It was lunchtime at a Church school and there was a large dish of rosy apples. A nun placed a note on the fruit: ‘Take only one: God is watching.’ Further down the line was a dish of biscuits. ‘Take all you like,’ one child was heard telling another, ‘God is watching the apples.’ That child surely grew up to be a bookie, and at this stage of the Flat season they are cramming the cookies while we punters flounder, trying to discover which yards have got it together despite the cold spring and which three-year-olds have trained on through the winter. At Kempton on Saturday, the only time I got the form right was on the station platform afterwards when most huddled behind the four-car stop to shelter from the rain and we few bold spirits marched to the platform end and got a seat when a longer train came in.
There were two consolations. One was that the quality of the racing did not suffer in the least from the fact that Kempton’s Easter meeting is now held on the all-weather Polytrack rather than on grass. A decent field of three-year-olds contested the Sportsman London Mile Qualifier Handicap and the first four home — Archerfield Links, Scot Love, Bomber Command and Namid Reprobate — should all pick up a decent race or two this season. The other consolation was that none of the rest of us needs a winner on the days trainer Clive Brittain has one: the pleasure radiates from him in waves across the unsaddling enclosure. Carrying the 9st 10lb top weight, Clive’s 20–1 shot Kandidate took the £31,000 first prize for the Coral Rosebery Stakes after coasting through most of the race. Both Seb Sanders, who rode him on Saturday, and Ryan Moore have been telling the trainer that the horse would stay the 1m 2f and the beaming Clive gave credit where it was due.
Each season you start afresh. Kandidate had been third in last year’s 2,000 Guineas but was written off by most after being beaten in five subsequent outings. A spell in Dubai seems to have rekindled him and Clive now reckons he can win a Group Two. New beginnings, too, for Mark Usher’s Royal Alchemist, winner of the opening Sportsman Fillies’ Stakes. She had only ever won once before but contested quality races last year, including the Fred Darling Stakes in which she was second. Royal Alchemist, who goes well fresh, will not be over-raced and won’t be asked to tackle fast ground but is surely capable of a Group Three victory.
One thing that did strike me about the Polytrack surface is that it seems to take that little bit more effort than some jockeys are allowing for to catch the leader from behind up Kempton’s finishing straight. Violet Park, under Richard Hughes, looked to be hauling in Royal Alchemist fast but could not quite get there. It was the same story in the sprint handicap when Martin Dwyer on Total Impact just held Prince Tamino under Joe Fanning and in the Listed Sportsman Magnolia Stakes when Dane O’Neill just couldn’t get Kew Green to pass Simple Exchange, ridden by Robert Winston.
Kempton gave us a taster of what looks like an epic struggle for the Jockeys’ Championship this season. Though champion Jamie Spencer was absent, there were victories for Frankie Dettori, Robert Winston, Seb Sanders and Ryan Moore, who could all figure, along with Richard Hughes, who was second on Violet Park.
Spencer brought off the biggest gamble of last season by walking out on the Coolmore winner factory and then becoming champion. But he had two strokes of luck. Dettori, who had won in 2004, was taken out of contention by a nasty collarbone injury and Robert Winston, who was three winners ahead of Spencer at the time, had a shocking fall at Ayr in August which shattered his jaw and kept him out of the saddle for months. Winston’s gutsy comeback was accompanied by the confession that his injury turned him into an alcoholic living at the bottom of a big black hole. The all-action Sanders, second to Spencer last year, was closely followed by Hughes and Ryan Moore and any one of five could take the title this year.
The financial rewards for a few minutes’ endeavour on horseback may sometimes seem over the top to the ordinary punter. But Spencer criss-crossed the country day after day, riding at 31 different tracks for 65 different trainers, to amass his winning total. He would start driving back from evening meetings at 9 p.m. and still have to be out on the gallops next morning if he wanted to get his rides. Not so bad when you are punching home winners and contesting the championship. But there are more than 350 jockeys and few are in the big money. Look at those pinched, white little faces in the paddock sometimes and remember that this group of athletes not only have to hone their skills and reach a physical peak to do what they do. In many cases they also have to sweat, starve and throw up as they force their bodies into submission to ‘do’ the allotted weight, risking their health in later life. No wonder Robert Winston fell off the wagon when the winners weren’t there to console him.
Dettori and Spencer are campaigning to have the minimum riding weight for jockeys in Britain, as in Ireland, set at 8st 4lb. Longer term it has to make sense, and the median weight carried in races in Britain has risen from 8st 8lb to 8st 12 lb over the past two years. But spare a thought, too, for the lighter weights. Dale Gibson, for example, says that 30 per cent of his rides are at 8st 4lb and under. One man’s reform is another man’s lost bread and butter.
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