Questions of tactics
Robin Oakley
Having been followed somewhat closely through part of my route to Ascot by a white car with a light on the roof (honestly, officer, it wasn't more than lOmph over the limit) I recalled the story one racing wag told me of the quick-thinking trainer who was pulled over one day. 'Can I see your licence, sir?' said the constable. 'Haven't got one.' What about your registration document then, Sir?' I'll see if it's in the glove box with my gun.' You've got a gun, sir, what's that for?' 'It's the one I used to shoot my wife half an hour ago.' Where is she, sir?' 'In the boot.' You just stay there for a moment, sir, while I fetch my superior officer,' said the somewhat overwhelmed constable. Up comes the senior figure. 'Alt, good evening, inspector,' says the trainer. 'I expect you'd like to see my licence, here you are Best give me the gun in your glove compartment, sir.' What gun, inspector? The only thing I keep in there is my registration document — see.' And would you mind opening your boot, sir? That's fine. I thought the constable told me you had a body in there.' A body, inspector? He is an imaginative fellow. The next thing you're going to say is that he's told you I was speeding as well ...'
Fortunately I didn't have to attempt similar tactics and I arrived early enough to find myself parking alongside Tony McCoy's M6 COY. The old saying is that when you're uncertain about your bets you should stick to the first jockey you see. I wish I had. I discarded McCoy's mount Live The Dream in the first in favour of The Fairy Flag, only to see my choice fade as McCoy eyeballed Charlie Mann's impressive Newbury winner Abbot for the first three-quarters of the race, with the two setting a frantic pace. Abbot had cried enough by the third last and a tired Live The Dream, a selling plater only on the Flat, came home an easy winner at 11-2. You can. I think, take it that Martin Pipe will place Live The Dream to win again. He was covered in kisses by the grateful owners, apparently three former bunny girls called Angie, Jane and Moldy, plus Mrs Carole Pipe. who did not have a tail-bobbing past.
McCoy struck again at 4-1 in the fourth race, in which we had all come to see if the Henrietta Knight-trained Best Mate, previously unbeaten over fences, was to be this season's super-horse. The question remains open. Best Mate lost his unbeaten record to Wahiba Sands, but by only half a length in a top-class race in which he was giving 201h to three very decent horses: the winner; Nicky Henderson's Dusk Duel; and the ex-Australian Logician, a Grand National candidate who jumped impeccably. Terry Biddlecombe, representing the trainer who was at Huntingdon to supervise Edredon Bleu's fourth successive Peterborough Chase win, said of Best Mate's performance: 'The weight killed him. He ran to the line but seems to be wanting a bit further. If he had pinged the last he would have won, but he was a bit careful.'
It is no disrespect to rider Jim Culloty to say that, if the mounts had been reversed. Best Mate probably would have won. McCoy has a way of firing a horse into a crucial jump that makes all the difference. His sheer determination gets results. He rode a somewhat sullen Good Lord Murphy into third place in the handicap chase when most riders would have given up a long way out. But what would we have said if, giving all that weight. Culloty had thrown Best Mate at the final fence and injured such a valuable prospect?
The Knight stable's rider, who is loyally supported by the amiable Biddlecombe, gave the perfect answer to his critics by riding a consolation double on his own yard's game mare Returning and on Josh Gifford's Rouble. It must have been all the sweeter for the Irishman that Returning upset the odds-on Bounce Back, trained by Martin Pipe and ridden by McCoy in the novices chase. This time it was Culloty who conjured the best leap from his mount at the last and who hung on to win by half a length in another great finish.
This column sang the praises of Returning after she won at Sandown recently and this win made it four in a row. Owner Harold Winton, who had reckoned she needed longer than Sandown's two miles, was overjoyed as he greeted the 50th winner Henrietta Knight has trained for him. He had told Culloty before the race: 'She won't win on speed but she will win on guts,' and he was right.
Keep a wide eye open, however, for Rouble. An emotional Josh Gifford told me after the handsome big chestnut's win in the concluding novice hurdle that this was the best horse he had ever trained. He has felt that ever since Rouble won an Ascot bumper two years back and blames himself for the horse's failure to win since, not least because he has instructed jockeys to take care of him. From a man who has handled winners of the Grand National, the Whitbread, the Hennessy and the Mackeson, that is praise indeed.
Culloty's unflashy style in the saddle may not always catch the eye, but he is one of those jockeys who gives added value in a post-race analysis. His feeling was that they should get on over fences with Rouble, even though he is only five, because he is hurdling almost too well for a horse destined to jump the big fences. The way that Rouble dictated the pace, jumping well and quickening two out to win readily, was impressive and he could well prove Josh right over the years to come.
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