Ascot angst
Robin Oakley
Going racing, you do meet them all. In front of me as we left Ascot station for the course last Saturday was a man carrying a full-size and fully inflated blow-up female. Behind me on the path was the ultimate pessimist. '1 could have a few bets,' he was saying to his companions, 'but there again, I might as well take out the contents of my wallet and set light to them now.' Perhaps the uphill finish of the walk was getting to him, I thought. Having then seen my placepot go down in the first race, despite having included two of the three runners in that contest, and backed the fifth of six in the next, 1 began to think he might have the right approach after all. But then came salvation. Terry Mills has been telling me all season, and I have been telling Spectator readers, what a good crop of two-year-olds he has this year. It seemed time to get seri
ous with his Peace Offering, who was reappearing after winning a Sandown maiden a month ago. I did so and under Kevin Darley Peace Offering scooted clear of a classy field including the likes of Speed Cop and Revenue to take the Group 3 Willmott Dixon Cornwallis Stakes at a handy 10-1.
'He's okay, this fellow.' said his trainer afterwards. 'He's shown quite a bit at home when we've tried him with the older horses.' It had, he said, taken time to get Peace Offering to settle to his work. 'We bought him at the breeze-up sales and these breeze-up horses do get a bit buzzed up. He gets on his toes a bit.' But a more settled Peace Offering is clearly a useful prospect for next year, when his trainer believes he will get further than the minimum trip. And for Terry that was not all. Although his Nadour Al Bahr finished in his accustomed second place in the final race on the card, before that we had the Ladbroke.com Handicap Stakes with two Mills runners. Funny Valentine and Olivia Grace, carrying the two top weights. Again with Kevin Darley in the saddle, Olivia Grace stormed clear two furlongs out to give Loretta Lodge another 10-1 victory. 'Bags of toe,' said Terry of his speedy fouryear-old filly, a daughter of Pivotal. She has been entered for the autumn sales, but after the Ascot race he seemed in three minds, whether to let her go, keep her in training or send her to the breeding paddocks.
All credit anyway to the percipient compilers of the Ascot race card who had chosen to run a feature on Terry and his advancing Epsom yard, reminding racegoers not only of Where Or When's popular victory in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes but also of his ten Ascot winners since 1993, worth half a million in prize money between them, including Royal Ascot winners Bobzao. Mitcham and Norton. (Epsom seems to be on a hot streak at the moment with John Akehurst winning at York the same day with Dr Cool and Simon Dow winning over the sticks with Arabian Moon, while also scoring on the flat with Londoner. a horse tried and rejected both by Henry Cecil and Martin Pipe.) Some trainers do seem to have a penchant for turning out Ascot winners. One Press Room colleague backs at level stakes everything that Mark Johnston sends down from Middleham to the Berkshire course and has done very nicely out of it. Once again his approach paid off with Love Everlasting repeating her course and distance victory of a month before at 8-11 and Robandela holding off Nadour al Bahr in the last at 13-2. Any horse that beats a Johnston entrant down south knows it has been in a race. The Johnston horses are always superfit and he seems to have a way of endowing them with Yorkshire grit, ensuring that they are ready to dig deep when faced with a challenge. On the same card a year before. I noticed, Mark had scored a double and Love Everlasting had been second. Mills and Boon may be a better known coupling but Mills and Johnston look a likely pair for Ascot exactas over the next few seasons.
Terry confirmed that he plans to hand over to son Robert, who already plays a major role in the yard, after Royal Ascot next year. You can bet your life he will be determined to go out with a bang and he says it won't necessarily be stable star Where Or When who provides it. There will be plenty of good three-year-olds in the yard next year, he believes. Terry is appreciative of the efforts of Kevin Darley, who rode Where Or When to his famous victory, but when I asked if he was now first-choice jockey for the stable the trainer declared that there could be no such thing. Smaller yards like his, he said, have to rely on picking up what they can get when the glamour stables have made their plans. Maybe, but given the record of Loretta Lodge this season it might pay a few top jockeys' agents to memorise the Mills' telephone number fast.
Two trainers used to sending out winners at most of the top meetings are John Dunlop and John Gosden, both as elegant with their comments as they are in their attire. Both produced prospects for next year on the Ascot card. Big Bad Bob made it four in a row for Dunlop in the Listed Tom McGee Autumn Stakes. He is suited by the Ascot track, counsels his trainer, who calls him 'a tough little horse who likes it firm'. John Gosden was much less surprised by the victory of Robert Sangster's Secret Garden in the Listed 7f Miles and Morrison October Stakes than the 20-1 price might have suggested. The surprise had been in her failure to win at Sandown the week before when Jimmy Fortune set out to make all over a mile and she weakened into fifth. 'I'm not that kind of trainer but if you'd asked me before that race I'd have said she was sure to win,' said the Manton maestro. So what had made the difference? Covering her up for longer had probably helped, he agreed. 'She's been eating, kicking, playing and squealing happily all the week, so we had to let her take her chance. That's fillies in the autumn for you. But she could be smart.' Coming from that quarter. that is a hint worth taking.
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