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Perhaps somebody at the yard read my opening post – CH has just been entered for the 12F 4yo+ novice stakes at Kempton next Wednesday evening. It’s a £12k race currently at a meeting that attracted a ‘crowd’ of 452 last year.
During my brief and soon abandoned sojourn at Birmingham University in 1965, the TV room of the Students Union was always packed out on a Thursday evening. Top of the Pops at 7:30, The Man From U.N.C.L.E at 8:00. The male students wanted to be Napoleon Solo, the female students wanted to get close to Ilya Kuryakin.
And the relevance of this – well for much of that autumn term, Ken Dodd was the closing act on Top of the Pops, his recording of ‘Tears’ at number one. By the end of November, every mother and grandmother in the country must have had a copy of the single, which reportedly sold over a million records. He really did have a great singing voice to go along with his mastery of comedy.
Moe,
Dextra Dove was a gelding – his story here, where we talked about this video. Great that someone has found it and made it available to us.
AP
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Based on his past history, probably no more than four or five runs. The nearest equivalent to CH was Caracciola, bought off the flat from Germany, he started out over hurdles for Henderson as a 5-y-old.For the next four years he was kept to just NH races, becoming a regular in the run of high value 2M handicap hurdles at Newbury, Cheltenham, Ayr and Haydock in the period from Feb – May. Then when he was a 10-y-old, after running in most of those races, he was sent flat racing. That year he finished second in the Ascot Stakes and second in the Cesarewitch.
The key difference was that he’d never fallen and he continued to mix flat and hurdling. On the flat he won the Cesarewitch as an 11-y-old and the Queen Alexandra as a 12-y-old. The last race of his career was the Goodwood Cup as a 13-y-old! So we might see CH for a few years yet.
Henderson also won the Cesarewitch with two other older horses, Landing Light and Buzz, both primarily hurdlers. And all three of those Ces winners ran almost always at 2M over hurdles, but handled the longer trip on the flat.
Given the sponsors decision and the location of their HQ, why not:
The Barking Mad Cup Handicap Hurdle.
The runner-up from last weeks main event, Square Necker, has been rewarded with a UK handicap mark of 85. That would suggest a mark in the high 90s for CH, although he won’t get an official mark until after he runs again on the flat.
“What a double that’d be … Champion Hurdle and Ascot Gold Cup! Has it even been achieved before? ”
Yes, sort of.
Royal Gait was first past the post in the Gold Cup, but was controversially disqualified. And he won the Champion Hurdle four years later, when he was controversially allowed to keep the race after a stewards enquiry.
Sectional times for last night show CH ran the last 3F in 35.01s – pretty good and much too quick for the opposition he faced.
Southwell have a 0-95 1M 4F handicap run on New Years Day. This year it was won by, coincidentally, the 9-y-old Enemy. He ran the final 3F in 34.8s.
And for reasons I can’t remember (or never knew), Southwell staged the Winter Derby last year, run over 1M 3F – the race is run today at Lingfield. At Southwell, the winner, Royal Champion and the runner-up, Military Academy, both ran the final 3F in 34.7s.
I’m reminded of a remark made to me more than 40 years ago, by my first trainer, Mr David Elsworth – “They all look good running past trees Alan”. And the horses that were expected to provide the main opposition to CH last night, might have made trees look quick. The runner-up appeared in the paddock to be a malnourished pony and the Mullins entry showed all the athletic ability of a one paced giraffe.
It was great fun to watch and enjoy, but let’s not get carried away – Group 1 races are out of reach.
“we must remember that nobody cares about their horses more than Henderson.”
They’re not ‘his horses’, they all belong to an owner that has employed Henderson to train them.
Beating their crowd record seems very unlikely. They had 9,030 there for the Sunday afternoon meeting in August 2024.
No sweat – he got in as the 12th in the priority list.
Interesting to note that the Nicholls runner, Nardaran, was only declared at 9:59 when it was clear that his presence in the race wouldn’t eliminate CH.
CAS,
“but the low sun issue rules it out, unless the race was run at something like 1pm.”
Or perhaps it could be run at 3:30. I’ve just checked the official sunset time for Boxing Day and it’s 3:58. And if you watch the 3:25 race from the meeting in December, it looks to me as if the sun is a) very low (obviously) but also b) more behind the stands. So at least what you can see during this bumper is that the hurdle course and quite a stretch beyond are in shadow, even though it’s clear on the home turn that the sun is still shining.
Certainly that late in the afternoon, the sun is at an angle that shouldn’t affect the chase runners. But they did take hurdles out in the race timed at 1:05, so 1pm probably wouldn’t be guaranteed safe.
All hypothetical and I’d vote for Sandown anyway – and I’d move the race to the first Saturday in January so that public transport would be available. Sandown could never cope with 15k+ if they all arrived by car.
Racecourse stable limits will only become an issue if the divided race gets 24 declared and splits into two 12 runner races.
At that point,there are provisions within the rules that can be employed if necessary to get CH into his race.
Firstly:
The BHA shall reassess Field Size Limits and adjust them if necessary:
after Closing, or after Confirmation of Entries for Early Closers; and
after the deadline for Declarations to Run.
Secondly:
A series of clauses that define which races will have runners eliminated, with the BHA setting a priority order. And also a clause that states divided races will be the first to have runners removed.
Plenty enough loopholes available if needed. And the CH race has already been given the number one spot in the priority order, so it will be the last race to have runners removed because of stable limits.
I’d be almost certain that Secret Squirrel was only entered as a fall back in case Wincanton was called off.
As for the rest, there are several that have zero chance of collecting any prize money, so the £40k shouldn’t influence their decision. For example, Tide Lines is a 5-y-old mare that would be making her racecourse debut. She clearly isn’t going to be competitive, so why run her in a maximum field containing 80+ rated opponents?
Experience says that the usual take up at the final decs stage is around 50% of those entered. I agree that might be higher here because of the prize money. And some of those almost certain to be eliminated may declare to get a refund of their entry fee.
I stand to be proved wrong. nobody gets these things right 100% of the time, but I’ll predict that CH will end up as No 12 on the racecard.
Ludicrous over reaction by the Post. I’ve been doing this stuff, entries and working out what’s going to run and how many, for about 25 years. He will get into the field of 14, 99.9% guaranteed.
