The turf
French follies
Robin Oakley
Messages home from France cannot always be guaranteed to provide a generous response from their readers, a prime example being the missive from the late film director Billy Wilder. Asked by his
wife to purchase a bidet while in Paris, his terse reply was: 'Unable to obtain bidet.' Thoughtfully, he added the postscript: 'Suggest handstand in shower.'
Across the Channel to report on the French presidential election and with French chasers all the rage these days, I had intended to send a column with a whiff of piperade. Down in Pau, in France's Basque region, well. Basquish anyway, I had hopes of providing a 'bouche de cheval' report from the hippodrome just a mile from my hotel, but alas my information on the local fixture list was out by a week and the course was deserted.
I was in the region to profile Pierre Saint-Josse, presidential candidate for the CNTP, the hunting, shooting, countryside and tradition party. We had both needed the pastis he poured me in the Vielle Auberge at Corrouaze, the village where he is deputy mayor. As we ended our interview in a vast grain shed a few minutes before, there was an almighty clang as a pigeon winging at speed through the metal rafters misjudged his flightpath, hit one of the beams and fell dead at our feet. I took it as a case of surrender to a man famed for his enthusiasm for blasting migrating palombes out of the sky. Others might have seen the omens less favourably.
With 16 candidates for the presidency, as I write, to be whittled down to two by the time you read this, France is fully living up to the lament once uttered by Charles de Gaulle: 'How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese', and the amiable M. Saint-Josse. with an eye to building support in the parliamentary elections to follow, has capitalised effectively on the resentment felt in much of the French countryside about politicians whom rural voters mostly see as City slickers, operating only in the interests of metropolitans with no understanding of country life. Where have I heard that cry before?
My French is a good deal less than perfect but I think that one of the traditions M. Saint-Josse is hoping to conserve is that of canny French trainers collecting sackfuls of euros from their British counterparts for any animal which has completed the course round a French provincial jumping circuit.
Back home, with the National behind us (OK, so What's Up Boys, like Smarty the year before, was only second, but some of us are happy enough to tip a finisher, let alone pick up the place money at the 16-1 available on the morning of the race), attention is now swinging to the flat. Here my advice remains simple: in early season take a good look at two-year-olds from Brian Meehan, Barry Hills, and Mick Channon. Watch out for anything Richard Hannon runs at Brighton. He's never been a snob about where his winners rack up their successes. And remember that Mark Johnston loves sending decent horses to Goodwood. Perhaps because he did so from a Yorkshire base, people seem to forget that Mark trained more individual winners than anybody last season. Channon. who took the gamble of purchasing the Queen's former yard at West Ilsley, has doubled his stable inmates in five years. He now has more than 100 twoyear-olds and he and Johnston handle two of the biggest strings in the country. You don't build up their kind of horsepower without the support of people who are in a position to choose.
My other predictions for the year are a continuing march back into the big time for Luca Cumani's Newmarket yard, more big-race successes for the canny Marcus Tregoning and a march up the table by the less well-known James Given.
Among the jockeys I expect big-time success for Richard Hughes, after his broken leg last year interrupted a key season. For my money he is the best tactical rider on the circuit, a superb judge of pace. I anticipate, too, a high position in the jockeys' table for the precocious 21-year-old Jamie Spencer, still with Cumani. Then there is Kieren Fallon. After the hideous injury he suffered in 2000, I don't want the curse of Oakley to strike him with anything further. But my firmest investment at this stage will be a decent bet on Fallon to win what many people are calling the most open contest for years for the Jockey's Championship. I base this as much on my judgment of Fallon's character as on his undoubted riding ability. Having lost his coveted position as retained rider for Sir Michael Stoute, the toughest character in the saddle will be out to prove a point and when Kieren Fallon is trying to demonstrate his will I wouldn't want to be on anything less than two lengths ahead of him entering the final furlong. Those are all recommendations from the head.
When it comes to the heart what I would really like to see from this season is a revival of fortunes for Henry Cecil, down to his smallest string since 1979 after last year's annus horribilis, and a Derby winner from Barry Hills.
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