The turf
Old-fashioned standards
Robin Oakley
Rd I been invited at Lingfield the pre- vious week to judge the best-turned-out filly, it would have been easy. She had two legs, not four, and was wearing a shimmer- ing brown trouser suit and a flat white. feather hat. As she swept by, one course executive turned to me and inquired, 'Cof- fee mousse with cream or a glass of Guth- ness?'
At Newbury on Saturday, asked by the ever-sociable Ruinart team to judge the best-turned-out horse for the Listed race they were sponsoring, the Ruinart Cham- pagne Hacicwood Stakes, I found it a good deal harder. Neatly combed manes and tails, gleaming, cross-brushed flanks and well-oiled hooves seemed to be all around the paddock. In the end I gave the prize to Sean Coates, the lad looking after the three-year-old Merlin's Ring. Had there been a second prize that too would have gone to an inmate of Ian Balding's stable, Halmahera. Clearly, old-fashioned stan- dards still apply in Kingsclere.
The Ruinart race went though to Sir Mark Prescott's Grazia, a filly many of us have been waiting for since she landed a substantial gamble taking the Redcar Two- Year-Old Trophy last October. With stable jockey George Duffield away in Ireland, the ride went to Sir Mark's regular stand-in choice Seb Sanders. After the rider had performed them to perfection the trainer revealed his instructions: 'Hold her up as long as you dare, don't hit her unless it will make the difference between winning and losing and don't go until the last 100 yards. Apart from that it's easy!'
Seb Sanders rode a peach of a race, wait- ing for the gap and pouncing in the last 50 yards. He is a class rider and, make no mis- take, this is a class filly. Her pedigree sug- gests that Grazia would prefer more cut in the ground and her trainer thinks she would get a mile plus but she will be aimed next at the Prix Maurice de Gheest in Deauville next month and then at the big Haydock sprint. 'The hardest horses to work out the best distance for are the very good ones and the very bad ones,' said Sir Mark. 'The very bad ones for obvious rea- sons and the very good ones because they work so well over any distance.' Grazia is one who works really nicely whatever she is given to do.'
There is nothing like the glorious uncer- tainty of racing. One of Sir Mark's best- ever sprinters was by a sire who got a mile and a half out of a seven-furlong mare. And owner Chris Deuters, whom I encoun- tered at the Ruinart lunch, has a two-mile chaser who was bought as a five-furlong sprint prospect. Nor do horses always reveal their potential too early. Former England cricketer David Brown and his wife, who were also enjoying the racing man's champagne, are successful breeders and they kept this year's Ascot winner Bol- shoi to race themselves only because he had injured a hock as a yearling. When he was two he seemed so slow that David Brown told Jack Berry he would give him a mag- num of champagne if ever he won a race. `Oh, with that one you might as well make it a case every time,' said the trainer's wife Jo. Since then Bolshoi has won nine races and 11 cases of champagne have been delivered to the Berrys as the sporting owners decided that Group races merited a double award.
If you are lucky enough, like Mrs Jean Connew, to own a really good horse it does make a difference to have a clued-up train- er. A jumping enthusiast, Mrs Connew says that she does not really like sprinters, and certainly not two-year-olds. But she is being converted. Her flying filly Flanders, already a winner at Royal Ascot, took the Weatherbys' Super Sprint at Newbury, bounding out of the stalls under Lindsay Charnock and never being headed. Unbeaten in four starts, she has so far returned £86,000 for her 21,000 guineas purchase price. But it was astute race-plan- ning by her young trainer Tim Easterby which enabled her to collect the £54,000 for the winner at Newbury.
The cleverly framed race, designed to help those who do have to bother to total up the stubs in their cheque books, is limit- ed to horses which cost 30,000 guineas or less at public auction. For every 2,000 guineas under that price an allowance of 21b is given. But winners are also penalised, Group race winners 81b, Listed race win- ners 51b and Class B winners 31b. By enter- ing Flanders only for the Class B Windsor Castle Stakes at Ascot, which she won, rather than one of the Group or Listed juvenile races, Tim Easterby ensured that she competed for Newbury's rich prize only burdened by an extra 31b. As she had missed a few days work after a minor injury and with others coming at her in a photo- finish, such astute race-planning almost certainly made the £54,000 difference between winning and losing. The latest generation of Easterbys has retained all the family shrewdness.
We need more well thought-out races like the Weatherbys' Super Sprint and there was one other welcome sight at New- bury on Saturday. As well as the presenta- tions to the winning owners, trainers and jockeys there were gifts too for the stable lads and lasses responsible for some of those big winners. We should all remember that it cannot be done without them.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
Previous page
