Feminine wiles
Robin Oakley
As departure hour for a reception or a dinner party approaches, the Oakley residence comes to resemble the opening scene of Four Weddings and a Funeral. Years of foot-tapping in the hall with the car keys ready and Mrs Oakley busying herself with the things women find a need to do as soon as you are due to leave have taught me that it is unwise to rush the female gender. It is the same with training fillies, and Michael Jarvis, a man whom it would be hard to imagine in an expletiverich fluster, has the patience to cope.
After her winning racecourse début on Lingfield’s all-weather Polytrack I had fancied his Vista Bella for the Passport2Sport.co.uk Masaka Stakes at Kempton last Saturday, a recognised 1,000 Guineas trial, and it was a happy omen when Michael Jarvis preceded me through the racecourse entrance. It saw me through the worries as I watched Mick Channon’s Joint Aspiration, a handsome, athletic daughter of Pivotal, prowling the paddock like a chestnut panther. In the race Vista Bella showed her greenness but Philip Robinson coolly coaxed the right tune out of her when it mattered. The pair collared Joint Aspiration on the line and for once my Flat season opened with bookies’ money in my pocket.
‘She is still learning but I liked the way she buckled down in the last 50 yards,’ said Vista Bella’s trainer afterwards. ‘She suddenly realised what was required.’ He revealed that after some niggling problems last year Vista Bella had not been trained as a two-year-old, but they had made up for lost time through the winter. Since the filly is owned by Sheikh Mohammed, who was still in Dubai, Michael Jarvis could not say whether she will take her chance in the Guineas. But both winner and second should have Group race victories ahead.
The biggest prize of Kempton’s day, the Coral Rosebery Handicap, went to Paul Webber’s Kew Green. Principally known as a jump trainer, though he won at Royal Ascot on the Flat with Ulundi, Paul is well known for successfully bringing back invalids from long lay-offs, and Kew Green fitted the mould. Formerly trained by William Haggas, the seven-year-old had a series of leg and back problems which resulted in two years off the track before Paul brought him back in December to win on the all-weather, feeling confident enough to have one of his rare bets in doing so.
‘I’m a pretty hopeless punter,’ he claims. ‘Three bets a year of which two lose and one scrapes home.’ At Kempton, Kew Green prevailed in the final strides over St Andrews. His delighted trainer was quick to pay tribute to William Haggas and to Lambourn vet James Maine, explaining, ‘Kew Green had a kissing spine. They sawed off the tops of three vertebrae to give the spine the chance to flex and bend. They said he had a 50 per cent chance of being a racehorse, but he’s 100 per cent guts.’ Tributes too to owners Peter and Susan Jensen: ‘It’s amazing what you can achieve with owners who have patience and a horse which has ability.’ Most of Paul’s invalids have been helped with his equine swimming pool, but with Kew Green’s medical history that is not allowed. Galloping is permitted but swimming is out.
Another feature at Kempton was the return of jockey Alan Munro. A sturdily independent character, Munro won the Derby on Generous as Fahd Salman’s retained jockey in 1991. But he has spent most of the last decade out of the country, riding in South Africa, Japan, New Zealand and mostly in Hong Kong. Reckoning he was getting burned out in Hong Kong’s intensive cauldron, he has just ended a four-year ‘sabbatical’ studying martial arts.
Munro showed he has lost nothing of his old skills by scoring on Rod Millman’s useful-looking Makabul. Millman is a friend of Alan Munro’s agent, and he invited the returned wanderer down to ride work for him and was impressed. ‘He might have been a little old man but unlike the rest of us he has had a rest. I saw he had still got it if he wanted to use it and he’s been very helpful to us.’ Still only 38, Alan Munro looks a lot younger. With the intensity of racing these days threatening many with burnout that sabbatical may have been a wise move. And not too many jockeys, I suspect, will be trying to steal up the inside of a colleague who is now a black belt in karate.
Finally, a note for Howard Johnson and Graham Wylie, whose buying spree was so well rewarded at Cheltenham this year. Take a look at this year’s 2000 Guineas and see how Rebel Rebel gets on. I doubt that he will win it but they might need their cheque book later. When Neville Callaghan’s strapping colt was striding round the Kempton parade ring before the Listed Easter Stakesm he dwarfed some of the other contenders. At a handsome 16.2 hands with plenty of bone about him he looks an ideal jumping sort, and for the moment he is no slouch on the Flat either. In the one-mile Easter Stakes. Rebel Rebel covered the field into the straight and progressed smoothly through the last two furlongs to win tidily in the hands of Oscar Urbina. Though his trainer is inclined to let him take his chance in the Guineas, he reckons the Revoque colt really needs a mile and a quarter. Handily, he acts both on soft and fast ground.
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