The turf
Singing fOr joy
Robin Oakley
It would have been impossible to pro- duce a. tableau of ten people more obvious- ly enjoying themselves. 'No, they're not all singers,' said the trainer, 'but they'll be singing tonight.' With a winner's prize of £56,313 you could bet your life on that. Syndicate ownership has brought into the sport all sorts of people who would never previously have dreamed of owning a race- horse and when Old Money becomes as scarce as Old Labour has become unfash- ionable then it will be syndicates like The Tenors, who were all there to see their horse bought at Doncaster and who were all there to see it run, which keep racing going.
All credit to the sponsors, Weatherby's, and to Lord Carnarvon, the Newbury patron who devised the race conditions, for a sponsorship which brilliantly achieved its objective. With a total prize fund of £125,000, the Weatherby's Supersprint offers a big prize to two-year-olds bought as yearlings at Tattersalls, Goffs, Ascot or Doncaster bloodstock sales for 30,000 guineas or less. In the race there is a 1 lb weight allowance for each 2,000 guineas paid under the 30,000, up to a maximum of 14 lbs. The whole idea is to give a real chance to smaller trainers and owners who tend to have cheaper animals than the multi-horsepower blue-blooded yards of the Cecils, Gosdens and Cumanis, and the lengthy prize list goes down to 1,500 even for sixth place.
Yards like those of Rod Millman and David Chappell have proved the success of the concept already. And success for Bryan Smart and The Tenors was equally appro- priate. With 40 boxes full these days he is well on the way. He has tasted real success with Sil Sila, winner of the French Oaks and he had first and third with Boomerang Blade and Patriot in Doncaster's big sales race last season. But there was a time not so many seasons ago when the former jump jockey and head lad to Jenny Pitman was down to a single horse and desperate to pay his bills.
I should have looked in my notebook last weekend. When I visited Bryan in March I asked if he had any Ascot hopefuls this year. He told me, 'Yes, I've got a top hat and tails horse, a nice Piccolo colt who looks like he's special.' And Don Puccini, by Piccolo, duly finished sixth in the Coven- try at Ascot over what was probably a fur- long too far for him.
Mind you, if Don Puccini had the class to run at Ascot he did not really have the manners. On his debut at Goodwood, when he won at Kempton and at Ascot he played up, dumping his jockey before the start and rearing up in the stalls. 'He's a nightmare. It's as if he knows he's a good horse and he just mucks about,' said Bryan. At Newbury he refused to go into the saddling boxes and tried to kick his trainer. And once more he dropped rider John Stack. In the stables one day they found him swinging by his jaw from the rafters, completely unper- turbed. And when they tried to school him in the stalls at home he lay down and start- ed eating grass. Don Puccini is now on pro- bation with the authorities, his trainer having been sent an official warning about his starting-stall behaviour. Let us hope delinquent habits do not blight a potential- ly splendid career.
We saw another useful sprint perfor- mance in the L'Exclusive de Ruinart Champagne Stakes, turned into a proces- sion by Arkadian Hero. The Tabor/Mag- `Of course I'm worried. I've heard that the legs are the first things to go.' vier four-year-old, who had been too long without a win, has brilliant speed on fast ground and Luca Cumani's charge will win again while he has the going to suit. Save a few bob too for Borgia's next outing. Few horses this season have looked to have as much in hand and Roger Charlton's four- year-old was cantering over her rivals from three furlongs out in the 1m 5f Ladbroke's handicap.
Lunching with Ruinart's jolly crew, I sat next to a distinguished man of the cloth who had recently visited Hong Kong. With only a few pounds in his pocket at Sha Tin he had felt a compulsion to invest on a horse called Pinch The Devil which came in at more than 100-1. I suppdse it is only fair that those in his profession should get a little more help from Up There than the rest of us. But it clearly takes different forms. At Goodwood one day Frankie Det- tori knelt and asked for a blessing before the race. My friend duly bestowed it and watched Frankie win, beating the horse which carried his own modest stake.
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