The turf
Tactless questions
Robin Oakley
My award for racing's public relations achievement of the week goes to jockey Richard Johnson. As the riders returned after the Mitsubishi Shogun Game Spirit Chase at Newbury one breathless punter asked about his mount Nipper Reed: 'Did he give you a good ride?' Since Nipper Reed had firmly planted himself at the start and refused to jump off and join the others in the contest the punter had clearly been watching the race in the bottom of a glass. His crass inquiry came well within the adding-insult-to-injury category. But the jockey contented himself with mutter- ing: 'Yeah. Though we didn't get very far.' The punter beamed and disappeared, no doubt to go home and ask his wife after a washing-machine flood, a prang with the family car and the dog being sick on the sofa if she had had a good day otherwise. Mind you, I didn't do much better myself after the last race on the card, one of those proper bumpers, a flat race restricted to horses which had only run under National Hunt rules. As I headed for the winner's enclosure I encountered Lambourn trainer Noel Chance and remarked to him that I hoped Mark Pitman's Patriarch would keep the race after the steward's inquiry which had just been announced. Mark has an out- standing record with bumper horses and you don't often get the chance to back one at 7-1 as I had done on this occasion. Noel smiled with all his usual charm. And when, belatedly, I inquired how his own 33-1 shot Ready to Rumble had fared in the race, he replied: 'Second, though we might yet get it on the objection!' Oops. Two anxious clus- ters stood round the steaming horses in the unsaddling enclosure. From the serious look on the face of Patriarch's jockey Nor- man Williamson and the head-wagging that went on before we joined Mark and owner Malcolm Denmark I feared the worst. Especially when Norman declined a pho- tographer's request for a picture with the horse, saying, 'We haven't won yet.' But when I asked Mark if he would keep the race he was robust: 'I bloody well hope so. I hate being second.' Although he conced- ed that Patriarch had run a little green on his racecourse debut he insisted that Nor- man had kept a straight course when the other fellow came to challenge.
In the end Patriarch did keep the race. Sorry, Noel. And it is worth noting that it was the race in which Mark's outstanding prospect Monsignor had finished fourth to Golden Alpha the year before. It was the presence of the odds-on Pipe entry Lannkar which had extended Patriarch's price and it looked like another top-class contest. Patriarch being only four, Mark is not certain whether he will run him at Cheltenham, although Norman Williamson is encouraging him to have a go. But Mark reckons the gelding, by Alphabatim out of Strong Language and a purchase from the famed Costellos, to be a very nice horse.
It was an afternoon of real class. I trav- elled down in a railway compartment full of yuppies who made a chap on a BBC salary feel somewhat inadequate. One had just bought a Jensen Interceptor, another lived with a Lamborghini owner who was think- ing of swapping his runabout for something called a Diabolo. The rest of their discus- sion, bizarrely, centred on a Hastings supermarket which had shopping for nud- ists once a week. Do you drive there in your Interceptor, I wonder, and undress on the premises or are you supposed to arrive starkers, relying on having no traffic acci- dents on the way? 'So sorry, officer, but I really can't step out of the car . . ' And what about the dangly bits when you are ferreting in the bottom of the freezer? As one of the girls inquired, 'What about all those fresh vegetables?' Indeed, madam, it's enough to make a parsnip curl. You do meet all sorts racing.
Anyway, the four machines we saw in action at Newbury, two of them human and two equine, were just as elegant and even more awesome than any Lamborghini. See More Business did the business once again cruising away with the Aon Steeplechase with his relentless gallop and having a decent blow afterwards in the perfect Gold Cup preparation. Paul Nicholls's other star, Flagship Uberalles, had an equally facile victory in the Mitsubishi Shogun Chase and looks a Cheltenham banker. 'He wouldn't have blown a candle out,' said his trainer afterwards.
In winning the novice chase on the not always willing Deano's Beeno, Tony McCoy showed yet again what sheer deter- mination in the saddle does for a horse. It isn't always the big winners on the willing horses which show you the measure of a great jockey. And Mick Fitzgerald, who rode See More Business with an unfussy stylishness, showed his worth again later, bringing home Geos for Nicky Henderson to win a second Tote Gold Trophy in three years for the shrewd Thurloe Thorough- breds syndicate. Mick had felt a brute deserting the stable's topweight Blue Royal, a great personal favourite, to ride Geos and the trainer was truly pleased for him that he had made the right choice, although both of them reckon Blue Royal the future star given a better break.
Money, I guess, goes to money. James Stafford and the Thurloe team buy quality and 80 per cent of Geos is owned by 21 Warburg's bankers. The other 20 per cent is owned by PR man Piers Pottinger, and all have been involved in the Royal Bank of Scotland takeover of NatWest. Not a bad week for some. And they surely have more fun to come with this little French-bred horse who was jumping fences at three.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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