A Funny Old Week!

Although we had a few runners through the week on the flat (with War Singer running a promising first race on the level in this country), we waited until the weekend for some better ground for our jumpers, with runners at Southwell and Stratford.

Shoegazer posted his third success of the current campaign (and our twelfth of the season) at Southwell on Sunday and is clearly a very useful horse to have running at this time of year.  His jumping wasn’t always perfect but unlike many of the competitors he did manage to complete and won tidily enough under a double penalty.  He has a good win to runs ratio having now won seven of his twenty career starts and I am sure he can continue to add to those successes.  He is versatile with regard to the ground and will continue to improve with experience over fences, although he could run over hurdles this Saturday at Market Rasen or Cartmel.

As mentioned previously, I thought that War Singer ran okay at Newbury on the flat earlier in the week, looking a big danger to the winner with less than 2f to go.  Although a winner over 1m4f in France, he didn’t look like he fully stayed the trip here and jockey Eddie Ahern recommended that we try him back in distance.  Of course they race very differently in France, usually going at a much steadier pace before sprinting in the closing stages.  He has plenty of pace and could well turn out again at the end of the month in a mile contest at Goodwood.

The continuing deplorable weather that is so reminiscent of the Great British Summer (!) has meant that we have had to cut short many of the horses’ summer holidays and the yard is beginning to fill up again.  While there are still plenty to come back from their owners, it is always nice to see a few more heads over the doors and you can feel a tangible air of excitement and anticipation for the season ahead.  You will see pictured right, two exciting inmates for the coming campaign, brothers Gevrey Chambertin (nearside) and Grands Crus.

Looking to the week ahead there are not many jumping fixtures – we have entries at Uttoxeter and Worcester on Wednesday, as well as Cartmel, Market Rasen and Newton Abbot at the weekend.  The logistics of getting horses to the races is not always an easy one and I am sure that we will have to take into account the added traffic problems caused by the influx of athletes and tourists ahead of the start of the Olympic games next week – the coming month should certainly be an interesting time and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a number of meetings suffer non-runners owing to the congested transport network…I guess we shall see!

I couldn’t really finish this week without making some reference to the race boycott at Worcester on Wednesday of last week.  Many people have already aired their opinions and now we have had a little time to reflect I am happy to add my own…while it is regrettable for the sponsor of the race in question (and contrary to the popular belief of those who did not agree with the trainers actions, we are always grateful for their support), it is a stance that needed to be made.  It was not a callous boycott meant to cause disruption to the racecourse or racegoers (if this were the case Worcester would not have been offered the opportunity of avoiding this by adding the £900 necessary to bring the race up to tariff), but instead was intended to highlight the unacceptable level of funding that currently blights jump racing in our country.

While there are those who don’t have much pity for the racehorse owner, sighting it as an expensive hobby only to be enjoyed by the rich – the reality is that without their support, the sport would perish and with such lucrative opportunities available on our doorstep in Ireland and France you would understand them looking further afield.  In the interest of the sport that we all love, something needs to be done - so long as people keep running their horses for peanuts then the racecourses will continue to provide under tariff racing and that will not help anyone.  Hopefully the boycott will have raised awareness of the situation and a recurrence will not be necessary.