I have just spent a week away from racing and have survived it reasonably well, although the week off was far from relaxing.
It was also bought home the nothing should be taken for granted.
My final days racing before my break was Shergar Cup day at Ascot, another successful renewal of the contest with the atmosphere not even spoiled by the showery weather.
The excitement lasted all afternoon with neither the team, nor jockeys title being decided until the final race.
Indeed, going into the final race, any one of the four teams could, mathematically, win the contest. Although, realistically, it was a two horse (or should that be two team) race with Ireland and Europe battling for the final honours.
Europe won the final contest but with Ireland finishing in three of the points winning positions they ensured sufficient points to claim the title and Fran Berry’s second gave him enough points to win the riders title, prompting him to say “I have never been so pleased to ride a second.”
There was, however, a dark cloud over the meeting and it wasn’t from the weather. Shortly before racing news began to filter through that this years wonder horse, Harbinger, had suffered a career, possibly life, threatening injury.
Here was a horse who had astounded the packed Ascot stands with an awesome performance in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes just two week earlier. Now his career was about to end.
In a moment his canon bone suffered a hairline fracture, ending a career in an instant. He left good memories but also left unanswered the question, how much better could he have been.
At least he did not pay the ultimate price and he can, hopefully, look forward to a future at stud.
The fragility of life and how everything can be changed in an instant was re-enforced less than 48 hours later.
On Monday afternoon I received a text from my nephew in Australia saying he and his wife, who is English, would be returning to the UK in the next couple of days as his father-in-law had passed away.
The news was completely unexpected and a shock to all, even worse for my nephews wife being the other side of the world and unable to get back to her family quickly.
Her father was a lovely man, a gentleman in every sense of the word.
He had parked his car opposite his place of work and was about to cross the road when he collapsed and died. No inclinations of ill health, it just happened – he was only sixty.
In a split second his whole families life was turned upside down, never to be the same again.
The above also tie in, loosely, with my week off and that too has an indirect racing connection.
Each August my parents come and stay with us for a week. It gives them a complete change of scenery and it gives my Mum a complete break as she is not allowed to lift a finger or do anything when they are here.
Normally we spend the week going on day trips but these were to be limited this year as my Dad, sadly, is in failing health so long days out were out of the question.
I did have one very special treat in store for him though.
I know we have had glorious weather in the past few weeks and it is easy to forget just how bad the weather was back last January and early February, when racing was decimated.
All-weather racing did come to the rescue but I don’t know about you, there is only so much AW racing I can take so I had to find something else to fill in the time, so I decided to work on my family tree.
I don’t come from a huge family. My mother was an only child and neither her maternal Aunt or Uncle had any children. On Dad’s side he had a elder sister but had lost touch many years ago.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I managed to trace the family back six generations in the three weeks I worked on the research.
More importantly I actually managed to track down my cousins on my fathers side and, even better, discovered his sister was still alive.
I visited my cousins and met my aunt for the first time since I was a baby (and believe me that was an awful long time ago) – it was before man in space, indeed even before the first satellite had been launched. Before jet passenger aircraft. Dad had not seen his sister for, at least, 44 years.
My cousins and I then decided we needed to get Dad and his sister together again.
Plans were progressing well but then had to be put on hold when Dad became ill. The biggest problem my parents live on the South Coast and his sister and her family live up North.
Anyway we decided to try and aim to arrange the meeting for when my parents were staying with us and we decided the best compromise would be to meet halfway between my house and theirs.
A look at the map showed Wolverhampton to be an almost half-way house.
We seriously considered Horizons Restaurant at Wolverhampton races but the only meeting last week was on Monday afternoon and it did not fit in with everyone’s schedule.
We decided to aim for Wednesday and a well known rose gardens just north of Wolverhampton.
The meeting was in doubt until the actual day but luckily Dad was having one of his good days on Wednesday and we set off.
Neither Dad or his sister, nor indeed my Mother, knew what was in store that day. All they knew is they were going to visit some rose gardens.
We arrived about ten minutes before the northern party, indeed they drove past us as we were walking in from the car park but Dad was oblivious to the discrete wave my wife and I gave them as they drove past.
The meet was contrived by us walking into the gardens then doubling back before “accidentally” bumping into one another in the gardens.
When they finally met it took a few seconds for the penny to drop but there were then soon tears all round and the plan had come to fruition.
All the worries and sleepless nights had been worth it.
I am so pleased we have managed to get Dad and his sister together again after all these years and we all hope we can get them together again soon.
I know I really moaned and complained when all the racing was cancelled back in January and February – now I am so, so glad it was – it has resulted is something very special – something money could not have bought.
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Monday, 26 July 2010
An Almost Perfect Day
When you spend as much time going racing as I do you tend to get into something of a rut, when run race just seems to be like any other, almost a merry-go-round of racing, some ups, some downs and plenty of nondescript stuff in the middle.
Occasionally you will get a race which will make you sit up and pay attention, a promising newcomer, a great turn of foot, a Houdini escape from a seemingly impossible position.
Even more rarely you will get one of those special, “I was there moments.”
Day’s like the first Sunday in October last year, at a racecourse at the top end of a forest in the centre of Paris. The day when Sea The Stars extricated himself, with the assistance of Mick Kinane, from seemingly impossible position to win the Arc. It was an unbelievable performance which had to be seen to be believed, it was a scene that had tears rolling down the cheeks of many a cynical hack, myself included.
You came away privileged at having witnessed such a fantastic race live, coming home knowing you have probably experienced a once in a lifetime race.
If somebody had said to me that day in October that eight months later I would, once again be watching a race in total awe, I would have laughed at them
Yet on Saturday, on a triangular track at the bottom of The Queen’s rather large back garden there was an equine performance which left those who watched it standing there open mouthed, not believing what they had just witnessed.
I am referring, of course, to Harbinger’s demolition of a small but very select field in Ascot’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. He beat two Derby winners but that was not what caught the eye. It was the manner of his victory and the emphatic manner in which he accelerated down the home straight under Olivier Peslier.
To emphasise how good a performance it was he broke the course record for good measure and all this under what was effectively a third choice rider.
Stable Jockey Ryan Moore had the choice of riding Harbinger or Workforce and he settled with the Derby winner.
Moore is not renown for showing his emotions but one look at his face after Saturday’s race said it all …….. he knew he had made a really bad choice.
The ride on Harbinger had also been offered to Frankie Dettori but he opted, instead, to ride at York, so the ride went to Peslier and what a ride he gave the horse.
The race was eloquently summed up by Alistair Down when he said, “I cannot believe what I have just seen.”
Nor could any of us in the press room at Ascot, even the handful of us who had gone against the “perceived wisdom” and had thought Harbinger had the beating of Workforce and backed our belief with hard cash. Even we could not believe the manner of victory.
The near sell out crowd at Ascot also appreciated the performance and horse, rider and trainer all received a rapturous welcome after the race.
It was almost, but not quite, perfect.
So what was wrong?
Well Ascot probably has one of the most stunningly impressive parade rings, not only in this country but in the world and it was packed before the race with racegoers wanting to see the six magnificent horses before the race.
They waited and they waited but the runners did not appear in the parade ring until less than ten minutes before the off, meaning they had barely had the opportunity to do one lap of the parade ring before the bell went for the horses to mount.
This surely is not enough, especially with such a big race. Racegoers have the right to see the horses parading properly in the parade ring, not just a token appearance.
I’m told it was to ensure the race went off on time because of the television coverage. We are talking BBC television coverage here, coverage that has been so decimated one actually wonders why they bother. Yet it seems they can still dictate timings, even if it is to the detriment of the paying punters.
It is a shame racegoers at Ascot were short changed on this one.
Speaking of the BBC it was a pleasant surprise to see Radio Five Live giving top billing to the meeting, even presenting Sport On Five from the course and providing live commentary on all the races.
Clearly they could not find any minor county league football to cover live or there wasn’t a tiddlywinks competition begging for live coverage and I suspect the early finish of the Pakistan / Australia test match helped as they had more time to fill.
Whatever the reason, full marks for giving the meeting prominence, even if it did mean having the inane utterances of Kevin Day, who is allegedly some sort of comedian, rolled out to dumb down the coverage. I can’t remember the exact question but as I was caught in traffic trying to get to the course I remember listening to Day chatting to commentator John Hunt. One of the questions Day asked Hunty was so stupid, so inane, had it been put to me I would not only have told him but I would have provided a practical demonstration as to where he should stick his microphone.
Why do broadcasters feel the need to dumb down to the level of a moron.
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Despite it having been my local course for the first thirty odd years of my life, and having been a frequent visitor to the course, I have never actually attended a Glorious Goodwood meeting. Hopefully that will change tomorrow.
I am told the atmosphere is really good (and the racing isn’t that bad either) so I am really looking forward to my first visit to the festival.
This week also sees one of Ireland’s biggest festivals, the Galway Festival. By all accounts you need a very strong liver for this particular as the racing apparently takes second place to the partying. Another Festival I have yet to visit, although I should have perhaps visited a few years ago when I was a drinker.