The turf
Keeping the faith
Robin Oakley
Looking for a long-odds shot, my racing friends kept asking me at Lingfield: 'Have the Tories got any chance?' An American colleague, sometime after my 10th live contribution on CNN the day the election was called, was more specific. 'Just what is it with this guy Hague?' he inquired. 'You say he's good in Parliament and makes better speeches than Thatcher. So why is it so certain that he will lose?' It is a reasonable question, all the more so after a first week in which the Tory campaign showed a great deal more zing than Labour's and the Prime Minister's schmaltzy election launch at St Olave's and St Saviour's sent the journalistic up-chuck meter soaring to a new high. The answer is probably that the people who had tired of the Tories after 18 years have not had long enough yet to tire of Labour. The economy is in reasonable nick and while there is plenty of derision for their image-burnishing and controlfreakery, nobody has much reason to hate Labour yet as they had come to hate the Tories by 1997.
As for Hague himself, while he has done too much bandwagon chasing and neglected the centre ground, I tend to fall back for an explanation of his personal unpopularity on the old racing story of the successful tipster, let us call him Henry Jones, for whom it all went wrong. First his wife left him because he spent too much time racing. Then his beautiful daughter ran away. Then he fell ill, missed much of one season, lost his touch and found his bets all going down the pan. His home went to his creditors, he was forced to trade in his car for an old banger. Finally, on a dire day at the track every bet went down and he was skint. Forlornly, he made his way back in sheeting rain to his car, to find it vandalised and all four tyres let down. Sinking to his knees in a puddle he implored the Almighty: 'Lord, what have I done to deserve all this?' Suddenly there was roll of thunder, the clouds parted and a heavenly voice was heard to declare: 'I really don't know, Jones. There's just something about you that pisses me off.' When your luck is running that way there is very little that shadow ministers and clever spin doctors can do to help. So I advise my friends to keep their political betting money in their pockets. We did, however, have a reminder at Lingfield that sure things can go down.
In Derek Sinclair's amiable box along with Willie Carson, I had assured everyone that John Dunlop's Silver Grey Lady could not be beaten in the Oaks Trial, and, unusually for me, invested solidly on the odds-on shot at 4-6. In fact Henry Cecil's Double Crossed beat her past the post, although, fortunately for my street cred, Silver Grey Lady was awarded the race after a stewards inquiry, having been badly baulked by the Cecil filly.
Wonderful, far-sighted people those Lingfield officials, although after that I do not see the Dunlop filly winning the Oaks. When I encountered Barry Hills after the second he assured me that Perfect Sunday did not have much to beat in the Derby trial and would not be the good horse he thought him to be if he could not cope with the Lingfield opposition. I kept the faith, took the 11-8 and enjoyed a confident winning ride from Richard Hughes who dictated the race from the front, turning the screw when needed. Perfect Sunday ran out of gas a little a furlong out but Barry said afterwards that with such a dreadful spring he had not been hard on him at home. They had come to Lingfield with Khalid Abdulla's horse to see if he could handle the gradients and the bends. The South Bank maestro was winning the Lingfield trial for the first time and I fervently hope that is an omen for Epsom, where he has four times provided the Derby runner-up with Glacial Storm. Blue Stag, Rheingold and Hawaiian Sound, but never the winner. Barry truly deserves a Derby victory and although it is hard to see anything beating Golan nobody is better placed than him to do so.
The Lambourn yard has now captured four Derby trials this year, having won at Epsom with Storming Home (who will have been tested again in York's Dante Stakes by the time you read this), at Sandown with Chancellor and at Chester with Dr Combustible. So which does Barry fancy most? He would not be drawn very far, beyond saying that he liked Mr Combustible, that Storming Home had come on by leaps and bounds and that there were plenty of Derbys in Europe.
Perfect Sunday may not have beaten all that much at Lingfield, although I suspect we will hear more of the second Putra Sandhurst. I can only say, however, that I like Lingfield as a Derby trial, that there is every chance that Perfect Sunday, unbeaten in two races as a three-year-old, is an improving horse and that 16-1 for Epsom is a decent price. For me it was a second winning Saturday, or it was until I got to Lingfield station on the way back to be approached for an autograph by a gorgeous blonde. I signed with a particularly confident flourish, only to have her explain that it wasn't for her. It was for her partner, who thought he'd recognised me but wasn't sure. It left me feeling a little like poor old Henry Jones's tyres.
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