The making of a Classics winner

For a Radio Four programme she was hosting Clare Balding once had the idea that it would be fun to apply the techniques of horse breeding to the political world. Strolling around the parade ring at Newbury we duly recorded an item imagining gene mixing between the will to win of a Margaret Thatcher and the indestructibility of a Denis Healey, the feistiness of Barbara Castle with the sinuous positioning of a Tony Blair. Some of those in the couplings suggested even continued speaking to me afterwards.

I sometimes become a sounding board for the views of racing connections aware of my political commentating past and at Newmarket on Saturday one expressed his despair not just at Trussonomics spooking the markets and wrecking his mortgage but at the winner-takes-all aftermath of Tory elections nowadays. Left and Right used to accept, when the fur stopped flying, that there were talents to be used among those of a different political shade. But no longer. Boris wouldn’t promote anybody who had been a Remainer, La Truss steers away from those who supported Rishi Sunak. That shrinks the pool of talent to a very small pond.

Numbers matter in both politics and racing. To produce potential Classic winners you need not just horses with impressive pedigrees but large numbers of them. For Godolphin, Charlie Appleby has around 250 inmates and Saeed bin Suroor another 150. Andrew Balding, Mark and Charlie Johnston and Richard Hannon have upwards of 200 with John and Thady Gosden, William Haggas and Ralph Beckett not far behind. Newmarket on Saturday started to look like another Godolphin benefit day with the Appleby-trained, William Buick-ridden Flying Honours taking the Group Three Zetland Stakes and Silver Knott the Group Three Autumn Stakes.