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That was an eventful week Mickeyjip – wish I’d been there that day to see Alleged but was present the day before when Artaius messed up the script. Both The Minstrel and Blushing Groom had been retired to allow them to hastily get over to Kentucky to beat the import ban on the horizon due to an outbreak of equine herpes, hence the stage was set for the Eclipse winner to take over the mantel of the best colt in Europe. He failed but 24 hours later Alleged came to the rescue.
There is an episode of The Persuaders where Moore and Curtis are watching a race from the stands ( likely Pinewood Studios),then you see the finish of a race and it’s unmistakably Sea Bird quickening through to win his Arc in technicolor. And during the picture montage as the theme music plays at the start of each episode, you see a partial clip of what I’m certain is Sir Ivor’s 2,000 Guineas.
“Also very sad to see such a poor record for Derby winners racing on at 4. If they are top notch go straight to stud at the end of the season.”
Sadly true, and with Teenoso they got so lucky. The popular script at the time was that the Mollers were being sporting in keeping the colt in training but in reality towards the disappointing end of his three year old career they sounded out that he was up for sale but did not receive the offers anything near what they sought.
When they did finally retire him ( he’d beaten Sadler’s Wells in the KG and was fancied for the Arc but picked up an injury a day or so before), John Oaksey penned a piece in Horse And Hound praising the spirit of the Mollers for going against the trend in hastily retiring big race winners to stud.
The following spring Robert Sangster was interviewed ( think it was at the Newbury Greenham meeting) reflecting over the battle being lost to keep El Gran Senor in training at four, and was unhappy with how he was being portrayed. He actually called out the Oaksey article, dismissing it as being a load of tosh or words similar.
That Derby conjures up a queasy feel. Run in silence at an empty venue,a month later than most long term contenders had been aimed to peak at, and one yard having all pace angles covered by slotting in runners at the front, mid div,and to the rear, and altogether very unsatisfactory with the winner ending up with a fate once unimaginable for a winner of this race. Barely any room at the inn left for sons of Galileo starting their stud as dual purpose. When it comes to roll of honours lists the race should permanently have an asterisk next to it.
CAS,yes, nearly went under twice, under Bill Davies, then even when Lads got involved. Haydock and Donny were mooted as venues to take on the GN, and even Newmarket put in a cheeky expression of interest.
Have just had a quick search to satisfy myself that my mind wasen’t exagerating on how low the crowds really were up to the mid 80’s and found the opening of a behind the paywall Times article that reveals 6,293 attended on the Friday in 1984, which had already reached 21,303 in 1994, showing how successful their theme marketing was.
Could probably find a longer list if I went through old scrapbooks but just had to ensure myself that my memory wasen’t going off track.
I seem to recall Warwick being one of the first to jump on the ‘modern’ Ladies Day trend in the mid to late 80’s,on Warwick Oaks day. Historically the two Ladies Days that mattered were held on the Ascot Gold Cup and Prix de Diane days. After Warwick, Haydock jumped on the bandwagon on Lancashire Oaks day, but in name only as it never appeared to alter the make up of the crowd – always a big day with the Old Newton Cup, you’d watch the Eclipse on a telly in the bar, and keep an eye on the score in the Men’s Wimbledon Final which was still on the Saturday then. Up to the mid 80’s Aintree was still only pulling in 4,000 on the Thursday and 6,000 on the Friday.
No doubt a painstakingly researched and well articulated piece – but by God, how disturbing.
Happy feelgood factor days – just looked in an old scrap book and on the day of the race Hills posted their Ante – Post book. They stood five losers in it – Hardgreen – 37,000, Man Of Vision – 9,000, Lyphards Wish – 43,000, Noelino – 88,000, and their biggest loser of all Troy – 103,000.
Troy was also the headline selection in the previous Thursday’s Sporting Chronicle Handicap Book.Barney Curley was a big fan noting that he was the only animal churning up turf, so powerfully was he galloping.
I did not think Shahrastani was ever the same after he spreadeagled his field at the Curragh – am not suggesting for one minuite he’d have confirmed the Epsom form, but I did have a soft spot for him right from that in your face sack load of promise debut at Newbury. Also knew someone who regularly was in touch with Jimmy Scott and the yard were all over him throughout the winter (they also had some hyped up colt from the same crop called Danishgar who turned out to be very ordinary) – also got to see Shahrastani in the Dante but not the Brave. DB’s Eclipse was also stonewall solid form wise, with trusty yardsticks like Bedtime, Teleprompter and Triptych – I kept bumping into the latter and saw her beat Celestial Storm in the year the Champion was run on the July Course, then the following year on the Rowley when she beat Most Welcome, and in her three appearances in the B&H. Real feelgood factor around in the sport at that time.
The synthetic v dirt matter is covered in fair detail in the William Jones book ‘ The Black Horse Is Dying’, the follow up to his first book ‘The Black Horse Inside Coolmore’ which was removed from the shelves following court action / though it can be purchased direct from the author’s home address.
I was a little disappointed with the first book but ‘The Black Horse is Dying’ is an interesting read though a cross referenced index in the back would have been helpful.
Santa Anita, Del Mar and Keeneland all significantly improved the welfare aspect by switching to synthetic surfaces with the fatality rate reduced by up to 6x(Keeneland), but returned to traditional dirt with grim consequences after pressure from the most influential owner/breeders and trainers, due to the pure bred dirt horses losing their home surface advantage. Many behind the decision were members of the Breeders Cup Directors Board, which included representatives from Coolmore and Sheikh Mohammed’s Darley.
I don’t seem to recall these developments being discussed in depth by racing the press over here – though I bet the late Paul Haigh would have tucked into the subject with relish if he was still here.
The trend whereby the US tracks began changing from proper Dirt to the safer Tapeta, reversed back when they cottoned on that Tapeta did not bring out the optimum in the traditionally US bred dirt horses,thus would be risking making their own lines defunct against those progressed in Europe. The cost of course is increased fatalaties but nearly all of the big breeding conglomerates supported the reverse back to the traditional Dirt,so this fatality rate is likely to continue – in fact I believe the stats show that the fatality rate in US dirt racing is consistently higher than in UK & Irish National Hunt racing,so this was no blip in the comparisons you highlight.
I’m sure we were all familiar with the ‘Clerkwatch’ thread on the other forum. I seem to recall that the two main protagonists, Nick Davies (who posted under ‘ Zilzal’ – think he was from London or Home Counties), and a poster from Middlesbrough whose user name was ‘Jonjo’, both managed to secure a meeting with the BHB. Think they came away hopeful that progress would be made but it all came to a standstill and the thread went dead.
Am not sure if any legal threats were made but there were contributors who were sometimes letting their imaginations get carried away – as a result a pretty prominent owner ( may have been Michael Pescod ??? but don’t quote me on that) who was posting on the thread, pulled out. Richard Hoiles ( Ratpack) came on the thread during one Royal Ascot and warned a poster that he was libelling himself by accusing the course of heavily watering one side of the course overnight during the middle of the meeting to switch the draw bias.
I think the fact that in the few years since that thread ceased racing’s problems have intensified on many fronts, means that this issue is further away of being addressed than ever before.
When a midweek meeting was shown during the period the Rickman fronted team still ran the ITV racing show in the mid 70’s, they would actually show live betting shows from the ‘off’ meeting,followed by the result when it came through. All written on a stencil overlapping the screen. A bit rough and ready but much preferable to the syrupy ‘social stable’ they have as filler nowadays.
Leicester is a venue I sense would not be missed. Have been there once, November 1980, the meeting abandoned after the first race, a juvenile hurdle run in a snowstorm and won by the future Grand National runner up Mr Snugfit.If memory serves the stands sported badly painted blue panels.
Leaving aside the sadly unwanted (by those pulling the strings) option of returning to the Wednesday, I’d prefer an after 7pm time as a one off. The Grand Prix de Paris has now settled in at this sort of time and I’m assuming the Paris Muteuel turnover has not been affected negatively since the move. You’d also have a wave of viewers tuning into the race once the match finishes as the neutral footy viewers along with armchair fans of the losing team would not really want to view the tiresome walk up the steps.
