Women power
Robin Oakley
Suitably lubricated at karaoke parties, I can still perform a spirited rendition of 'Rock Island Line'. (OK, so the audience leaves. It isn't a perfect world.) But a Times report this week of Lonnie Donegan's memorial service reminded me what a totemic figure he had been in my teenage years, along with some figures who might have been mightily puzzled to be bracketed with him like Lester Piggott, Scobie Breasley and Fulke Walwyn. Now the main memory I retain of Lonnie Donegan is watching One of his concerts at the Albert Hall from the choir seats behind the stage. They had just performed 'The Wabash Cannonball' and 'Won't You Bring A Little Water, SvIvie' when Lonnie stepped forward to the microphone and declared, 'Me and the Boys are now going to play something we haven't done for years.' An unkind heckler in the audience shouted out, 'Music!'
There are those, like my son, who take much the same view of my tipping. But last Sunday it was different, oh so gloriously different. I must apologise first to Mrs Oakley's fellow patients in the Wellington Hospital where she was languishing after a major operation. They were treated to a crescendo of commentary followed by some rather undignified jumping about and shouting, but when Russian Rhythm stormed clear to win the 1,000 Guineas it was for me a magical moment. Regular readers of this now fortnightly column may recall that, after Russian Rhythm's victory at Ascot last July in the Princess Margaret, I declared that I had not fallen so much in love with a filly since Bosra Sham. (It's all right, ladies. Mrs Oakley understands.) There and then, I urged readers to back the fine big chestnut for the 1,000 Guineas, declaring, 'Get on now, I really believe she could be something special.' At that stage she was 10-1. After her courageous victory in the Lowther at York she went down to 5-2 favourite. And even when, in season at the time, she was beaten by the speedy Airwave over a distance short of her best in the Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket in the autumn, I insisted, 'I still believe she will win the 1,000 Guineas.' Shortly before the race I named her first in my Ten to Follow this year.
There was just one snag over Russian Rhythm's victory. This spring there were stable scares. She had not come to hand early enough. She was not sparkling in her work. She was not eating up. Neither was I, after the way I had backed her last autumn. Trainer Sir Michael Stoute was not pleased with her and there was even talk that she would not join the line-up for the race. Following Russian Rhythm's victory, there have been harsh words in some quarters for her connections for putting off the public. But horses are not machines, and while Michael Stoute is hardly racing's most compulsive communicator, I would absolve them completely. I happened to lunch next to Chris Richardson, managing director of Russian Rhythm's owners, the Cheveley Park Stud, a few days before the race and he was undoubtedly in fingerscrossed mode over their prize filly.
Weeks before. I had been planning to double my bet on the day as Russian Rhythm went to the post. But, put off by the stable warnings. I held off. And I watched with some chagrin as Kieren Fallon brought her home triumphant at 12-1, two points better than the best price I got last summer. Whether she had been bored at home and was saving her best for the racecourse or whether she really was seriously short of condition, it was a truly impressive performance. True, the French filly Six Perfections, after a diversionary ride that Thierry Thulliez will remember with as much embarrassment as if he had walked into the parade ring without his breeches on, was unlucky. But if that is what Russian Rhythm can do short of condition, then just think what joys lie ahead when she is at her peak.
Anyway a 12-1 winner is a comforting start for this season's Ten, especially when Andrew Balding's Dubaian Gift obliged a few days later at Lingfield at 5-1 to put us well ahead of the game. Alamshar, too, scored over the weekend in Ireland. I had hopes that Henry Cecil's Midsummer would add to our tally in the Oaks Trial at Lingfield last Saturday. The racecourse desire to see Cecil back in the big time is palpable, but the handsome Kingmambo filly could never quite get her act together sufficiently to peg back John Dunlop's Santa Sophia, ridden by Pat Eddery, who has been around so long you couldn't be sure he didn't once play a guest session on washboard with Lonnie.
The Derby Trial was won by a gutsy performer in Mark Tompkins's Franklin's Gardens after the field had gone off at a real lick that burned off the well-fancied but over-excitable Rainwashed Gold, later found to be lame, and the burly Shanty Star. The winner and Terry Mills's colt Let Me Try Again battled it out down the home straight and finished 11 lengths clear of the field. Better judges than me reckoned afterwards that it had been more a St Leger trial than a Derby trial, and Mark Tompkins showed a Yorkshireman's sense of reality as he suggested his colt could be fifth or sixth in the Derby rather than a Blue Riband winner. You do, however, have to stay at Epsom as well as having speed and in a soft-going year the Lingfield pair could well figure in the finish.
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