French class
Robin Oakley
Racing folk aren't famed for literary ..tastes. One owner described to his trainer how another stable patron had lost
the library wing of his rather tastelessly refurbished stately pile in a fire, 'How awful,' said the trainer sympathetically.
'Yes, it was. He lost both books.' But times are changing, with the letters column of the Racing Post lately dominated by quotes from Samuel Johnson. The good Doctor was clearly not averse to laying out his money on odds-on shots, opining: 'He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.' And Dr Johnson would have been in his element at Sandown on Saturday where the great Baracouda and Rhinestone Cowboy scored at odds of 8-15 and 2-5 respectively, Perhaps the best long-distance hurdler we have seen, the huge Baracouda, trained in France by Franc.ois Doumen and ridden by son Thierry, was giving 261b to every other horse in the race. He coasted up to the lead ers when he wanted but then idled in front, making some supporters nervous and forcing his rider to re-galvanise him near the line to hold off the pursuers. I suspect that the English trainer with whom I watched the race may have had a few bob on Baracouda himself because he turned to me and muttered about Doumen junior's rowing motions in the saddle, inquiring sarcastically, 'What is the French for a monkey shagging a bag of nails?' No Dr Johnson he.
Johnson believed 'A Frenchman must always be talking, whether he knows any thing of the matter or not: an Englishman is content to say nothing when he has nothing to say.' But what the Doumens had to say after the race made perfect sense to me. And it was a day when it was the Irish, not the English, who were reticent.
Thierry Doumen agreed that Baracouda's characteristic surge had car ried him to the front sooner than was ideal. 'You need to lead on the post. He wasn't tired. He's just done his job and he has won it.' Baracouda, he says, moves like no other horse, somehow touching the ground with less effort. 'At the moment he is the best.' You can repetez-vous on that. Thierry. It will take something prett■ extraordinary to beat him in the Cheltenham Stayers Hurdle.
The ever-courteous Doumen pere reckons he has never had the nine-year-old better: 'He's cooler. He's not emotional any more. Thierry doesn't have to take such a strong Baracouda has such a big stride, he says, that once you get him going in a race you can't slow him down too quickly and so it is hard for a jockey to know when to engage the gears and to perfect his placing. One day they will have to go chasing with Baracouda, says Francois, but they are not in too much of a hurry to engage in the riskier discipline while he is producing results like this over hurdles. After all, 05,000 was not a bad prize to be taking home as a reward for an outing designed just as a little prep race for the festival.
It could not have been a comfortable prospect for Rhinestone Cowboy's jockey in his pre-Cheltenham trial. Enough of a strain for the lanky J. P. Magnier that he was a 7 lb-claimer riding an exciting horse at a very short price who had performed inexplicably badly last time out at Leopardstown. He is, too, the son of the Coolmore boss John Magnier, currently engaged in the racing row of the century with Sir Alex Ferguson and must have been jumpy about more racecourse demonstrations from Manchester United fans. Luckily no trouble materialised and horse and rider coolly did what was asked of them.
Dr Johnson didn't know the Magniers. But if he had I guess he might have declared that a Magnier and an adjective, let alone an opinion, are never easily parted, and J. P. needed considerable prodding to emerge from under the carapace, Yes, Rhinestone Cowboy was a different horse from Leopardstown and, yes, he felt much more tuzzy'. And the pre-Cheltenham pressure now for him? It would, he agreed, make life 'interesting'. Trainer Jonjo O'Neill expressed himself satisfied with horse and rider. But he wasn't saying if they would go again for the Champion Hurdle this year or for another race. Time was when you could not stop the Irish talking on the racecourse. But no more.
I don't back many odds-on shots but it was, I am glad to say, a profitable day. Having set off late for the races I arrived in the winners' enclosure only just in time to congratulate Henrietta Knight on Tusk's success at 11-2 in the opening juvenile hurdle, The cross-course route from Esher station is a testing one, and it has to be said that Tusk coped better with the uphill finish than I do. All very well for David Nicholson to mock my lack of condition. Tusk is in full-time training, I am not. But having backed the horse at 11-2 I wasn't going to grumble.
Tusk is a tough character who seemed to run every few days when he was in Mick Channon's Flat yard and I liked the way he came again after having been headed by Cherub. He will win more races. And I hope readers remembered the recommendation for Patricksnineteenth in the last 'Turf column. Paul Webber's talented novice duly gave Tom Doyle a nice Saturday winner in the Grade I classy Scilly Isles Chase. As Dr Johnson insists: 'The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.' And a bit of 7-2 helps us all do that.
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