The turf
It's only a horse race . . .
Robin Oakley
Trainers rainers need time to get to know their gallops. All credit then to John Gosden for scoring a Classic success with Hamdan al Maktoum's Lahan so early in his time at Manton. The trainer suggested after Lahan had won the 1,000 Guineas on Sunday that he got itchy feet about every 11 years. He spent that long training in America, then did another 11 years in Newmarket before upping sticks for Manton last autumn. But if it took him a little while to start landing the big races from his Newmarket base, he seems to have clicked rapidly in Wiltshire despite the wettest April we have seen in years. When 1 saw him a few weeks ago, he was muttering in his good-tempered, stylish way about the rain and the snow which had been holding up the work he wanted to do. Freddie Maxwell once declared, Barry Hills told me approvingly last year, that you should never train a horse in a north-east wind and they had had little else in Manton this spring.
John Gosden had been deeply disap- pointed, he confessed, when Lahan man- aged only fourth of nine at Newbury in the Fred Darling Stakes on her seasonal return. It took his 14-year-old daughter Serena to install some perspective on the car journey home, which she did by declar- ing, 'Oh, come on, Daddy, it's only a horse race.' And he admitted to a little panic early in Sunday's race when Richard Hills was having trouble finding cover for Lahan, who tends to pull if she is allowed too much daylight too soon. But John Gosden knew at breakfast on Sunday that he had his filly ready to run a big race, and she did.
Gosden house guest Charles Benson was kind enough to pass on the tip to Norman Lamont, whom I encountered at the Sagit- ta party hosted in their usual splendid style by Wafic Said and Bob Michaelson. No one does it better on a racecourse, any- where, than the sponsors of the Guineas meeting. I do hope they will continue. The former chancellor won enough on Lahan, he told me, to pay for a good din- ner out. But Charles Benson did not back the horse himself. He had no need to, hav- ing won enough on a 20-1 ante-post wager on the 2,000 Guineas winner King's Best to make a sizeable contribution to the reduc- tion of the National Debt, although I am sure he will find more inventive ways of using or losing the money. Lord Lamont, wagering steadily, had enjoyed a return on every race. Maddening. But I am sure nature will find a way of catching up with the man who invented the delayed tax increase.
As for me, I should have known early on what sort of betting day it was going to be. I set off from London wearing a summer suit after the previous day's heatwave but having chucked a warmer one on the back seat just in case. After two downpours on the way I stopped in a lay-by to change, fearing that under sullen grey skies I was going to look as conspicuous as an ice- cream salesman at a chestnut roasters' con- vention. (I will take the catcalls from the young ladies in the car which passed as a tribute to my manly calves, not as scorn for the involuntary dance with trousers at ankle level as my shoeless foot trod on a particularly sharp pebble.) I then sweltered in grey flannel as the clouds parted after the first race.
Asked by a charming lunchtime neigh- bour to mark her card, I steered her off Willie Muir's Atavus, which won at 20-1. I encouraged all at the table to back a Jamie `Tell me, darling, how much did this smile cost me?' Osborne two-year-old at Hamilton which did not make the frame. And I invested heavily in Barry Hills's Clog Dance, only to see the filly go down on the line to a late surge by Godolphin's Melikah after a ten- furlong race was reduced to a five-furlong sprint by the slow early pace. My joy was completed when, in the sixth race, 1 thought of having a saver on Spencer's Wood and decided that would be a feeble course when I had originally pinned my faith on James Fanshawe's Acrobatic. Acrobatic, needless to say, finished second at 100-30 to Spencer's Wood, who was returned at 10-1.
Mind you, I was not the only one without the full courage of his convictions. I did not succeed in prising any information out of Geoffrey Robinson, New Labour's former chief secretary to the Treasury and another Sagitta guest. But I did encounter local Tory MP Richard Spring at the Tote win- dow where he was backing Doctor Spin. The horse duly won, at 16-1. But Mr Spring had backed it only for a place. With the Romsey by-election defeat wrecking their progress in the local government elec- tions it was that sort of week for the Tories.
Robin Oakley is political edidtor of the BBC.
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