Ten for effort

Punting at Kempton Park in winter I have one basic rule. Take a long hard look at anything Nicky Henderson is running before you consider backing anything else. His record at the Thameside track is extraordinary. But those who had taken the odds of 3–10 on his Tetlami in the novice chase on Saturday missed a few heartbeats on his way to victory. Tetlami’s clumsiness at the third fence left Barry Geraghty perched halfway up his neck with one leg out of his irons. As they made their way towards the next there was an edgy couple of hundred yards as he struggled frantically to get his foot back into the hole. Back on balance in the straight, Tetlami’s class eventually showed but there was, I thought, a touch of bashfulness about Barry’s comment to the owners on dismounting: ‘It’s good to have a bit of excitement.’

It reminded me of the time he attempted a Frankie Dettori-style flying dismount from Moscow Flyer at Cheltenham and almost ended up on his backside. ‘No more than five for execution,’ said trainer Jessica Harrington tartly. This time Nicky Henderson agreed with me that Barry deserved a nine for gymnastics, whatever you gave him for the rest of the ride. ‘A good thing it didn’t happen at the second last,’ added the trainer. ‘There wouldn’t have been time then to go faffing around looking for his iron.’

Almost inevitably, the big race of the day, the Lanzarote Hurdle, went to the Henderson-trained, Geraghty-ridden Oscara Dara. Always the plan from the master-trainer? What do we mere mortals know: after the race, Nicky revealed Oscara Dara had only run because he hadn’t liked his fencing over the bigger obstacles at Plumpton and had been even less impressed when schooling him over them at home two days before Kempton.