Donny style
Robin Oakley
‘AGerman joke,’ a former British ambassador once told me, ‘is no laughing matter.’ The Germans take their elections seriously, too. It has been no easy matter, in my day job for CNN, spraying an international audience with initials as I try to explain how the Red–Green coalition of the SPD and Joschka Fischer’s lot are trying to fight off the CDU and its sister party the CSU, who want to govern with the FDP but who, because of the intervention of the PDS plus some SPD rebels in the new Linkspartei, may be forced to govern in a ‘Grand Coalition’ with the aforesaid SPD.... had enough?
Sorting out the form for an 18-runner sprint handicap is simple after that. But watching the Left leader Oscar Lafontaine in action, I did recall one joke he told back in his SPD days when Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, in his all-conquering early days as Prime Minister, was visiting Berlin. ‘There was this psychiatrist,’ said Lafontaine, ‘who died and was surprised to be met at the pearly gates by the Saviour himself. “This is a great honour,” he exclaimed. “I’m only a psychiatrist.” “Yes, yes, I know,” said the Saviour, “but we need you urgently. Come along and see my Father. He’s beginning to think he’s Tony Blair.” ’ The halo has slipped a bit since then.
And so, gratefully, to Doncaster for the St Leger, the last British Classic of the season. I love the Donny style. Even in the murk and rain we sloshed through last Saturday, Yorkshire’s party spirit is unquenchable. In the cavernous, buzzing betting hall the vocalist Richard Shelton belted out a double tempo ‘My Way’ beside the bouncing conductor of not just a big but a massive band. Shimmering satin was everywhere, and that was just the lads’ ties. Doncaster is the world capital of hair gel, a cornucopia of spray-tanned décolletage, the last redoubt of the ‘party frock’. Trousers are poured, not pulled, on. The rule seems to be ‘the colder the weather, the shorter the hemline’, and everybody enjoys themselves. One lady in pink pulled me under her umbrella in the Tote queue after my second drenching, confiding that she had won £235 on the previous race. So where was the party, I asked, only to receive a look of scorn: ‘It’s all free drinks where we are.’ Of course.
Mind you, I’m not quite sure that Women’s Lib has made it all the way to Doncaster. I saw one Charlotte Church look-alike ordered to join a four-deep crowd at the bar to fetch five pints while her other half worked on the next bet. Another vision in frills was being steered through the throng by a firmly clenched left buttock. I don’t think I’ll try either with Mrs Oakley.
As for what you could see of the racing, there was an impeccable performance from Frankie Dettori in the St Leger. With Kieren Fallon staying at Leopardstown to gun down Motivator once again on Oratorio in the Irish Champion Stakes, and the Sheikh Mohammed team having no runner in the final British Classic, Dettori was invited by Coolmore to ride the favourite Scorpion. From the royal blue of Godolphin’s silks into the darker blue of Coolmore’s.
Just imagine the pressure. The conditions were dire, with the official going changed to ‘heavy’ after the second race. The horse was keyed-up: even with three handlers he could scarcely be restrained in the paddock. Having been second in the Irish Derby and won the Grand Prix de Paris, Scorpion was odds-on. Had Frankie slipped up, or ridden an injudicious race for the greatest rivals to his own stable, imagine the media onslaught there might have been. And yet he still had the confidence to make every yard of the running, setting a steady pace and then grinding up through the gears on the descent from Rose Hill to repel in turn the challenges of Kong, then Tawqeet and finally The Geezer. It was clock-in-the-head perfection. The only slip-up came, literally, from the horse. Inside the final furlong, as Frankie sensed the arrival of The Geezer in his slipstream and gave him a crack, Scorpion stumbled and veered almost into the running rail before thundering on. ‘When I asked him for a final effort, he went to quicken again and just lost his footing — he was trying so much to please me,’ said Frankie, who insisted that had anybody else come at him, his horse would have been able to pull out a bit more.
Afterwards, expressing his thanks to both stables for the opportunity, Frankie conceded that it had felt weird to be riding a classic success for Godolphin’s greatest rivals. ‘I’ve got mixed emotions as I usually win these races for Sheikh Mohammed.’ He was full of praise for Scorpion: ‘He dug deep like a true champion,’ and he reckons he will be better still on a truer surface. But what struck me before he donned the famous silk cap given to the winning rider was the intensity of Frankie’s focus, the steely determination that he showed, the way in which Dettori himself volunteered that this was his tenth Classic winner and his third St Leger victory. After a year in which his champion jockey’s title has gone by default, thanks to the indifferent form of many Godolphin hopes, a suspension through Royal Ascot and a broken collar bone mid-season, Frankie looked, and sounded, lean and hungry. Crowd-pleaser he may be, but this is a jockey who retains an appetite for success. I will be looking to see what price I can get on him for next year’s championship.
Previous page
