Remember the one about the husband who goes home and gets clouted with a frying pan by his wife. ‘Hey, what’s that for?’ ‘I found a note in your suit pocket with a number and the name Fanny May on it?’ ‘Oh, that’s just a horse I bet on last week.’ Two weeks later he gets clobbered again, this time with the rolling pin. ‘What’s that for?’ ‘Your horse phoned.’ If only they could. But never mind those mists and mellow fruitfulness, around this time of year horses do tell us a lot. My notebook is filling up nicely with prospects for 2013.
At Ascot last Saturday, where ground varying between soft and heavy made racing a real test, Mick Channon was beaming after his two-year-old Bungleinthejungle had won the Group Three BMW Cornwallis Stakes. Worried about running him with top weight on such soft ground he had reckoned, ‘It’s the last chance of the season and it’s only five furlongs so we might as well have a go.’ Bungleinthejungle showed real resolution in holding off Garswood, and Mick reckons he has a top sprinting prospect for next year. ‘He’s tough and he loves the game.’ One of the jockey finds of this season has been Martin Harley and Mick owes his stable rider. The jockey had walked the course before racing and reckoned that he needed to be four or five places off the rail.
Mick’s only complaint was that the first-place prize money of around £20,000 didn’t any longer reflect the status of the race. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said a journalist colleague. ‘I wouldn’t turn my nose up at £20,000.’ ‘That’s because you’re skint,’ said Mick.
Two other performances brought joy in this corner. Victory in the Group Three John Guest Bengough Stakes for Lady Rothschild brought Mince her first Group contest and it was her fourth win since she was named as one of our Twelve to Follow. Trainer Roger Charlton confirmed she will race on next season. Interestingly, he added that a year ago Mince was the slowest horse in the yard, quite unable to get up the gallops on terms with the others. She has now been on the go since the Craven meeting in April and has proved herself to be not only fast but brave and tough as well. A potential Group One winner next year? ‘It’s easy to get greedy in this business but why not,’ said her trainer.
It was good, too, to see Marcus Tregoning winning the Cumberland Lodge Stakes, another Group Three, with the big mare Hawaafez, who was listed as one of our Twelve to Follow last year. With such a huge horse her trainer has had to go carefully: she tends to weaken and need time between races but she has a great stride on her which jockey Johnny Murtagh employed skilfully, dictating the pace from the front with two Godolphin horses in his slipstream and then getting away from them in the straight. Owner Sheikh Hamdan now has some ‘black type’ (the coveted designation of a Listed or Group winner) but it is to be hoped she will be kept racing next year. Marcus has always reckoned Hawaafez to be a Cup horse.
Murtagh’s ride on the big mare was copybook stuff. What was surprising to see at Ascot was how many jockeys were still trying to win races by holding up their mounts at the back. When the going is as deep as that it becomes doubly difficult to come from off the pace and win a race. One jockey who was using his head was Seb Sanders, the one-time champion jockey who has had a much quieter time this year since the ending of his long retainer with Sir Mark Prescott. Picking up the threads again as a freelance after an association like that is not easy and some have been quick to suggest the fire has faded. But Newmarket trainer Chris Wall knew and appreciated Seb when he was on the way up and is not the sort to forget old friends who can still deliver. He booked Seb to ride Intense Pink and was rewarded when the rider brought her home the 16–1 winner of the EBF October Stakes. The experienced Sanders had spotted that racing on the far-side rail had profited Doc Hay in the previous race and steered his mount along the same route.
Intense Pink should not really have been allowed to start at such a price having won well on soft going early in the season. Her canny trainer has always held her in some regard and after she had found six furlongs too sharp in a previous Listed race and then run respectably in the Coronation he reckoned he had brought her out again too quickly after that. The plan then became to earn a bit of black type in the autumn and Intense Pink’s 100-day break before her Ascot run ensured that the mission was accomplished. She definitely does stay in training next year.
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