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The ‘story’ is that they were trying to scratch the two horses from the Dante. But the initial entry stage for the Dante was today, with entries closing at midday.
So prior to midday, there was no entry to scratch, If they wanted to remove those names from the Dante, they needed to just cancel the entries, which could be done at any time up to midday.
On the Racing Admin system, cancel and scratch are two different functions. If they entered an instruction to scratch the horses with those names, that probably took effect on the 2000 Gns, as that would be the only race they had been entered for which was ‘Open for scratching’.
So not ‘the computer went bananas’, more a misunderstanding of the system.
Seems the handicapper has got caught up in all the hype about the Ebor and the Melbourne Cup.
The runner-up at Southwell was giving CH 5lbs and is now rated 85, so that’s a 95 performance at best by CH.
The runner-up at Kempton was at level weights (bar a 1lb weight for age allowance) and he’s also been given a mark of 85. Even allowing for CH having a fair bit in hand there, I couldn’t rate that higher than 95 either.
The John Porter is currently scheduled to be the first race on the card, off at 1:25. I can see that being changed when Newbury get the scent of a bigger than usual crowd!
Running a horse called Albert Einstein again and expecting a different result may be optimistic.
First thing to say is there’s no possibility of a passport being at the start – how would it get there and who’d be holding it. I’ve owned enough horses and attended enough races to know that passport is only produced in the stables during the pre-race identity and medical check.
I’ve also seen enough horses withdrawn at the start after being checked by the vet, to believe that the standard procedure is for the withdrawn horse to wait behind the stalls until the race has been started. And that the course would provide transport to the start for stable staff if the horse needs to led back with no jockey – this would be requested by the starter over the radio. The jockey would then be driven back to the stands.
This isn’t a common event and I’d hazard a guess that Billy The Kid has never been in this situation before. The vets assume he knows what he’s supposed to do without being told, he assumes he can ride the horse back as he’s only trotting, not going racing pace, the same as he would do with a horse that had failed to go into the stalls. A classic case of ‘what we have here is a failure to communicate’.
The stewards report gives no detail of what rule they say he has broken, which doesn’t help.
Just to add I’ve had this happen with a horse I owned. He unseated the jockey as they went onto the course, did a circuit of Chelmsford at a canter, and pulled up back at the gate where the jockey and stable staff were waiting for him. The racecourse vet refused to let the jockey remount and ruled the horse a non runner. The horse was fine, had used no more energy than you’d use getting to the mile start at Newmarket. By the time you add up the entry fee, transport, staff overtime, jockey fee (which still had to be paid in full), that cost me the best part of £500 to not get a run. So it’s no wonder connections get a bit irritated when this happens.
There was a more famous example, when Coneygree was withdrawn by the vet at Plumpton before his intended debut over fences. The vet insisted the horse was lame. Four months later he won the Gold Cup.
They should rename this as ‘Eight Equines In Need Of A Handicap Mark Novice Stakes’.
CH is going to win by a wide margin, because none of the others will want to get within hailing distance at the finish.
The rules on getting a handicap mark and how that is different depending on the type of race and the actual rating allocated get more complex by the year. Here’s the latest version, updated by the BHA quite recently:
https://rules.britishhorseracing.com/#!/book/34/chapter/s3535-weights-and-handicapping-code
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
,
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.
