Ascot goes global
Robin Oakley
rr here are some things worse than back.' ing as many seconds as I did at Ascot. Late on the first night of the Thessaloniki Summit, where I had to spend most of the week and which was, confusingly, held 60 miles away in Porto Carras, I heard a Japanese journalist asking the information desk how long it would take to get to the hotel he had been allocated. 'It is on an island.' said his informant, 'and the boat trip would be about an hour. But I expect all the boats will have gone by now. Perhaps the coastguard could help you hire a fisherman ... ' With summit security what it is these days, the roadside bushes heaving with armed police, I would not have embarked with any enthusiasm, with or without a fisherman. Secret Service frogmen probably scuttled him in the first 300 metres. But then the Japanese have their own way with security.
At a 08 summit in Okinawa a few years ago a daily paper colleague on a free Saturday asked the hotel desk about the boat trips advertised in the lobby. 'Sorry, sir,' he was told with finality, 'the sea is closed.'
There is nothing like Ascot, I was reflecting, as a lady preceded me from the station wearing not just a hat but a hatpin on which you could have cooked a familysize kebab, and I am glad I made it for the first day to see the Australian flying machine Choisir, described by assistant trainer Shannon Perry as 'a monster of a horse, like a Brahma bull', storm home in the King's Stand Stakes for the first of his two remarkable victories. The Ascot management are determined to turn the Royal course into a centre of international racing, and clerk of the course Nick Cheyne had done well to attract the most international collection yet, with runners from Hong Kong, South Africa, America, Dubai, Germany and France as well as from Down Under. Chief executive Douglas Erskine-Crum told me before the meeting began, 1 have a dream that Choisir wins the King's Stand.' When the Australian runner did so at 25-1, paying 37-1 on the Tote, he was beaming with pleasure. When Choisir repeated the feat in the Grand Jubilee, beating the exceptionally fast filly Airwave, he must have been ready to jump on his topper in sheer joy. The foreign entries will be queuing up for years after that. Do they do air miles for horses?
Mind you, for anybody with Australian friends keen on racing, two victories for Choisir was more like a nightmare than a dream. Modesty in victory is not quite their thing. They go more for the full tengallon, gold-plated, steamers-and-bunting, top-volume gloat. Thank God, the England rugby team beat the Wallabies the same day or we would have been scraping them off the ceiling in Earl's Court. But then it isn't only the Australians who can be a little chauvinistic. They must have been amazed when British bookies let them help themselves again at 13-2 for Choisir's second victory.
Although Russian Rhythm kept our colours flying in the Coronation Stakes, becoming the first 1000 Guineas winner to be successful in the race since 1979,1 was sad that the second to Choisir was the flying filly Airwave, another of this column's Ten to Follow. She was thought beaten fair and square. With Kalaman, the third of our Ten to figure on the Ascot card this week, well, we wuz robbed. At a Spectator lunch I had been confidently predicting that Kalaman was good enough to beat the three Classic winners in the field, the victors in the Irish. French and German 2000 Guineas. So he proved to be. Indian Haven. Clodovil and Martillo all finished behind him. But thanks to some careless riding by Paul Scallan on Monsieur Bond, who also interfered with Indian Haven, Kalaman was halted in his stride and Johnny Murtagh was unable to extricate him in time to get past the winner, Zafeen, who had finished second in the English 2000, The three days in the cooler which the stewards awarded Mr Scallan was scant consolation. But make no mistake, Kalaman is a class act and will win his share of top races, particularly, I would think, if he steps up to ten furlongs.
Otherwise Ascot showed us, with Dubai Destination's comeback victory in the Queen Anne Stakes, that there is plenty of life yet in the Godolphin operation and that Roger Charlton has a colt of rare potential in Three Valleys, who ran away from a good-class field in the opening event of the meeting, the six-furlong Coventry Stakes. to win by eight lengths and in record time. The last horse to win the Coventry by such a margin was Mill Reef, 34 years ago. And Three Valleys, now installed as the favourite to win the 2000 Guineas next year, is bred to stay longer than that.
The sadness of the meeting was the lacklustre showing of Hawk Wing. The Coolmore team showed courage in listening to those of us who urged them to break their normal pattern and campaign him as a four-year-old after a series of seconds in top races last year. The policy seemed brilliantly vindicated after Hawk Wing reappeared in the Lockinge at Newbury and slaughtered a field of top milers by 11 lengths. Now, even though he finished lame, all the question marks are back. I do hope we have not seen the last of him. Racing needs horses with star quality and he does seem to have something special. Let us hope Aidan O'Brien's genius can once again iron out the niggles.
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