The turf
Listen to Willie
Robin Oakley End of season flat-racing, in gambling terms, is no more than a matter of keeping your head above water as everything is flung on the racecourse in the hope of earning a bit of winter keep. At Newbury on Saturday it was almost literally a matter of keeping your head above water as brief spells of sunshine alternated with bursts of monsoon rain, the kind that comes in at every angle and seeks out every soggy crevice.
Fortunately, the first friendly face I saw was that of Willie Carson. He asked what I fancied and tut-tutted when I opted for an old favourite, Martin Arbib's Salmon Lad- der, in the Group 3 Perpetual Stakes which his company had sponsored. I did so on the grounds that the old horse likes Newbury and goes well on the soft (it had already turned to heavy). Too long in the tooth, suggested Willie. As for my readiness to keep faith with Marcus Tregoning's Ekraar in the big race at Doncaster, the Racing Post trophy, he wagged his head severely. A horse whose stable felt the need to fit him with blinkers so early in his career, he insisted, was going nowhere. And I could not answer his challenge to name a single real champion who had worn the rogues' badge.
In fact Salmon Ladder came in third at the respectable each-way odds of 14-1 and Ekraar, after looking like winning the Don- caster race a furlong out, managed to come home third at 10-1, so honour was more or less satisfied. Willie's choice didn't make the frame in Newbury's big race. But he did muse about the chances of Aristotle, the 10-1 winner at Doncaster.
The old saw says that jockeys are the worst tipsters. But that doesn't apply to ex- jockeys it seems. When I asked Willie what he fancied at Newbury he recommended Corinium in the first, saying there had been some money for her for next year's Guineas and that if she was a serious can- didate for that she had to win. She duly did, showing real courage when Willie Ryan had to come as wide as his grin to bring her with a long winning run round the outside. As a Turtle Island filly she was likely to handle the soft, but he told us afterwards she was all heart. Making up as much ground as she did in such appalling conditions took real courage.
Willie Carson's other recommendation for the day was Albaharin for the Furlong Club Rated Stakes, Having been impressed with the horse some time ago on Marcus Tregoning's gallops, I readily followed his advice again and collected at 7-2. As the rain sheeted down after the race Marcus's assistant trainer Patrick MacEwan told us that the horses were at least going through the Newbury going, whereas in the Cam- bridgeshire at Newmarket Albaharin had simply not been able to cope with the pud- ding-like ground. The poor fellow was coat less and umbrella-less. You'd think an operation like Sheikh Hamdan's would at least. run to a windcheater ... Albaharin is expected to be steadily stepped up in class next year and we have clearly not seen his limits yet.
Having earlier been caught coatless among the bookies' lines myself, looking for the best price on Albaharin as a sudden squall whipped up, that was my second soaking. The third came talking to connec- tions of Signorina Cattiva, the John Dun- lop-trained filly who made the Perpetual Stakes her third soft-ground win on the trot. As the race started four Canada geese flew off. They had clearly had enough of the conditions. But the Signorina clearly loved them, running home seven lengths clear of her field. Both she and Pat Eddery came back with more mud than face visi- ble. They looked as if they had been run- ning round a ploughed field.
The brave little filly looks a real breeding prospect for owners Bo and Maria Mai Goransson. Mrs Goransson wants to send her to Nashwan. The risk of doing that, one of my Press Room colleagues pointed out, is that by sending one one-and-a-half-mile horse to another you can produce a plod- der which wants three. There aren't too many races at that distance. Most would counsel injecting some speed into the mat- ing equation. But Mrs G said she does not want to finish up with an in-between horse and she is prepared to take the gamble. May fortune favour the brave. Signorina Cattiva, whom she picked out at the Houghton Sales for 22,000 guineas, has given her owners immense pleasure. She owed them some, having as a frisky year- ling slipped up on a reluctant walk to the paddock and broken Mrs Goransson's foot.
After the European Breeders Fund Maiden we celebrated Barry Hill's 41st juvenile winner of the season indoors. Khalid Abdulla's Out Of Reach was an impressive winner. Again, she handled the soft well and if it comes up wet in the spring she could be another Classic con- tender from what has for me been the sta- ble of the season.
I was hoping to have informed you, too, what connections had to say after the Dick Dawson nursery. Alas, as the race ended I was caught in the most all-enveloping mon- soon yet. With the wet working simultane- ously up my trouser legs and down my shirt collar, my notebook a soggy heap and pools collecting in the eye cups of my binoculars (and having by this point taken a soaking on some off-course bets too), I cried enough, and went to the coffee and hot doughnuts stall for consolation. (Yes, it was comfort eating, doctor, and, yes, I know such delights are not part of my diet.) But I had only taken a single bite of my siz- zling, sugary doughball before it fell as if struck from my hand by a mightier power and floated away in a puddle inches deep. Who says there is no divine retribution?
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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