Variety Club day at Sandown, a splendid tradition which raises many thousands for disadvantaged children, is always a bit of a test. That chap over there in the tailored jeans and the shark’s tooth necklace — is he the star of something I should have watched last night or just a jack-the-lad from the local out to impress his girlfriend? Generally the rule seemed to be that the deeper the suntan was the more likely it was that you were looking at a star still in work. Certainly some of them do fade. Too many of Saturday’s showbiz contingent reminded me of Gypsy Rose Lee’s comment, ‘I’ve still got everything I used to have…but it’s all just a little bit lower.’
One racehorse owner I encountered revealed he had had the temerity on a previous Variety Club day to ask a well-endowed female actress to move as he couldn’t see the racing action — and got his face slapped for his pains.
Anyway, Melinda Messenger’s smile was enough to light up the presentation platform, even if I’ve never seen Richard Hills turn pinker than when he got his kiss after winning the Solario Stakes.
If I have been sounding like a stuck-in-the- groove record lately in extolling Richard’s abilities, at least I had one of Britain’s leading trainers on my side this time after he had led all the way on Mark Johnston’s Shakespearean. Richard has won seven races from 17 rides for Mark this season and the Middleham maestro declared, ‘If he isn’t the best jockey riding in Britain at the moment he’s certainly the most underrated. He’s a great judge of pace.’
Mark is never short of opinions and it was interesting to listen to him on the subject of Sandown’s famously testing rising finish. ‘Sandown is a perfectly straightforward track but it’s amazing how many people try to complicate it.’ Jockeys, he said, are too inclined to sit in behind the leaders thinking they have got a double handful — and then they find they haven’t. ‘First up the hill takes some getting past. Horses sitting behind, going well, haven’t the momentum into the hill and won’t quicken up so are relying on others stopping. It takes an awfully good horse to get past.’
Variety Club day and Frankie Dettori, racing’s finest showman, are of course made for each other. It didn’t start perfectly for Frankie with Buzzword, Godolphin’s 5–4 favourite, getting stuck in a pocket behind Shakespearean. But Frankie took the big handicap on the four-year-old Fanjura. As if he had been listening to Mark Johnston, racing’s best-known face led for most of the ten furlongs and dominated up the hill, demonstrating that he too is a master of pacing a race. Frankie delighted the crowd with one of his trademark flying dismounts and there was no bashfulness with Melinda’s kisses either. The exuberant Italian gave more than he got.
Fanjura’s success was the Marju gelding’s third handicap success in a row for Barry Hills and his son Charlie, who is doing such an excellent job while his much-missed father’s illness is keeping him away from the track. Frankie does not ride often for the Faringdon Place yard, whose regular rider, Michael Hills, was busy scoring a double at Chester, but he rode Fanjura to success as a two-year-old in the Wood Ditton Stakes, and owner Terry Benson has been happy to keep the partnership together. The still-improving Fanjura has been made 12–1 favourite with the Tote for the Cambridgeshire but could go instead for the John Smith’s Stakes at Newbury over the same distance as the Sandown race and should be worth sticking with.
‘I suppose you get plenty of winners, talking to all those trainers,’ said one non-regular racegoer I encountered at Sandown. If only. If only. After he had had a one–two in the sprint with the authoritative winner Blue Jack and Tony the Tap, I sought a word with the amiable William Muir. ‘Sorry, got to dash and watch mine win the next at Ripon,’ he muttered, shooting off to the TV outside the weighing room. Now that must be worth a tenner, I thought, as I whisked through a hastily borrowed Racing Post to discover the horse in question was Fawley Green, ridden by Frannie Norton. With W. Muir Esq. cracking an imaginary whip and boisterously shouting him home, Fawley Green was well in the mix, but finished fourth. So much for the trainer hotline.
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