The turf
Loyalty stakes
Robin Oakley
Sometimes it's no fun at all training racehorses. Everyone else was enjoying themselves at Plumpton on Easter Satur- day. Fruitcake, coffee and stronger bever- ages were being dispensed from car boots. The fairground carousel was doing a roar- ing trade. The hang-glider freewheeling above could have given the stewards sup- plementary advice about who had been steering a straight course had they needed it. And with a series of favourites coming home we were all making our expenses off Fred Honour and the 14 other bookies who'd formed a thin line against the holi- day punters. (A little ungracious, I thought, for one of his colleagues to have suggested I would have been better employed report- ing more sleaze instead of collecting some of the 5-4 he had offered against Ron Hodges's Fenwick). But then for Josh Gif- ford it all turned into a nightmare.
The Findon maestro, for many years a leading jockey before he took up training, has a face which even at normal times bears testimony to his outdoor life, and perhaps to a touch of what he enjoys indoors occasionally. But on Saturday it was definitely on the ruddier side of puce after Mr A.D. Weller's Lively Knight, trained by Gifford, had been backed down to 1-7 favourite for the three-horse See- board Novices Steeplechase and then proved a loser.
The racecard notes expressed a common opinion. The horse had won over the same distance at Plumpton back on 10 March and the compiler declared: 'Running well and will take this with ease with a clear round.' But unfortunately Lively Knight had other ideas. Leighton Aspell, the sta- ble's talented conditional jockey, in the saddle because his 31b allowance helped to ease Lively Night's burden as top weight, probably wasn't too worried as the others set off some eight to ten lengths ahead but then found his mount making heavy weath- er of it as he asked him to close on them during the second circuit. He had Lively Knight in a position to challenge before the final bend, but it was clear from a long way out that it simply was not going to be Lively Knight's day and Stormhill Pilgrim, from the Hailsham stable of Mike Roberts, stayed on well to win. To add insult to injury, and to add suspicion to the whinge- ing of those who talk through their pockets, Stormhill Pilgrim was ridden by Philip Hide, Gifford's No. 1 stable jockey.
I happened to be beside Josh Gifford as he and the incandescent owner made their way from the stands to the unsaddling enclosure. As Mr Angry blamed the jockey for giving the horse too much to do, Gif- ford patiently pointed out that Lively Knight had clearly not acted on the firm ground and probably needed a longer trip, only for the owner to snap that he wasn't happy and would be taking the horse home. It would have been easy enough for the trainer to have blamed his conditional jockey and pacified his irate owner that way. Especially since Mr Weller had six more horses in his stable including the tal- ented Boardroom Shuffle, who ran in this year's Champion Hurdle. All credit to him that he stayed true to his jockey and did not.
A photographer who had been at one of the country fences told us how Aspell had been pushing and yelling at his mount even on the first circuit. It was not for want of trying that he had not got to the leaders earlier and he gave the horse every chance if Lively Knight had been good enough on the day. But he was not good enough and those punters around the unsaddling enclo- sure who moaned about the jockey simply had not been watching the race. Either that or they couldn't tell a racehorse from the Charolais grazing in the adjoining fields.
I am not an unaffected party in this. I do not often back a 7-1 on shot. But my money had gone down at starting price before the market opened and so I was in the unaccustomed position of laying out seven pounds for every one I hoped to gain. None of us likes losing in that circum- stance. But it is no use blaming a jockey who has ridden a perfectly straight race. I can only hope that Alan Weller relents and leaves his horses with a trainer who shows the quality of loyalty.
I am a little chary of offering readers of this column advice for Saturday's Grand National. This year's Cheltenham Festival, with neither Large Action nor Dublin Flyer finishing in the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup, was not the most scintillating success of my tipping career. If you are keen to follow the money at Aintree, there has been a monumental gamble on J.P. McManus's Wylde Hide, who was going well until he fell in last year's race. The Irish are due a win, having not had a suc- cess since L'Escargot won in 1975. But my Irish fancy would be Antonin, which Sue Braman took with her when she moved her training operation from Yorkshire last year and who seems to have thrived on the Irish scene despite past problems with head, heart and lungs.
I tipped Jenny Pitman's Nahthen Lad as a horse to watch at the beginning of the season, though without then having the National in mind. She says the horse has recovered from the sore shins he developed in the Gold Cup and anything she runs at Aintree has to be respected, especially after the brave Mudahim took the Irish National at Fairyhouse in the most thrilling finish we shall see all season.
My long-term fancies for the race, Lo Stregone, Dextra Dove and Bishops Hall (a faller at the first fence in the last two years, be warned!), have all disappointed on their latest outing and their well being must now be taken on trust. So my three against the field now will be Maurice Camacho's Avro Anson, Dextra Dove and Antonin.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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