Family traditions
Robin Oakley
The actor Bernard Miles, asked once how he liked his eggs, replied, ‘In threes.’ An old chum of mine, in the days when lunch with ministers or MPs was an established and essential element of a political journalist’s life, had much the same response to aperitifs. ‘The saddest five words in the English language,’ he once declared, ‘are: “Shall we go straight in?”’ There is a danger these days of jump racing focusing so heavily on the four-day Cheltenham Festival in early March that all the pleasant preliminaries are neglected. Ascot last Saturday, under sullen, scowling skies and with ground more testing than it is ever likely to be at the Festival, proved what a mistake that can be.
All credit first of all to Ascot, the British Horseracing Authority and to the bookmaker sponsors for agreeing, if reluctantly in their case, to turn the Victor Chandler Chase, won in the past by the likes of Desert Orchid, Viking Flagship and Waterloo Boy, from a handicap into a Grade One, so providing the top two-milers with a midseason opportunity between Sandown’s Tingle Creek Chase and the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham.
Unlike rich handicaps, there is always the danger of such races producing a shortpriced favourite and ‘cutting up’ to small fields, so reducing betting volume. You can see Chandler’s point. Twist Magic, an impressive winner of the Tingle Creek, had scared off a few, and his trainer, Paul Nicholls, predicted in advance that he had a stone in hand over his rivals. But two things made that a dangerous assumption: they were racing through a plum pudding and Twist Magic’s rivals included an entry trained by a Pipe at Pond House.
Years ago we got used to seeing horses ridden by Peter Scudamore and trained by Martin Pipe scooting clear of the pack early on to make the pace. Instead of coming back to the field as predicted by stands watchers and the other riders, the super-fit animals would keep up their relentless grind and gallop the hearts out of their pursuers. In the Victor Chandler the young generation showed us they can do it too. Tamarinbleu, trained by Martin’s son David and ridden by Peter’s cool-headed son Tom, nicked a length or two at the start, took the first in front and tested his rivals’ stamina with a perfectly judged pace-making ride.
Ruby Walsh, on the 4–5 Twist Magic, was only two lengths behind at the third last but when he pressed the boost button there was nothing in the tank and Tamarinbleu came home 12 lengths in front. Now the Pipe team don’t know whether to aim him for the twomile Champion Chase, the three-mile Gold Cup or the Coral Hurdle at Cheltenham! Paul Nicholls was unbowed in a gracefully taken defeat insisting, ‘It was the ground. Cheltenham will be a totally different story.’ The Pipe/Scudamore combination, who not long ago nicked the Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot with Lough Derg by poaching a massive lead and hanging on, scored again with the same horse in a totally different way in the VC Poker Holloway’s Hurdle, being passed by outsider Warne’s Way a mile out and then coming back to snatch the prize in the dying strides. Lough Derg was carrying 11st 10lb, Warne’s Way a mere 10st 4lb. That was real grit. Were you sure of it three out? I asked Tom. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘He’s so tough.’ Lough Derg is the sort of horse anybody would love to have in their yard. ‘The more you give him, the more he takes,’ said David Pipe of the eight-year-old, who will be entered in the World Hurdle at Cheltenham. ‘He’s been the same ever since we got him at three.’ Another who earns star ratings at home is Wee Robbie, in whose box I found trainer Nick Gifford when I visited his Findon yard last February. He was keen on the horse then and after Wee Robbie had won the novices chase his trainer simply couldn’t be out-chuffed. ‘I love him to bits,’ he said. ‘I’ve always loved him. He’s a great big brute of a horse, a big, proper old-fashioned chaser.’ Nick, another second-generation trainer after father Josh, was equally pleased with the ride Wee Robbie was given by jockey Noel Fehily, surely the quietest Irishman in the weighing room.
Ruby Walsh and Paddy Brennan went off too fast on Marodima and Mahogany Blaze and duly cut each other’s throats. More than 20 lengths back at one stage, the cool Noel Fehily gave his horse what the trainer called ‘a brilliant ride’. ‘He simply put him to sleep for more than a mile. The others played into our hands.’ It was, all in all, a heart-warming day for some of the nicest people on the jumping scene, with Emma Lavelle’s Labelthou coming back after a horrific fall in a chase at Haydock, after which she was a long time on the ground, to win the Mares Only Hurdle. She not only beat the others but was also really smart over the obstacles. Said Emma, ‘She is so quick from A to B over hurdles. If she can win races like this there is probably no need to go back over fences.’ Labelthou should win again while she has her ground. Note, too, Binocular, a smart French import who won his first hurdle race for Nicky Henderson like a horse who really enjoys what he is doing, and Regal Heights, who took the handicap chase in the hands of Graham Lee. He responded well when Graham heard a rival coming and gave him a squeeze. Regal Heights comes from the advancing yard of Donald McCain, son of Ginger. On the jumping scene, it seems, heredity is a powerful force.
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