The turf
Back in
business
Robin Oakley
As a campaigner for starting stalls, for curbs on excessive use of the whip and for the care of racehorses whose competitive days are done, he has given back an enor- mous amount to the sport and the racing memories which replay in my head will do so eternally in Peter's friendly-uncle tones• Before we ever met, Peter and John Oak- sey were the two men who had done most to contribute to my racing education. But Peter, in his Daily Express days, did not exactly aid my wider school learning. Long perusal of his form assessments one day left me with little time for an essay project, and the result was greeted by my headmas- ter with the comment: 'Provided they make a point, Oakley, I do not much care whether you produce long essays or short ones. What I do object to is receiving what is no more than a random selection from the Dictionary of Quotations joined togeth- er by the few conjunctions you happen to know.' Thank you, Peter.
Hennessy Day, of course, finished per- fectly for Peter, when his horse, appropri- ately named Sounds Fyne, won the race following the big one after 749 days off the racecourse. When trainer Jimmy Fitzgerald won the first with Native Mission, I asked him if he was going to give us a fairy-tale ending with Peter's horse. His reply was a dismissive shrug and a complaint that the ground had been so firm he'd only been able to school his horses for a fortnight. They don't give a lot away in Malton.
But the Hennessy itself proved a race in every sense worthy of the last O'Sullevan commentary, with two heroes in the shapes of the winner Suny Bay and his pilot Gra- ham Bradley. 'Brad' is one of my sporting heroes, one of the strongest and bravest jump jockeys I have seen, with a tactical sense second to none. He is also an incau- tious character who enjoys life, celebrates with abandon and who seems inevitably to attract scrapes and stories. There are no half measures with Brad. Riding a waiting race, he will wait until the last 50 yards. Looking for good ground he is quite pre- pared to go all the way to the outside rail with the rest of the field on the inner.
He lost a Champion Hurdle ride on Alderbrook for Kim Bailey because his alarm clock failed to go off and he missed a key schooling ride (though he then won the race on Jim Old's Collier Bay, ostentatious- ly looking at his wrist-watch as he came in). If a jockey's car breaks down a mile from the course it will be Brad who makes it five minutes late for the weigh-in, If a well- backed favourite in a three-horse race 'gur- gles' and trails in last, the unfortunate rider facing ignorant shouts of 'Fix' from punters talking through their pockets, as at Chel- tenham the other day, will turn out to be G. Bradley.
As Suny Bay's trainer Charlie Brooks, wearing a raincoat which could have had him doubling for Colonel Mustard on the Cluedo board, said after the Hennessy, the veteran Bradley, now 37, while riding as well as ever, has been an unlucky jockey for the past two seasons. He was never more So than in the 1995 Hennessy when Charlie Insisted on his stable jockey riding Black Humour. The race was won by his other runner Couldn't Be Better, ridden by Dean Gallagher, and the first to congratulate them both was the sporting Brad. He missed out on his regular ride Senor El Betrutti when that grey won the Murphy's. But now Brad has another Hennessy suc- cess to savour alongside his 1983 victory on Bregawn, and one which will forever remain in the collective racing memory after his miraculous recovery at the fourth.
Suny Bay chested it, went down on his nose and looked a goner. 'Brad was just hanging there,' Adrian Maguire told me afterwards. 'He looked to have no hope.' But to shouts of tribute from his fellow rid- ers, miraculously he struggled back into the plate. The reins which could so easily have gone over the horse's head, caught on his right ear and the pair were back in busi- ness. 'God was looking down on me,' said the rider, modestly. Two fences later they were back challenging for the lead and pulled away after the last for a famous 13- length victory, humping 11st 81b on testing ground.
Not since 1982 had a horse carried so much in the Hennessy and won. Nor indeed had a favourite. That was some recovery and some horse. And it is worth noting that Graham Bradley's Hennessy victory on Bregawn was followed by victory in the Gold Cup as well. On that occasion he ignored trainer Michael Dickinson's instructions to sit in behind and led all the way. Afterwards Dickinson told the press: `Brad's a good judge of pace so I left it to him.' Which just shows again that you shouldn't listen to trainers.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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