Horizontal racing
Robin Oakley
Nobody ever does racing-speak as well as the Irish. After his Munich recently showed improved form to win at the Curragh, the Irish trainer Eddie Lynam declared, ‘He works like a real machine at home — but until today he raced like a washing machine.’ I, too, woke up last Saturday with my back feeling as though I had been put through several cycles of an industrial-sized washing machine — the legacy of a youth misspent throwing javelins instead of reading improving books like Raceform — and if there is a time I don’t appreciate being forced to do my racing horizontally at home it is in the run-up to the Derby and Oaks. There really is no substitute at this time of year for getting to the track to see the three-year-olds in the flesh.
It is not just the Classic contenders either. The sage John Francome told Channel 4 viewers that he loved three-year-old handicaps. The one thing the handicapper can’t allow for, he pointed out, is growth. So when you get down to the paddock and see for yourself which colts and fillies have grown up and matured from their two-yearold days and which have failed to thrive after precocious first-season promise there is money to be made, or at least less of it to be lost.
At this time of year it is all about measuring the difference. It always makes me think of Ogden Nash’s limerick:
A Crusader’s wife slipped out of the garrison And had an affair with a Saracen; She was not over-sexed, Or jealous, or vexed; She just wanted to make a comparison.
In racing comparisons are not odious, they are essential.
I had, for example, fancied Ralph Beckett’s Look Here for Lingfield’s Oaks Trial and had backed her before the runners were on view. Had I got to the track I would probably never have done so, because the Channel 4 team informed us that she had not come in her coat and did not look ready. In the event, victory went to Clive Cox’s Miracle Seeker, a half-sister to champion hurdler Katchit but much bigger than him. Miracle Seeker, nicely ridden by Adam Kirby, made all and handled the Lingfield hill, the best preparation for Epsom’s Tattenham Corner, with aplomb. ‘She’s used her stamina and shown she can handle the course. She’s earned a crack at the Oaks,’ said Clive. So she has. If she was trained by Sir Michael Stoute or John Dunlop, she would be half her current 33–1.
Look Here, in only her second race, did not handle the downhill turn but, when she was then wisely switched to the inside rail by jockey Seb Sanders, she rallied well up the straight and was closing on the winner. Epsom might not be her obvious destination but a gutsy performance like that from a filly who will clearly come on a lot for the race makes her a quality prospect.
As for the colts, Aidan O’Brien saddled first and second in the Derby trial. But the winner Alessandro Volta, a son of Montjeu, did not handle the hill and bend either. Johnny Murtagh’s mount responded well when challenged by Frankie Dettori on Campanologist and stayed on well up the straight. He, too, has the stamina which often decides the Derby, but again the Irish version on a flatter track looks a more likely target. There is plenty more ammunition yet in Coolmore’s locker.
The one advantage of racing at home by television is that you can take in a much wider range across several tracks. We may not need to look much further, for example, for the winner of the Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot than Sir Michael Stoute’s Spanish Moon, a leading fancy for last year’s Derby who had his three-year-old season cut short by injury. Nearly taken out of the Ascot race by a horse which broke down, he was forced wide yet came from last place to pass a class field in the Listed John Doyle Buckhounds Stakes. He finished like a police car on the way home for tea. All that was missing was the siren.
Four-year-olds, too, dominated the 7f Victoria Cup, which often provides clues to handicaps later in the season. First home was Barry Hills’s Zaahid, as game as you could get in holding off Al Khaleej by a neck. When he has an improving handicapper in his hands Barry does not miss opportunities and Zaahid can be backed again. So can the second and the fourth, the imposing-looking We’ll Come, who probably needs a mile. But the eye-catching performance was that of the even less experienced King of Dixie. Like We’ll Come, he reared up as the stalls opened, was left in last place, and still drove through to finish third after looking like the winner a furlong out. Follow him.
At Nottingham, another four-year-old went into my notebook. Ed McMahon’s Cartimandua ran in last season’s 1,000 Guineas but was sidelined with a chipped knee after winning a Listed race at Haydock last June. Her trainer says that the filly, who was injured as a two-year-old as well, suffers from having a colt’s bulk and muscle on a filly’s frame. He was not sure she was ready for her race last Saturday but she came home well in the hands of Graham Gibbons, holding off a late challenge from the favourite Crystany. She looks a potential sprinting star.
And finally a note on the English-based Irish jockey Cathy Gannon. One of several good girls riding at the moment, she had a long injury break last year but impressed with her Haydock victory on Harbour Blues. Snap up a few of her long-priced winners before she becomes fashionable.
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