The turf
Tales of the Expected
Robin Oakley
There are several rules you should always obey on a racecourse. Don't get too close to the back end of a frisky two-yearold. Don't ask George Duffield if he's thinking of retiring yet. Don't assume that a knowing smile from Jamie Osborne as you pass means that you should back his
horse in the next. And don't accept invitations to mark the cards of ladies in low-cut red dresses. But the first rule of all is to check your ticket after making a bet.
Hearing from Lambourn friends that Barry Hills's two-year-old Expected Bonus was well fancied in the opener at Kempton on Saturday, I stepped up to the Tote and handed over my money: 'Number four in the first,' I tucked my ticket in my wallet, watched Bany's horse get home by a head from the Queen's Right Approach and, having duly congratulated the happy trainer, went off to collect my winnings. I reached in my wallet and extracted the 'winning' ticket only to discover that when I thought the Tote lady had been repeating back to me 'Number Four in the First?' she had in fact been asking 'Number Four at Thirsk?' The ticket I had was for a win bet on number four in the first race at Thirsk, on an animal called Limbo Lad which, naturally, failed to oblige. Whether it was me or the Tote lady who needed the hearing aid, I had broken Rule One, and moral winners don't pay Mrs Oakley's bills at Peter Jones.
I am hoping, though, that Expected Bonus will yet prove to be that. Barry says he is a nice horse who will have just one more run this season. Lord Carnarvon. the Queen's racing manager, was equally enthusiastic about the runner-up, Right Approach, whom he insisted was still a bit of a baby. Both look good prospects.
My betting day didn't improve after meetings with my friends Don Churston and Simon Dow. Don, a generous supporter of Epsom racing whose Le Fan tasme, trained by Simon, had run a nice race to be fourth the day before, assured me that Simon's hurdler Route Barree was a good thing at Stratford. I invested with enthusi
asm and then encountered Simon, who declared of Route Barree: 'Only the hurdles can get in his way.' Articulating very carefully, I went back and had some more. Sadly, Simon was wrong. It was not only the hurdles which proved capable of getting in the way of Route Barree. Having been clouted by another runner coming into the straight, he finished third behind a 40-1 shot. It was not so much back to the drawing board as find a new drawing board.
But luckily I had a sneaking fancy for Roger Ingram's old campaigner Junikay in the fourth. The handicapper appeared to have let him slip back to a winning mark and he was to be ridden by Chris Catlin, the talented 31b-claimer who is leading this year's apprentice championship. I had been impressed by young Catlin at Epsom in mid-August when he scored a double on Hilltop Warning and It's Your Bid, in each case coming with a nicely-timed run in the final stages. He did so once again with the seven-year-old, who has now won eight races for the Ellangowan Racing Partners, who describe themselves as a drinking club for Glasgow Rangers supporters, Celebrating the 12-1 success of a horse who has now won eight times, Adrian Wright, Andrew Ross and Seamus Kehoe invited me on the spot to join their next syndicate, but I had to decline. Mrs Oakley has collared any spare funds for the next year or two for a house move.
I am not sure which of the trio called out 'Bad luck' as Kieran Fallon rode into the third berth on Silk St John, hut there was a touch of irony there. Fallon had been offered the chance to ride Junikay in the race but turned it down. The ex-champion certainly could not have ridden a better race than Chris Catlin, whom the trainer
called 'an absolute natural'. Talking to him later I was struck by young Catlin's calm confidence. You would not call him chatty but he talks with assurance about what he knows, which is mostly horses.
Now 19, he comes from a family with no background in racing who live within 15 minutes of Ken Ivory's Radlett yard. There the rising star, a graduate of the Newmarket apprentice school who has no trouble riding at 7st 101h, still mucks out three boxes and rides out two lots every day. Trainers call him a natural in the saddle and his tactical riding and judgment of pace are impressive for one with so few miles on the clock. His confidence is reflected in the fact that he does not model himself on any particular senior jockey's style, although he says that Kieren Fallon has been helpful with advice.
What brought him into racing? 'I've always liked horses but I guess it's the speed thing,' he says. But even at young Chris's stage you get a glimpse of the intensity of the business today. What, I asked him, did he do when he wasn't with horses? 'Nothing,' he replied. 'There's no time to do anything else but sleep.' And that's just chasing the apprentice title.
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