The turf
A sad case of seconditis
Robin Oakley
Recounting how a chimney sweep's mistaken arrival at her home had resulted in a prize puppy running loose, a woman behind me in the Newbury grandstand on Saturday inquired of her companion, 'Have you ever tried clambering over a stile in your nightie with a wet dog in your arms?' As it happens, I have not. But I can see the problem. And I have been backing a lot of jumpers lately whose efforts over obstacles could not have been worse if they had been equally handicapped.
The advantage of most jobs is that at least while you are doing them you are not simultaneously spending money. The same is not true always, sadly, when you are writ- ing about racing. Sharing a shandy (well, something a little stronger, actually) at Sandown recently with a fellow punter who asked if I knew anything good, I explained that I was suffering from a bad period of seconditis, relieved only when I backed each way, in which case the animal could be guaranteed to finish fourth. , `Aha,' said the sage, for everyone becomes a sage when your racing luck is out, 'what I do at times like that is to back through the card the first jockey I see when I get to the racecourse. It's never failed to get me out of trouble yet.' Having smiled briefly to cover the scorn of a form book man for coincidence punters, I filed it under 'Forget'. Only to find the sage's advice nudging back into my mind at Ascot two weekends ago as I parked next to the sponsors' car emblazoned 'Mick Fitzgerald, Grand National winner'.
Since my form notes had offered me an uncomfortable choice in almost every race, I scanned furtively through the card for Fitzgerald's rides and decided I would give it a go. Before I discovered that he had been jocked off in favour of Jamie Osborne, I backed what the morning papers had assured me was Fitzgerald's ride in the first. It finished my usual sec- ond. So did Fitzgerald's mount in the sec- ond. There were duck eggs in the third and fourth, no fault of his, and Fitzgerald's mount in the fifth took a tumble. 'Enough is enough,' I thought. 'Serves you right for stupid system backing.' I left before the last race, only to hear on the results later that the winner was the 14-1 outsider Olympian. Ridden, naturally, by M. Fitzgerald.
The experience was still rankling as I arrived at Newbury for last Saturday's Hen- nessy and the first rider I glimpsed was my old favourite Graham Bradley. 'Don't do it,' I thought, until I noticed the bookies offering 20-1 about Brad's mount Art Prince, a useful-looking Irish import for Charlie Brooks. He was 30 lengths clear of the field and going well when he capsized out in the country.
Chastened by the experience I reverted to the form book and had my maximum on what I regarded as the bet of the month, Jimmy Fitzgerald's Trainglot in the long- distance hurdle. Immensely impressive last Eoolcs like housemaid's knee.' time out at Wetherby where he had beaten What A Question by a comfortable eight lengths, Trainlot had won his last eight completed starts over hurdles. He didn't win this one, though. He came home third behind What A Question, who was ridden, of course, by Graham Bradley.
You could not seriously fancy Bradley's mount Punting Pete in the next, up against the hotshots Urubande and Zabadi. Nor could you expect him to win the Hennessy on last year's winner Couldn't Be Better. As the trainer Charlie Brooks pointed out, the only horse to win the race two successive years was Arlde and Couldn't Be Better is no Arkle. But I had heard the stable reck- oned Sound Reveille, Brad's mount in the fifth, was back to his best. With judgment and coincidence combining, I duly plunged. Sound Reveille led much of the way, jumped, mostly, like a stag, and then blew up in the straight to finish a tired fourth. I left again before the final race, pausing only to wonder, after the Fitzgerald experi- ence, if I should have just a small invest- ment on Bradley's mount, despite its having pulled up in May on its only outing over hurdles. 'Don't be such a twit,' I told myself, and departed, mercifully unable to hear the commentary as Hoh Warrior, rid- den by a certain G. Bradley, won the last at 50-1.
But on Hennessy Day who really cares about losing money. I would have paid six times over to see the exuberant jumping of both Gordon Richards's The Grey Monk and the impressive winner Coome Hill, a former pointer and hunter chaser who was having only his second race against the pro- fessionals, after winning an amateurs' race at Cheltenham and then the Badger Beer Chase at Wincanton. Beer with a brandy chaser. The sheer joy of the West Country contingent as the Bude dairy farmer Walter Dennis, who has just four other horses, led In his winner was infectious. The first moment that I could get close enough to him to ask about future plans he was led away by Lord Caernarvon to meet the Queen Mother, but I understand the Welsh National is the next target. The jockey Jamie Osborne, who picked up the ride because Jimmy Frost was injured, reckons the further they go the better he'll be. He is dead keen to ride him at Aintree and we may well have seen a future Grand Nation- al winner (rather than a Gold Cup horse) here.
Do not imagine, by the way, that there is anything amateur about the Dennis opera- tion. General David Pank, Newbury's chief executive, told me that one of the Dennis sons had been up in advance walking the course. He was happy with the going but found the fences big and black. 'Don't worry,' the former Army point-to-point rider told him. 'The bigger and blacker, the better they jump them.' And so Coome Hill proved.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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