What I want to know is, how do they do it? To hide them I mean. Of course if you’ve got a horse that was third in the stayers then you tiddle about over 2 – 2.5 miles for the first few runs and then run in a four horse race for the NH chase quaifying run, with the aim of just getting round at the back. That bit I get. It beautifully until those pesky kids Gold Dancer and Western Walk got tired and he latched on and overhauled them with enthusiasm, Mark Walsh amusingly flapping his arms about making efforts “to achieve the best possible placing” presumably whilst muttering “whoa you bugger” all the way up the run in and after the line, when everything else was slowing to a walk and his was past the winner and exiting the right hand side of the telly at a decent clip. The bit I want to know about is the jumping- so bad he was getting detached early on. Do they just not school them at all at home until the last mark race is over then set to work? Or school in a small indoor arena over one jump so the horse isn’t used to jumping at speed and getting away quickly? Just sit there in the race really passively in front of each fence letting him prop and pop like an overcautious hunter for a geriatric rider? Or deliberately get him a little bit wrong everywhere to slow things down (difficult, if you overdo it he’ll make a bad mistake and hurt or scare himself). It’s quite the art to let or get a young horse to jump badly then flick the switch on D day. I wonder how good Harry Cobden will be at it, or will they just get the minions to do it and plonk him on the good ones when all the schooling is done and the handbrake is off.
