It is the weather men rather than the steaks most of us want to grill slowly over hot embers this non-barbecue summer. But there are consolation days and nowhere better to appreciate them than Newmarket’s July course. The staff are friendly. Nobody looks askance at those who choose not to wear a tie and the fillies in silky pastels are as beguilingly undercovered as those in a risqué Edwardian pencil sketch.
Flowers abound beside the parade ring and unsaddling enclosure, and I have never agreed with my late mother, who used to complain of others’ gardens, ‘Marigolds, dear…so common.’
The July course has been pleasantly re-developed. But at my age not all changes are welcome. I can no longer find the board where a man used to chalk up the results from other courses and I was disturbed to find that the old Tote Credit Club building where riff-raff like me consorted had become ‘The Pink Bar’. Indeed, so uncompromisingly pink has it been painted that I wondered about the precise qualifications for entry. I won’t be risking it without a few of my more flamboyant friends.
The racing news was elsewhere. But while I respect Ascot’s ingenuity and restless search for improvement I did not want to be part of the 28,000 crowd they attracted for the Shergar Cup with groups of jockeys labelled as teams representing Europe, Ireland, England and the Rest of the World. Even when accompanied by theme tunes and drum majorettes, racing is not to me a team sport and never will be. So Newmarket it had to be, even if it seemed that the only serious choice to be made on Sweet Solera day was likely to be the one between Rich Butterscotch and Almond Toffee Crunch at the ice-cream van.
In fact the racing was excellent, with a treble for Ted Durcan and a double for Richard Hills. When the Hills twins Richard and Michael were teenagers they had the incomparable assistance of a young Steve Cauthen riding for their father. They used to take their ponies up on the Lambourn gallops and race each other for a pair of goggles or a whip donated by the generous American, and Richard still rates the Triple Crown winner, a real master of pace, as a key influence. ‘I used to watch tapes of how he just kept picking up and stole a lot of races from the front.’ He has since stolen a fair few himself the same way, and on Mark Johnston’s strapping great Whispering Gallery Richard gave a master class in how to do it.
Leading every yard of the way he judged the pace perfectly in the ten-furlong handicap, upping the tempo from two furlongs out and leaving enough underneath him to hold off the favourite, Recession Proof, at the end. As ex-jockey Bruce Raymond said of Whispering Grace, ‘He just gallops — you don’t want to do anything too complicated on him.’ Easily said, but in this case perfectly done.
It is not only jockeys, though, who play their part in racing success. As the horses paraded for the Sky Bet handicap, her lad was quietly whispering sweet nothings to Rae Guest’s chestnut filly Jeninsky, all the way round the ring. After Ted Durcan had ridden her to victory at 33–1, I asked the smiling groom Basith Umar what he had been saying. He replied, ‘I was just telling her, “Relax, baby. Take it easy. Don’t worry”.’ It certainly seemed to work. Relaxed ladies give the best results, as one or two pouring the champagne clearly hoped…
Comments