The turf
From Khyber to Kempton
Robin Oakley
Racing was certainly back in its swing on Saturday, on a day which belonged to the ladies, to ex-invalids and to Tom Tate's exciting two-miler Ask Tom, who ran a wonderful trial for Cheltenham's Queen Mother Chase in the Victor Chandler Handicap Chase. Micky Hammond told me at the start of the season that old Clay County barely lasts two miles. But he damn nearly did on this occasion after scorching round the first mile and three quarters. If they could jump, top sprinters like Pivotal and Mind Games would have trouble stay- ing with him over the first three fences. Clay County's pace burned off Storm Alert, who sulked at the back of the field, and it drew the finish out of the great Viking Flagship. But though Russ Garritty, whose skull-cap haircut certainly doesn't risk increasing his wind resistance, had to get to work on Ask Tom he battled really hard to take it after the last, and smashed the course record by two seconds in the pro- cess.
Tom Tate says that Ask Tom is a real pipe and slippers character at home, saving his best for the racecourse. `But he puts so much into it then we dare not take him to the well too often.' That wise judge Ivor Herbert told me that when the connections bought Ask Tom in Ireland they assumed that as a point-to-point winner stamina would be his forte and ran him first in a three-mile hurdle, only discovering later what a speed merchant they had on their hands.
The day's big hurdle race, the Victor Chandler Handicap, went to Henrietta Knight's eight-year-old Storm Dust. Though she has always had a belief in the horse's ability since his days on the flat with James Fanshawe he spent two years off the track after being fired and the trainer was quite candid afterwards: 'I thought he would blow up.' She had sent two fancied runners to Kelso the day before, both, like Storm Dust, ridden by the capable young rider Barry Fenton, the latest emerging star from the Toby Balding jockey-factory. Full of Oats fell and Tellicherry was hampered and unseated his rider. 'So my only instruc- tions to him today were to enjoy himself and stay in the saddle.' And Ms Knight made a good point on a day when punters were all at sea trying to figure out after the weather's intervention which horses were fit and which were not. Storm Dust had Only been cantering. 'Perhaps when the weather is better we do too much with them and they run better fresh.' But it was Amanda Perrett, who took over her father Guy Harwood's stable at the end of the flat season, who had a real day to remember. When the 'Horses Away' Command rang out after the eighth and final race on the Kempton card, the Har- wood family and I were virtually the only occupants of the unsaddling enclosure as the three steaming horses were led away in the gloom. Amanda had earlier trained another cx-invalid, Fine Thyne, to win the Sunbury Novices Steeplechase. (Her hus- band, ex-jockey Mark Perrett, says he could yet take his chance at Cheltenham if he is on song.) And in the final bumper she had nearly had her arms pulled out of their sockets by the talented but overkeen Clink- ing whom she rode to an easy victory. 'I just pointed him,' she said modestly. But it took a real effort, and some careful posi- tioning, to stop Clinking pulling his chance away too soon. She had not wanted to hit the front until the furlong pole and when she did it was all over.
What plans now for the impressive win- ner? 'He'll go novice hurdling. He jumps well and likes the good ground so there should be plenty of chances for him. But first we've got to find an owner.' I didn't enquire the price, but Clinking looks to me a good prospect, especially if he can be taught to settle as he gains experience. And the Perretts, with eight winners over jumps already plus one on the flat, are clearly motoring.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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