My horse betting farce

Somebody up there doesn’t like me much at the moment. The bank insists that two cash machines which failed to deliver me £400 actually did and is charging me accordingly; Mrs Oakley’s entire cooking range has to be expensively renewed because no one will replace a cracked induction hob; and when our sewage pipe blocked the other evening I couldn’t contact the drain company because the village’s telecoms chose that hour to go offline.

‘Those who don’t change their minds get stuck in a rut. You have to be open-minded in this game’

So it continued at Newmarket last Saturday. On a visit to Ralph Beckett’s Kimpton Down yard three days before the Arc, which he won with Bluestocking, I had never seen so many beautifully bred horses bursting with health. I was much taken by Stanhope Gardens, a chestnut colt by Ghaiyyath.

On Saturday, Ralph’s Starzintheireyes had won the race before, the Group 3 Zetland Stakes, under a skilful ride from Rossa Ryan wearing a plaster covering four stitches on his cheekbone. The horse owed his jockey that one: it was Starzintheireyes who had headbutted him on the gallops. In the Group 3 Emirates Autumn Stakes I therefore doubled my stake on Stanhope Gardens against the Aidan O’Brien-trained favourite Delacroix. After a battle through the last two furlongs, he and Rossa went down a neck with Delacroix, ridden by Ryan Moore, enjoying the advantage of the rail.

The Newmarket autumn trials for two-year-olds tend to become battles between the two great racing empires of Coolmore and Godolphin. In the Group 1 Darley Dewhurst Stakes for Godolphin Charlie Appleby sent out Shadow of Light and Ancient Truth while Aidan O’Brien fielded Expanded and Rock of Cashel for Coolmore. Looking for value, I went for a 1-2 Exacta with the Godolphin horses. Needless to say, that was undone as Expanded, in a finish of two necks, just split the Newmarket-trained pair, with Ancient Truth coming third.

I had been reluctant to back Shadow of Light to win the seven-furlong Dewhurst. This was because, two weeks before, when the speedy Lope de Vega colt had won the six-furlong Juddmonte Middle Park Stakes, Charlie declared that the horse’s future lay in sprinting, nominating not the one-mile 2000 Guineas as his target next season but the six-furlong Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot. So well had Shadow of Light done after the Middle Park, however, that he had persuaded the Godolphin management to stump up the £35,000 supplementary fee to run in the Dewhurst.

It is an ancient truth that a wise man changes his mind, but a fool never will. Said Charlie: ‘Those who don’t change their minds… get stuck in a rut. You have to be open-minded in this game. We don’t know what we’re going to wake up to in the morning, so when they’re fit and well, run them.’ What was so deeply impressive was the way Shadow of Light battled to win the Dewhurst under William Buick. Because the small field split, he had to run on his own. As Buick explained afterwards, stepping up in distance on soft ground, Shadow of Light could have burned out if shown daylight too soon, but the rival he followed was cooked early on. Then ‘he was running on his own doing fine, but once he got a sniff of the competition he found another gear’. In effect he’d won two races. Few two-year-olds are tough enough to do that. Now Buick and Appleby are agreed that Shadow of Light will have to take his chance in the 2000 Guineas. If he doesn’t stay a mile, there’s always Plan A.

Punting highlight was the 24-runner Cesarewitch Handicap over two miles plus. I invested at 8-1 on Ed and Simon Crisford’s Manxman, ridden by the 3lb-claimer Sean D. Bowen. As Manxman’s colours streaked past the post on the far side, I screamed him home. Redemption at last. Unfortunately for me the race had indeed been won by a nose by an Irish 3lb-claimer, but it was Jamie Powell on Alphonse Le Grande who, coming up the nearside, had scored for trainer Cathy O’Leary. I congratulated him on his first winner in Britain but he won’t now remember it with much pleasure. Soon after, we learned that young Jamie faced disqualification by the British Horseracing Authority’s Whip Review Committee for using his whip ten times, four times more than permitted.

At the committee’s meeting on Tuesday, Alphonse Le Grande was duly disqualified and Jamie suspended for 28 days. Alphonse Le Grande’s owners, the Bet Small Win Big syndicate, lost the £71,000 first prize, but because the rules say that bets are settled at the point when riders weigh in, they still collected their winnings. Those of us who backed Manxman, now recorded as the official winner, still lost our money.

It really is a nonsense. Never mind my personal run of luck: would a spectator enjoying his first day’s punting at Newmarket last Saturday ever be inclined to go again? If it happened in the Derby there would be a riot. Technology has moved on and racing officialdom must find a way of sorting these things on the day.