The turf
The Queen and I
Robin Oakley
In New Zealand for this year's Common- wealth Conference, the Queen went racing at the Auckland Racing Club's Ellerslie track to present the prize for the (NZ) $30,000 Queen Elizabeth Stakes. Natural- ly, to see that no harm befell her, this columnist was forced to take time off from other duties to go too. New Zealand bloodstock has been com- ing to Britain for years. David Barons, for example, acquired some of his best jumpers there. What I had not realised was the sheer scale of racing in New Zealand. Auckland executive Russ Hawthorn told me that some 80 mini Jockey Clubs run nearly 60 racecourses. That in a nation of just 3 million people. Good value they seem to be, too. Thanks to the courses' rake-off from the Tote monopoly, two New Zealand dollars (less than £1) gives you entry to Ellerslie's impeccably landscaped course, a decent, if not luxurious, grandstand and a ten-race programme. The volume of betting clearly helps. One local explained to me that New Zealanders will bet on anything that moves. And, if it doesn't move, they'll kick it and bet on when it will move.
They call the parade ring there the 'bird- cage' and keep it clear of any clutter of owners and hangers-on. The horses were conducted to the starting-stalls by horse- men in hunting pink. And the jockeys were far, far prettier than in Britain — largely because so many of them were female. One race on the royal raceday had ten lady rid- ers in a 14-horse field. And to the preju- diced who still believe that women do not have the strength to punch home in a tight finish, I have to say that nearly all the races were hotly contested to the line and that women riders won seven of the ten.
Despite the Jockey Club's planned lifting of the minimum weight for flat jockeys at the end of this year from 7st 71b to 7st 101b, fewer and fewer jockeys in our well-nour- ished society are going to be able to do the lower weights without starving to danger level, taking 'pee-pills' and laxatives and driving to the races as many do in sweat suits with the car heater full on. Most jock- eys riding today are six inches taller than their fathers' generation, and, unless mini- mum weights continue to be raised regular- ly in future, that, surely, is going to lead to more and more opportunities for lady rid- ers. My advice to the girls who hope to seize these opportunities is to head for New Zealand fast and acquire some experience in a country where there is so much less fuss about the gender beneath the riding silks.
Whatever they do to the riders, New Zealanders certainly work on their horses. The Queen was surprised to learn that the nine-year-old mare Brilliant Venture who won her race was having her 92nd outing on a racecourse. Eat your heart out, L,ammtarra. But with purses comparatively small (they averaged around £3,500 apart from the big race that day), they cannot afford to cosset their horses.
The Queen stayed on at Ellerslie in front of a television screen to join what seemed to be most of the Southern Hemisphere in watching Damien Oliver bring home Doriemus, the winner of this year's Mel- bourne Cup. As the breathless jockey pulled off his goggles and headed back to the unsaddling enclosure, a local commen- tator rode up alongside him on a hack, microphone in hand, for the most instant of instant comments. Now there's a trick our domestic television commentators are missing. What about sending McCririck?
In a previous column written before I left for New Zealand and published, thanks to our inevitable publishing time lag, only after he ran in the Tote Silver Trophy, I recom- mended Jibber the Kibber as a horse to watch this season. Galling for any reader who might have been inclined to act on the advice that he won that race at 40-1. But irritating for me, too. I took the odds offered ante-post before leaving for New Zealand. And got only 25-1. Anyway, stick with him. Jenny Pitman's patience with Jib- ber the Kibber is likely to be rewarded again, although not, sadly, at that sort of price.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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