Eclipse Day at Sandown Park was nearly a disaster. Feeling for my wallet en route to Waterloo, my heart sank as my hand went into an empty pocket, and then I remembered. Mrs Oakley, by then uncontactable at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, had the night before purloined it to pay for a MarshRuby takeaway curry. (Don’t miss them. The perfectionist Mrs O never normally allows across our doorstep a meal prepared elsewhere but makes an exception for this one-woman enterprise in Lower Marsh.)
Shorn of cash and credit cards for rail ticket or racecard I slunk home, reconciled to TV racing. But then I wondered: didn’t Mrs O have somewhere a secret cash-stash for window cleaners, charity collectors and emergency taxis? Ten minutes’ search proved successful (and, no, friendly burglar, it was not in the cocoa tin marked ‘Rice’). Thirty seconds later, with folding-stuff in my top pocket, I was back en route for Sandown, convinced it was my day.
There were four objectives, the first three financial. One of this column’s Twelve to Follow, William Haggas’s Triple Aspect, a horse who goes down to the post like a goat and comes back like a cheetah, was running in the first. Sir Mark Prescott, who does not tilt at windmills, had entered a promising filly in the Coral Distaff, a Listed race. And Andrew Balding, who does not often use the former champion, had booked Kieren Fallon, still for me the strongest rider on the circuit, to ride his Kakatosi. The other objective, all being well, was to join the crowds cheering home another Coral Eclipse winner for trainer Henry Cecil in the Eclipse, 32 years after his last one, Gunner B.
For once almost everything went according to script. I arrived too late for the first, but a gateman confirmed Triple Aspect had prevailed by half a length. Foolishly I then played up the winnings on Fallon’s ride in the next. He rode a polished race on Luca Cumani’s Acrostic, holding him up and getting to the leader a furlong out. What neither he nor I had expected was that the 33–1 outsider Black Spirit, also well-ridden by the unfashionable Luke Morris, then stayed on well enough to resist Fallon’s charge. Black Spirit’s improved form, it seemed, was down to a breathing operation and the restoration of a tongue tie. Horses so often seem to improve these days after wind operations, particularly over jumps, that there is almost a case for their compulsory registration.
Luckily for me, Sir Mark Prescott’s Virginia Hall made all and won by a comfortable three lengths at 11–2, and Fallon showed all his strength to bring home Kakatosi by a head as the 2–1 favourite in the handicap when I had backed him en route to the course at 11–4. Mrs Oakley will get her stash back with interest, indeed I might even push the boat out and take her out for the next curry.
But the serious business of the day was in the big race itself. At only 13–8 I hadn’t backed Henry Cecil’s Twice Over but his was the success I cheered the loudest, not least because it was so bravely done. His experienced trainer and young jockey Tom Queally had determined beforehand not to let the race degenerate into a sprint so, after sharing the pacemaking duties with the mare Dar Re Mi, who gets at least two furlongs more, Queally drove clear at the three-furlong marker and stretched out, defying his pursuers to catch him.
His judgment was spot-on and they did not get to him. But both Sri Putra and Viscount Nelson were closing at the finish as the tired Twice Over, his stride visibly shortening, just made it to the jamstick in time, having lost one of his stick-on shoes in the struggle.
Owner Prince Khalid Abdullah was visibly chuffed. Even more so was young Tom, who declared, ‘I’m delighted for Henry, the prince and everyone in the yard, but more so for the horse. He has a wonderful character. I’ve ridden him work from day one. I knew he had ability and I was just mad about him. I got a real kick out of this.’
Twice Over himself, picking up Cecil’s characteristic diffidence, paused before entering the winner’s enclosure, as if embarrassed by all the fuss. His trainer, head tilted, softly spoken, immediately praised his jockey and stable staff. But when a voice in the crowd called for ‘Three cheers for Henry’ and got them with real enthusiasm their subject simply pointed to his throat to say how he felt.
He may be a toff in the non-toff age but his vulnerability makes Cecil the People’s Toff. He’s been through so many travails — broken marriages, the loss of a twin brother, the withdrawal of top owners’ horses, his own stomach cancer. But he’s trained more Classic winners than any British trainer alive and he’s back at the top where he belongs.
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