The turf
Gift of the gab
Robin Oakley
Loitering with intent in the Member's Lobby of the House of Commons is not so much an offence as a job description for political correspondents. As a long time practitioner, I have developed a sixth sense, a sort of extra-sensory perception which warns me of the presence within 20 paces of a small handful of MPs with whom there is no such thing as a short conversation. Knowing that if eye-contact is made, let alone a seemingly casual hello extended, I am in for 20 minutes minimum on their lat- est obsession, I have perfected the art of the sudden clutch of the pager at my belt, followed by a worried frown, an abstracted wave at the advancing Member and a hur- ried exit. The racecourse, too, has its com- pulsive conversationalists, as was demonstrated by Derek Thompson's Epsom interview with Alan `Arfer' Daly after he had ridden Batchworth Belle to victory in the five-furlong sprint last Satur- day.
Daly is a delightful fellow, but when I asked a fellow Epsom trainer not long ago why the 31b-claimer was no longer attached to Simon Dow's stable behind the Epsom grandstand his answer was short and sim- ple: 'He talks too much.' Hearing Tommo's interview, the loquacious Daly would have proved a match for the lady of whom it was once said: 'She believes she has a speech impediment: every now and then she has to pause for breath.'
Daly was entitled to a little excitement after his 13th winner of the season, espe- cially after the Epsom judge, deceived like many of us by the camera angle, had initial- ly called Mrs Malaprop the winner instead of his mount. He took Tommo through the tactics: 'The trainer told me: sit, sit, sit as long as you can, and I did until Alan Mack- ay came at me.' He volunteered an assess- ment of his own abilities: 'If the horse is good enough, I am.' Asked if he preferred to be called Alan or 'Ade, he declared that he didn't mind either provided he got the rides, and he admitted that, being attached to a comparatively small stable with Mickey Heaton-Ellis, he had to do a lot of work on the phone to get his outside opportunities, verbally wrestling some trainers to the ground to do so.
Sheer persistence and the gift of the gab is clearly helping in his case. Not only does Alan Daly have a 40 per cent record for his own yard, with six winners from 15 rides this year, but Batchworth Belle was his sev- enth success from the spares he had picked up this season. And in the next race it was followed by another victory on Chief Cashier for Toby Balding, making it a dou- ble of around 80-1. Epsom is not an easy course to ride but Daly rides it well. And when he reaches that dangerous cut-off point when the 31b allowance goes, I suspect that his ability to talk a good race as well as riding one will help him survive where others have fallen by the wayside.
Denis Caslon, an owner whom I met at Goodwood the previous week, had what seemed to me a sound idea for easing the transition for apprentices losing their claim and forced to take on the senior pros all of a sudden on level terms. Why not, he sug- gested, allow them just a llb claim for the next 100 winners, to give owners and train- ers that small incentive to go on putting them up?
Having been drenched on my way up the road to my local course for last Saturday's fare, I spent more time than usual in front of a television screen watching what was going on at Haydock too. It proved a reminder that one should always check the local weather as well as the form. I had been tempted to back Tamarisk for the big sprint, but noted the Racing Post's advice that 'Any softening of the ground would be a worry'. Falsely assuming in my squelching shoes that the skies had been chucking it down in Lancashire too, I ignored Tamarisk and went for Bolshoi, having noted Jack Berry's booking of Kieren Fal- lon. The champion jockey brought Bolshoi from off the pace to make a race of it at the end. But by then the impressive Tamarisk was long gone, on just the ground to suit him, Haydock mysteriously having escaped the downpours which had affected most of the country.
What did impress me at Haydock was the impeccable riding yet again of John Reid. In the one-mile race for two-year olds it took him quite a while to get Bien- amado, who was racing green, on an even keel and racing well, but he then conjured a wonderful finish from the unraced young- ster. Proving that three-horse races can still be real thrillers, they got up on the line to dead heat with the more experienced Mixsterthetrixster, ridden by Jimmy For- tune. In the next race Reid gave the perfect education too to another Chapple-Hyam debutant, Entertainer, who finished second to the Stoute-trained Caledonian Colours in a tight finish. If all four horses do not go on to win decent races, I will be very sur- prised. And good jockey though Jimmy Fortune may be, anybody who replaces John Reid on his current form, as Robert Sangster was reputed to be thinking of doing, at least after one good lunch, should go and lie down until the dizzy spell passes off.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
Previous page
