Sporting favourites
Robin Oakley
Apologies first to any of the fellow regulars in the Tote Credit Room at Newbury last Saturday who were deafened by a demented figure shouting home the 12-1 winner of the televised 4 o'clock from Ayr. I was the guilty party and the horse in question. winning the Scottish Grand National, was the seven-year-old Gingembre. trained at Lambourn by Lavinia Taylor. Never mind that I had taken the earlier price of 10-1, I would have cheered him home as loudly had I backed the second.
Those who read this column regularly have been reminded a few times this season of Gingembre's abilities. I have been a fan ever since he won a race at the Ayr Grand National meeting last year and no win this season has given me greater pleasure than the big race success for Lavinia and her husband John, who epitomise the sporting side of National Hunt racing. With , just eight boxes filled in their end of the famous Uplands yard, they live for their horses, they race for fun and they have a real instinct for what they are doing. Lavinia always said that Gingembre, who ran so well on the soft in November to be second in the Hennessy, would be better on fast ground and at last he got it. He will be aimed now at next year's Hennessy and if the ground is anything like what he needs and the handicapper is not too cruel he must be among the leading fancies.
The Scottish National success for Gingembre's regular rider Andy Thornton epitomised, too, the grit of National Hunt jockeys. An earlier fall on another of Lavinia's horses, Gotha, had left him with heavily strapped cracked ribs, a condition not revealed to the trainer, she told me, until after he had dismounted from Gingembre. Adrenaline, he insists, is the best pain-killer of all. At Wincanton earlier this season before the partnership began Andy had been on Twisted Logic, who fell, and Gingembre was brought down by stepping on the most tender part of the Thornton anatomy. Both of them. Mutual debts between man and horse, one feels, have now been fully paid.
With John Hills taking over the bigger part of the Uplands stables which the Taylors own, the revered Brian Delaney, head lad there successively to Fred Winter, Charlie Brooks and Simon Sherwood, will be joining the Taylors' operation with some of the other senior staff. Lavinia, who has previously owned most of the horses she has trained, has a public licence and they are ready to expand, though not to more than 12 or 15 horses. Shrewd owners should take advantage of what looks like a potent combination of enthusiasm, energy and experience. Sadly, though, there don't seem to be any more Gingembres available yet. He came from a riding-school owner in France who keeps a horse or two for racing. The Taylors went over to look at a few of his relatives but could not find another sufficiently like him.
There was much to enjoy at Newbury, too, where Barry Hills's Munir was the surprise 8-1 winner of the Lane's End Greenham Stakes, a key Classic trial, with the much-vaunted Tamburlaine disappointing in fourth place. By his high standards Barry had a poor season last year with some sick horses. This year he is back with a bang and the irony was that Munir, brought in from 50s to 8-1 for the 2000 Guineas after his victory, is owned by Hamdan al Maktoum. owner too of winter Guineas favourite Nayef, who was a disappointing third in his first run of the season at Newmarket for his Lambourn handler Marcus Tregoning. Asked to comment on the relative merits of the two, Barry wisely declared that he did not comment on or back horses from other trainers' yards.
He, of course, has seen it all before. Last year Barry had the winter favourite for the Guineas in the handsome Distant Music, who had been a brilliant two-year-old and who then had to be rested for much of his three-year-old season, being out of sorts after finishing eighth in the Guineas. Distant Music was beaten first time out this season too. but Barry insisted that I should not lose faith, as I will not. At Newmarket the going wasn't right for Distant Music and the other jockeys rode to beat him. I haven't forgotten that Barry rated him one of the best who'd been through his hands at two and if he thinks it worth persevering with Distant Music at four then I would be amazed if he does not win some good races.
Others on the comeback trail included Lynda Ramsden, who had her first winner since returning from France to train again in Britain with Mastermind, coolly handled by new stable jockey Robert Winston. Remember that it was the Ramsden outfit which launched Kieren Fallon. Lynda was not present herself but I suspect the press pack will settle happily for that on any other occasion she chooses to send daugh ter Emma in her place for the post-race formalities. Emma's blue trouser-suit was the fashion sensation of the day. And there was a trip down memory lane as well when we discovered that Roily Polly, who won the Fred Darling Strakes for Henry Cecil, was owned by the mercurial Daniel Wildenstein, who last had horses with Cecil more than a decade ago. The Newmarket trainer's face may look a little more worldweary still after his annus horribilis last year but all the charm and gentle wit remains. Nothing will cheer racing folk more than to see him have a year of spectacular success.
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