Colour Change

[Cymro]

As a cross over over from the always-excellent Derek Thompson thread, I noticed yesterday at Ayr that he mentioned a few horses whose jockeys were in a change of colour. It may be a stupid question but why does this happen? Surely the owners would want their horse to run in their colours? One scenario I can imagine is that for whatever reason, the silks weren’t available for the particular race in question, so a substitute set is needed. If this is the case, what replacement colours are chosen and are these “neutral” or are they the colours of another owner?

[Kendicate]

I’m not sure but I thought it mostly happens when you have horses with multiple owners who have different registered colours and they rotate which colours the horse runs in and the racecard has it the wrong way round e.g. Denman ran in the green silks of Paul Barber and then sometimes in the purple of -Mrs Finley

or a horse changes ownership shortly before the race date I guess and the racecard hasn’t been updated.

Your explanation of a shortage of the right silks could also be true I guess

[apracing]

Likeliest place for a missing set of colours on a Monday? In the stable washing machine, trying to get rid of the mud from an outing last week!

[Gladiateur]

Interesting answer, @apracing.

Do owners have to buy their own silks, as in the physical clothing? 🤔

[apracing]

The trainer would organise the purchase of a set of colours, but the owner will get the bill. Which will be in excess of £200, probably nearer £300 by now as my last purchase was six years ago.

To explain my previous answer – most trainers would have someone in to help around the house and that would include doing the washing. And it seems likely that such an employee would have been on holiday last week, so Monday would have been the first day back.

I never had more than one set of colours, but I did once have two runners at different meetings on the same day, so one of them ran wearing the trainers own colours.

[greenasgrass]

I think my mum ran hers up on her sewing machine and knitted one of those old fashioned rollneck jumpers for winter. But that was back in the 70s and 80s. I can hardly sew on a button, but it doesn’t matter as I can’t afford a racehorse either

[Author]

Posts