Racing books to get you through lockdown

Who owns Altior? I ask because of the brouhaha over Nicky Henderson’s late withdrawal of his stable star, winner of a record-breaking 19 consecutive races over jumps, from last Saturday’s Betfair Tingle Creek Chase. Official description of the chase course going was ‘soft, good to soft in places’. Nicky’s description was ‘a bottomless glue pit’ and he withdrew Altior despite the gelding’s proven ability to cope with normally soft ground.

The racing public, trade press and bookmakers had all been keenly anticipating Altior’s renewed clash with Politologue, the Paul Nicholls-trained grey who won the Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in March following Altior’s late withdrawal from that race with a bone splint. The disappointment was massive. The public ‘adopts’ superstar horses, particularly superstars such as Altior whose electric jumping is breathtaking and whose habit of seemingly having lost his chance late on only to engage a new gear and leave his rivals gasping in his wake makes him especially watchable for those without heart conditions. But that emotional stake in him doesn’t convey a right to dictate his programme. Altior is owned by Patricia Pugh, and Nicky Henderson is obliged to consult nobody other than Mrs Pugh about when and where he runs.

There was a special factor: the battering sound issuing from Seven Barrows last winter was not a dodgy boiler or a bit of rebuilding but the sound of N. Henderson Esq banging his head against a wall in frustration at having let Altior open his 2019-20 season by running for the first time over further than two miles on soft ground at Ascot against the top-class and fitter Cyrname. It was a decision that lost his champion his unbeaten record and took the stuffing out of Altior for two months.