A bit of a thinker
Robin Oakley
Mrs Oakley and I have only one dissonance in our lives. When we are due to travel somewhere, she is of the cautious school and I am of the last-minute variety. She likes to camp out at the terminus the night before, I prefer to leap into the last carriage, showering newspapers and bruising knees, as the train moves out of the station. But the fact that mine was virtually the first car to arrive in the Wincanton car park on Sunday was not entirely due to Mrs Oakley's urgings that I allow three hours for a two-hour drive. Having stayed up until the early hours that morning to see Channel 4's coverage of the Breeders' Cup races, I had failed to notice that the clocks had gone back.
It left me time, for once, to enjoy the pre-race preliminaries, which included a parade of stallions, including my old favourite, Silver Patriarch. Standing up on his hind legs and pawing the air, he looked magnificent. With all the talk of the movie version of Seabiscuit around, he must have thought it was an audition for The Lone Ranger. And when two huntsmen took the hounds of the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale Hunt out on the course, I learned that there are rural equivalents to those urban myths of crocodiles in the sewer system and cockroaches as big as cats. I heard a tweedy lady assuring her companion that when it had done away with fox-hunting the Blair government was going to be introducing bull-fighting. How silly of me not to have realised — of course, it is all a diabolical European plot.
The Wincanton card, it has to be said, was not exactly of Breeders' Cup quality. Despite the £60,000 prize money on offer, just 21 horses contested the six races and, when Comanche War Paint was pulled out of the second, a two-horse match became a walkover. The course authorities had done their best, spending a fortune on bringing in water to improve the ground. But we are now paying a penalty for the dry summer and this early in the jumping season trainers and owners are understandably reluctant to risk their animals on firm ground.
There is no one more careful of her horses' welfare than Henrietta Knight. She has scarcely had a runner for weeks, so the Wincanton executive should send her a big bouquet for bringing Edredon Bleu to contest the Fieldspring Desert Orchid Chase. This probably doubled the crowd and the old boy did not let them down. Jim Culloty gave an object-lesson in how to dictate the pace from the front, an ability he showed in the next race, too, with Balladeer, and Jim Lewis's grand 11-year-old steadily burned off Exit Swinger and Tresor de Mai, clearly relishing his task. 'He was foot perfect,' said Jim, who pointed out that early in the season with fresh fences the track is a stiff one.
'I know he didn't beat anything much,' said Henrietta afterwards, tut he is just such a wonderful horse. He is young as ever at home and stronger than he has ever been. He is out in the field every day and if he is not put out there he gets furious.' Edredon Bleu used to be as fast as anything in the country over two miles but his trainer says we will never see him over the minimum distance again. Two miles five or six furlongs is his measure now, although Terry Biddlecombe reckons he would get three. That will restrict his opportunities and Henrietta counsels, 'He won't run very much.' So watch for those occasions and enjoy him while we can.
My other reason for heading to Wincanton was to see the 5 lb claimer James Davies in action. Word is spreading about the young rider, whose father Hywel. a fine tactician and as brave as they come, won the Grand National on Last Suspect. James is attached to the yard of Hywers old chum Brendan Powell and is being given the chance to concentrate fulltime on his race riding, being spared some of the humdrum stable duties like mucking Out. Nor, it seems, does he contribute to the cooking in the house he shares with his father near Lambourn. 'I don't want him wasting energy on inessentials,' says his father. 'If he's not racing, he is on the practice horse or watching race videos. His whole existence is racing.' And does he get plenty of fatherly advice? 'We've discussed tracks and styles and the pros and cons of different approaches, but now the time has come to let him get on with it,' says Hywel, who pays tribute to the work put in, too, by agent Russ James. 'I am so proud of him; he is the ultimate professional.'
At Wincanton, despite the handicap of an Oakley tenner riding on his mount Salford, who is not the most straightforward of rides, James Davies showed his quality. Despite keen competition from the experienced Timmy Murphy on the favourite Step Quick, James hustled him most of the way in the Tote Exacta Chase and wound up the pressure from three out, in the end winning comfortably on a horse who was described by trainer Nigel Hawke in words I will paraphrase for sensitive readers as 'a bit of a thinker'. James Davies is currently the leading conditional rider with 20 successes so far this season. There are few riders around who are better value for their allowance and I am sure the bookings from the bigger yards will not be long in coming.
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