With more than a week to go until the next primary event, the York Ebor meeting, now is possibly a good time to focus a little on quantity over quality, writes Tony Stafford. For Iain Jardine, whose week struck a tragic note with the death of his barn manager John McPherson, 54, who he discovered on Thursday morning after dying in his sleep, it ended on a much happier note.
Jardine’s backyard runners covered around 70 miles along the west coast of Scotland, from the Borders to Ayr, and recorded four consecutive winners. The least unexpected thing is the prizes and the fact that there were 3 close photography finals.
Jardine started with 7/2 a header from Parisiac; followed by the only transparent scorer, the underdog 16/1 Can’t Stop Now; with Giselles Issy (12/1) completing the hat-trick with cleavage. The quadruple time, which amounted to 5. 468/1, ended by some other head until 9/2 Jonny Concrete. It is an achievement that will in fact be set in stone. .
That brought Jardine to 40 wins on the season, more than two-thirds shy of his career-high 58 in a still-rising career that only began in 2011.
Jardine wasn’t the only quadruple on Saturday, however, in the case of championship leader Oisin Murphy, his foursome at Newmarket illustrated why he is all about winning the fourth title of his career.
Winners do not count towards jockeys’ names until May 4, the start of the Guinea assembly at Newmarket. In 98 days, Oisin has already exceeded one hundred (101) and can add (but no one cares) four6 registered in the first four months of the campaign.
This puts him just 122 numbers shy of Gordon Richards’ (later Sir) record set in 1947, when the game had barely been born after World War II and Richards had dutiful holders under the old birth gate. They made sure Gordon was ready!
Unlike Gordon’s time, access to racing was facilitated via road and, for more productive kids, through small planes or helicopters to get home temporarily and safely from the likes of Ryan Moore, William Buick, and certainly Murphy.
At the same time, the resolution that ended doubleheaders may have reduced the chances of accumulating victories in the summer, when pelotons tend to thin.
That’s all well and good, but instead of staying to take advantage of all-weather opportunities after November 4, when the flat season ends in Doncaster, the named trio will head far and wide in search of the riches that can be obtained in that country. . This is in contrast to the United Kingdom, where racing is in the hands of bookmakers and racecourses, whose suffocating effect has been evident through a new Levy deficit and the missing millions in media rights bills that never arrive. to a career scholarship.
But I wonder. Those riches will still be available after the start of the year for Murphy, who is already banking on a fourth name to pass with the 3 he racked up between 2019 and 2021 before he was banned. He is 36 years ahead of Rossa Ryan, who also continues to thrive despite breaking the poisoned chalice last year and remains a driving force for Amo Racing. Perhaps David Egan and his calm personality could be the former holders of this position.
No, I’d like Oisin to stay for the winter. There has not been a Triple Crown winner in the United Kingdom since Nijinsky in 1970. How nice it would be for Oisin to surpass Sir Gordon’s 269 and break a record set the year after I was born. Damn, when you think about it, that’s it!
So let’s just say he stays, taking only 4 days off for the Breeders’ Cup and one or two more for exhibitions like the Irish Champions Weekend. Then it would be enough for him to maintain the current rate of progress to get the 123 wins he needs.
Someone would have to step in to sponsor him – possibly a bookmaker like Fred Done (Betfred) or Bet Victor – and make him known with a daily update on his progress towards that record that has seemed like most of the time since Lester Piggott was the by Richards. successor.
Racing in South Africa may have been considered a secluded place for a long time, however, efforts to rebuild it and the lifting of the ban on bringing horses from South Africa to Europe have given a major boost to the season that ended last month. . Formation
I keep in touch by checking the much-loved quintuple weekly newsletter Turf Talk and was able to tell William Knight before his horse Holkham Bay won at Ascot on Saturday that his South African jockey Rachel Venniker was very talented.
Over the last few months, until the end of the season, Turf Talk had a Richard Fourie barometer as the leading jockey approached and then galloped past the record high of 335 wins in a season on June 8 late last month .
Looking at his stats on the At the Races website, Oisin Murphy’s strike rate is almost vulgar. Fourie in the last 12 months has won 276 races on turf and 106 on all-season surfaces, a total of 382 – 115 more than Gordon’s best result. .
I don’t know why no one thought to recruit Richard to stay here. He wouldn’t be the first South African runner to achieve success, Michael (Muis) Roberts earned our name in 1992 and is now a master of success in his country. I’ve told this story before, but Roberts and I shared flights to, I think, three runways in one day.
When he got off the small plane for Leicester, he was nimbly delivered. When I followed him, Neil, the driver was already moving and the rear wing knocked me down with a forehand. The blue there as evidence of some smart days!
Returning to Fourie, he will most likely go with some other South African to check his skills in Hong Kong.
The word plus ça change, plus los angeles meme chose [roughly, “the more things change, the more they stay the same”] doesn’t seem to apply to life in the mid-2020s. Entrenched concepts of custom and respect seem to have disappeared in the United Kingdom, and last week’s riots in Los Angeles surprised those who had hoped for something more likely to ruin the Paris Olympics.
However, they got along very well and the crowd showed that there was room for patriotism without it leading to violence.
For the regulars at the Newmarket Owners’ Show, last Saturday was a very sad moment and one in which the replacement will not be the same one chosen, but very different. We (I have many friends who get me owner badges) who attended were amazed by the ultra-professional Lynda Burton as she runs the dining room with welcoming efficiency, never seeming slower than a brisk gallop as she deals with the inevitable problems that arise.
In a time when restaurant staff can be on both ends of the appropriate spectrum, she has amassed some wonderful colleagues. So it came as a surprise when I was informed that due to an “inconvenience,” as she described it, Lynda had to resign immediately. .
I’ve known her for 15 years, when she was director of the Goodwood Chamber of Owners, before she moved to Newmarket. It hasn’t been easy to travel from her home in the West Country and now, with a grandson and her retired husband, Lynda is reserving her abundant energies to be closer to home.
Judging by the bouquets and other examples of gratitude for the efforts of years past, I am obviously not the only one who regrets his departure. Possibly his shoes would not be easy to fill. Good luck in Newmarket!
At Goodwood I had a lovely meeting with a friend who, some twenty years ago, asked me if I could introduce him to Sir Henry Cecil. Gerhard Schoeningh, a London-based German who worked in finance, wanted to ask Henry if he would be willing to exercise his purebred horses, most of which stayed.
Among the most productive ones he sent to the grandmaster were Brisk Breeze and Templestern, but he says that when Henry died he was unable to find another suitable master for him. Instead, he bought a racecourse, Hoppegarten in Berlin, and over time he stepped up and lovingly restored it.
I asked him how it went. He said: “It’s getting bigger every year. This year, I hope we break even!
Yesterday he organized his most valuable and vital race: the delivery of 100,000 euros to the winner of the 134th edition of the Grosser Preis von Berlin (Group 1). At that time she is still looking for more registrants for the race and her negotiations. with Joseph O’Brien he paid off with Al Riffa, the perfect runner-up to City Of Troy in the Coral-Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park last month, lining up on top.
Ridden by Dylan Browne McMonagle, Al Riffa was the 3/5 favorite and won by five lengths. Gerhart asked me to come in October or next spring. I’ve never been to Germany, but you know, I might settle for it.
-TS