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Now trained by Dan Skelton this formerly 40 race maiden has won 4 on the bounce in the last 7 days. How many unsuccessful horses get 40 bites of the cherry before they are jettisoned from racing?
Which raises the question what did Dan Skelton see in the horse that persuaded him to shell out £5k on such a longstanding maiden?
How many other of racing’s 70 rated hurdlers or 40 rated flat horses who leave the game every year could be turned into winners by a decent trainer?
How many unsuccessful horses get 40 bites of the cherry before they are jettisoned from racing?
Oh I dunno, that’s only a couple of months’ worth of racing at this rate
It’s always a bit of a guessing game for operations like the Skeltons, but Too Many Diamonds must have looked like a fair bet.
On my trainer ratings spreadsheet, the horse’s former handlers DJ English (-7) and Clare Ellam (-17) are both at the ‘inept’ end of the spectrum. Skelton has far superior facilities and staff to English and Ellam and presumably has better feed, stabling and vets too.
Too Many Diamonds doesn’t have much of a pedigree but is a nice looker with plenty of size about him. He’s quite a fluent mover too. Although Too Many Diamonds didn’t have much form in the book, he did have another crucial tick in the box for the Skelton clan. In four full seasons, he had completed 40 starts without any injury lay-offs. The Skelton MO is all about extreme fitness and they must have felt this horse could stand up to being worked like a slave on the gallops.
The improvement in this particular horse is extraordinary but you see similar examples practically every day of the week.
– Unowhatimeanharry switched to Harry Fry and went from mediocre handicapper to G1 win machine
– Winter (and most horses to leave David Wachman) much improved by other yards so far this year
– Practically every horse the Rooneys moved away from Donald McCain immediately improved by 15lbs or more
– Almost every horse to switch from Dandy Nichols to another yard has either rekindled its best form or improved.
– Mick Appleby, Dan Skelton, Neil Mulholland, Fergal O’Brien, David O’Meara all particularly good with switchers
Two switching angles I’ll be watching in the coming months are Sandra Hughes to [anyone] and Rebecca Curtis to Kevin Frost. Hughes had some success but was clearly not doing justice to her horses – I’m particularly interested in Phil’s Magic wherever he washes up next. Rebecca Curtis has also had a wretched couple of years, understandably leading big-spending owner Carl Hinchy to pull the plug. Frost is inheriting a swathe of very well-handicapped horses if he can undo the ruination.
It just goes to show that horse racing the same as any other sport has people who are good at it and people who are not so good. Maybe the next arkle is currently being trained by some useless trainer and not being able to reach its potential
I think you have to be careful about picking out trainers to move from or to.
Sometimes a trainer can have a season or so when there seems to be some sort of virus running around the yard, nothing that makes the horses exactly “ill”, they’re looking well but just running rather below par most of the time.
And some horses just benefit from a change of routine or surroundings.
Taking Dandy Nicholls as a random example from those suggested as a trainer to move from rather than to, well, he made his name taking cast-offs from other yards, freshening them up, and then winning loads of races with them. Sometimes these things just go in random cycles.
That could be the case, Venusian. You might be right.
It’s so hard to understand for us on the outside, but I wonder if some trainers either get complacent after initial success or just get left behind when methods improve and the next wave of trainers find new innovations.
Changes in personal life could also have an impact on results – children, divorce, bereavement, addiction, mental health…
It might be argued that Clare Ellam has been unfortunate but careless.
Ellam might not be in the top rank of trainers, rather her primary sphere of expertise seems to lie in the rehabilitation of racehorses, employing every conceivable attention to detail in so doing. Too Many Diamonds came into her care exactly one year ago and, in public at least, continued his less than stellar career for a further 7 races before picking up an injury at Wolverhampton in October 2016.
On two of these occasions the horse was ridden by David England, who also rides for Dan Skelton.
Ellam’s mistake was to enter Too Many Diamonds in a seller (at Taunton) for his comeback race last month. She thought there was no chance the horse would be claimed because of his 6 month absence and dismal form. He started at 40/1, finished 8th of 12 beaten 14l, and was claimed by Skelton for £6,000. The rest is recent history.
It remains possible that David England knew Too Many Diamonds was a far better horse than his racecourse form would have us believe. It further remains possible that England shared this knowledge with Skelton, resulting in the successful claim at Taunton. England won on Too Many Diamonds in the first of his four recent victories.
I’m particularly interested in Phil’s Magic wherever he washes up next.
Declared for Tony Martin at 1650 Kilbeggan tomorrow.
Thank you Joe.
I couldn’t help but notice that Clare Ellam saddled a 66/1 winner in a 14 runner handicap hurdle at Worcester yesterday.
Amber Flush joined her yard in December last year. Before this victory the mare had contested three handicap hurdles for Ellam, pulling up each time. Her exploits on the flat comprise a visit to Wolverhampton (8/9 beaten 50l) and a trip to Southwell (8/8 beaten 55l).
I wonder if Clare Ellam has rectified a previously undiagnosed condition in Amber Flush, and whether or not the beast is now worth keeping an eye on.
Good for her. Reading your post about TMD, I bet she’ll be jolly careful what she enters in sellers from now on.
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