useless, he replied, ‘Oh, no. The information was short, accurate and no bloody use to anyone. That had to be the Pentagon.’ In racing, too, the best information doesn’t always come by the direct route, from a trainer on his third brandy or on a postcard from a jockey’s favourite maiden aunt. Like most in racing I wanted to see Henry Cecil win another Eclipse after all these years with Phoenix Tower. But head must rule heart in punting, and when the lady who gave me space at her Sandown table on Saturday for my haddock and chips asked me for the winner I pointed out that Aidan O’Brien’s Mount Nelson was the only Group One winner in the field.
After my failure to profit from his six victories at Royal Ascot I was not going to make the same mistake twice. O’Brien does not hesitate to run several horses in a race or to supply a pacemaker or two. Indeed there has been argument on occasion whether his jockeys have employed questionable ‘team tactics’. So it was a pretty obvious sign of the all-conquering Ballydoyle’s confidence that Mount Nelson was their only entrant for the £285,000 first prize.
After another masterly ride from Johnny Murtagh, Mount Nelson’s head dipped just at the right moment in a driving finish and he beat Phoenix Tower on the line by a short head. It was, incredibly, O’Brien’s 12th Group One success of the season and Murtagh’s tenth. Currently, they are unstoppable, with an extra strength that comes from their mutual confidence.
‘We put pacemakers in when they will benefit us,’ said Murtagh, who sounds already as if he has been part of the Coolmore furniture for as long as a Chippendale sideboard.
‘I knew today that I was on the fastest horse in the race. I knew that if they went slow I would outsprint them and if they went fast (as they did, thanks to Cecil’s Multidimensional) I’d be able to do what I did — wind it up from the back. Aidan told me that if I led inside the final furlong that would be enough to win it and he knows the horses so well that if he says something you know it is probably right.’ It was fascinating to hear the jockey who succeeded the drug-suspended Kieran Fallon — how he must be kicking himself — discussing still with a slight sense of wonder the sheer strength in depth of the equine athletes who lope around the Ballydoyle barn. At most yards, he said, you hope for just one top horse to make your season. ‘But, with the standard of horses we have, it’s just one behind the other, a huge range of horses for different distances.’ Mount Nelson, he said, ominously for his rivals, would come on for the race. And it would not be surprising if he did. After being a top-class two-year-old, Mount Nelson missed most of his three-year-old season after tearing off a shoe and losing half his hoof with it. So his fifth to his stablemate Haradasun at Ascot was a creditable effort, and one clue to O’Brien’s genius emerged as the quietly spoken trainer reflected on that performance: ‘We never mind them getting beat if we learn something about them.’ There was much talk in advance about it being a somewhat sub-standard Eclipse this year. I suspect that the rest of Mount Nelson’s career will prove that to have been a churlish response. Certainly it lacked nothing in entertainment value.
Henry Cecil, as graceful in defeat as he is when winning, confessed that he thought Phoenix Tower had won. And the crowd could not have had a more thrilling finish. In fact there were six photo-finishes on the seven-race card. Another who thought he had won, only to be denied by the camera verdict, was Charlie Hills, son and assistant to Barry Hills, whose Prime Defender was denied by a neck by Frankie Dettori on Ancien Regime in the opening sprint.
Since Prime Defender is one of this column’s Ten to Follow a 12–1 victory would not have gone amiss. But he is knocking at the door now. After the flat patch which often assails them around this time of year, Barry’s horses are coming back into tune, his American Art, too, going down by just three quarters of a length in the Sodexo Handicap.
Another top trainer who had a quietish Royal Ascot by his standards was Mark Johnston, whose Lovelace, after four unplaced efforts this season, won the toteswinger Stakes at a tasty 18–1 after taking the lead just a hundred yards out under Jimmy Fortune. The trainer confided afterwards that Jamie Spencer, who had won on the Royal Applause colt three times last season, had declared that he would love to try riding him from behind. ‘It looks like he was right,’ said Mark. But not right about everything. Spencer had been offered the ride on Lovelace at Sandown but opted instead to take the mount on Flipando. He finished sixth.
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