The turf
A bet in the wet
Robin Oakley
Those of us who take our pleasures out- doors have had to suffer a fair bit of wet this year. Vertical wet I can cope with. The good Lord gave us umbrellas for that and when the heavens opened as I began walk- ing from Esher station to the Sandown track on Saturday I was prepared. I was not prepared, however, for the grinning maniac steering a plush four-wheel drive who decided it would be fun to steam up close to the kerb through a huge puddle. I was hit by a wall of water, sideways on, and drenched from head to foot. Had the anti- capitalist global protesters been on hand with an application form I would have joined the revolution on the spot. The Kill All Cars lobbyists would never have had an easier recruit. I mean, for heaven's sake, who needs a four-wheel drive in suburban Esher, to drop his wife at the aromathera- pist or the kids at teenage property-devel- opment classes?
After that it was going to take some quality racing to restore my mood, and the quality card was at Newmarket, not at Sandown, where it was mostly second- league jockeys riding for third-league train- ers. Fortunately, with the going changed from soft to heavy, the very first race pro- vided a thrilling contest between two gen- uinely speedy two-year-olds. The money was on Henry Candy's Kyllachy. Caught in the pack as Chris Rutter tried to hold him together on the ground and come with an even run, he showed an impressive turn of foot once his jockey showed him the day- light. But it proved too late to catch anoth- er flying machine, John Cullinan's Adweb. The filly had been badly hampered two fur- longs out but she dug deep to hold off Kyl- lachy. Talking to the trainer afterwards, it was one of those cases of 'If only I had known . . . .'
Adweb, he said, was a late filly, only foaled on 29 May, and had been very late to come to hand, not being ridden until March. He had taken her to Windsor in July 'because she was getting bolshy at home and I didn't want to gallop her brains out'. There followed a run at Beverley where she was badly drawn and a previous one at Sandown where she had missed the break and still finished fourth. Will she go for another nursery before the end of the season? `The filly will tell me,' said her trainer. 'We'll see how she is after this.'
Aylesbury is not exactly the most fash- ionable of training centres, nor is John Cul- linan, who was ten years with Arthur Moore, one of the big names of the sport. But that is the way he likes it. 'We're small and we'll stay small because I wouldn't want it any other way,' says Cullinan, who has just a dozen horses riding out at pre- sent for a compact and friendly bunch of owners at the yard which sent out Shikari's Son to win a Stewards Cup a few years back in John White's time. Certainly his Adweb goes on my list for her three-year- old career in 2001. And Henry Candy, who is not a man to mistake Bulgarian red for a decent claret in equine terms, is hopeful of Kyllachy's prospects too. The colt is by Piv- otal out of Pretty Poppy and few of the family have shown much at two: 'He'll be a serious beast one day,' says his trainer. Chris Rutter, dismounting with more mud than face on view, echoed that opinion, saying that the Thurloe Thoroughbreds- owned colt has a great turn of foot, which was just a little blunted in such unforgiving ground. Mark him down too for next year.
There was triumph for another small sta- ble, that of Brian Pearce, near Lingfield, in the Bet on Sports.co.uk Prices in Running Handicap (race names don't get any short- er in the Internet age). Bouncing round the unsaddling enclosure like a wind-up rabbit, the trainer was full of joy after Slumbering had taken the competitive handicap, declaring, 'I am very pleased to be training such a good horse.' Considering that this was only Slumbering's second success in 21 starts that tells you a bit about some of the animals Brian has had through his hands. He had acquired Slumbering out of Brian Meehan's yard only a few weeks ago but had turned him out and freshened him up a treat. Reckoning that Slumbering, who had been running in blinkers, had been going to the front and burning himself out, his new trainer took off the rogue's badge and has concentrated on settling the horse down. He was rewarded by a gutsy perfor- mance from Slumbering, who showed real resolution in the last furlong of the seven- furlong race.
We all tend to take a look at a horse with in-and-out form which is wearing blinkers for the first time. Perhaps we need to look a little more carefully at those running for the first time without them. Blinkers do help many horses to concentrate. But they can make them con- centrate too hard and too long. Good luck anyway to Brian Pearce with his new acquisition. After a good piece of work on Wednesday he had been convinced his horse was in with a chance and finding him priced on course at what he regarded as an insulting 25-1 he had avenged the insult in the most sensible way possible. I only wish I had been in the know. But at least I was dry by then.
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