Picking Up The Pace

The horses that are already at peak fitness have also been doing us proud and it was good to see Frosted Grape back in the winner’s enclosure at Uttoxeter on Tuesday under A P McCoy. “Frosty” had a great time of things last year winning on four occasions (three of them over fences), but had found things tougher towards the end of the season due to an escalating handicap mark. She was able to take advantage of a lower hurdles mark here and gained a deserved victory in the hands of the champion jockey.

Following his Sandown success on the level on his Pond House debut, Beyond was raised 6lbs by the official assessor to a new mark of 84. The further he went, the better he seemed to go that day and following talks with his owner, he will now be given a little break and brought back with the Cesarewitch at Newmarket in October as his next objective. My father won the race with Heros Fatal and Miss Fara and I am keen to win it also. It is a race that we have gone close to winning in the past following Mamlook’s third in 2008 and second the following year.

While we are on the subject of flat racing, I have to congratulate Hayley Turner on becoming only the second lady jockey to win a Group One race on the level following her success in Newmarket’s July Cup. Hayley had to remain cool when it looked as though the horse wouldn’t get a run, but she waited for the gap to open up and then produced him at precisely the right time to score cosily by ½ length. Hayley is a great rider – 100 wins in a calendar year pay testament to that and she is a great asset to our sport.   Her Group One success is a great achievement and I couldn’t be more pleased for her.

I couldn’t help but have a chuckle when I saw Hayley’s tweet after her big race success – it read something along the lines of “a day off to recover from the celebrations – now that’s race planning!”. While obviously good for some, personally I think that there are worrying undertones, and race planning are clearly completely out of touch with what is happening at present. Chester pointed out that there were no fewer than six race meetings taking place on Saturday and not one of them was over jumps. On Sunday there were another three fixtures and this time there were no flat meetings – why is it that nobody can see that this is a ridiculous state of affairs? Perhaps I should put Chester’s name forward for the head of race planning…now there is a sobering thought!!!