FEBRUARY 2024
Suspicion landing the Novice Stakes at Kempton
By Harry Herbert
Winter we hope is nearly behind us and with our daffodils at Broadspear getting into full bloom that can only mean that the flat season is just around the corner. Stable visits are well under way and at the time of writing I have just got back from Richard Hannon’s Herridge yard where the mood is as optimistic as ever! Under a cloudless sky (yes really!) Western, Delicacy and Kabili thundered past looking in great form. Kabili is one of our more forward two year olds by the exciting young sire Too Darn Hot and she might well be an April or early May starter.
Other early looking two year olds include Bountiful, a lovely looking and very racy daughter of top sire Zoustar in training with George Boughey. My team were raving about her on their return form Newmarket this week which didn’t surprise me as George himself has been full of praise for her also! She has a lovely pedigree and is finding it all very easy so far. She looks sharp enough to be running in April and George is considering aiming her at the same race at Newmarket that Soprano won last year. We do have a share available in her so do take a close look as I think that she will give you an enormous amount of fun this season and she could well be one for the Royal Meeting. With her looks and pedigree she will always make a valuable broodmare and if fillies like this can gain black type then they are worth a fortune with both Northern and Southern Hemisphere appeal. Do let us know soonest if you are interested!
We are seriously excited about the season ahead . Our HTR team of horses look ready to make their mark so fingers and toes are well and truly crossed that they meet our high expectations!
With my best wishes,
Harry Herbert, Chairman
Horse in Focus
Bountiful (GB) (2YO Ch f Zoustar x Rich Legacy)
Bountiful (2yo ch f) - At George Boughey’s in February
Bountiful doing a piece of work on Warren Hill (February 2024)
A testamonial from trainer George Boughey on Bountiful (January 2024)
We do have a share available at only £10,750 (plus VAT) dont miss out!
On The Track
By Frances de Haan
Despite the weatherman’s best efforts to dampen our spirits, the sun has ‘metaphorically shone’ on our National Hunt horses, who have had a glorious month. Victories from Beau Balko and Mojo Ego have brought our tally up to 6 winners from 8 individual runners!
Beau Balko kicked the month off with a fantastic performance in the Never Ordinary At bet365 Handicap Chase (0-125) over 2m at Musselburgh under a superb ride from Harry Cobden. Beau was the second of three winners on the card at Musselburgh for Paul Nicholls, for whom it was a first visit to the racecourse. Paul mentioned he had never seen Beau Balko looking so well and was confident of a good run. Beau Balko was clearly feeling good too because when the tape went up he took a keen hold, Harry managed to settle him midfield and he jumped like a stag clearing the fences like a true professional. It was an excellent piece of placement by Paul - to win a valuable prize on a Premier Race Day in front of a big crowd. Now with an official rating of 127, Paul is confident he will continue on this upward trajectory.
Mojo Ego put in a thrilling performance under Daryl Jacobs at Kelso in the Bet365 Juvenile Hurdle (Qualifier) to come home an impressive four and half lengths in front despite carrying a penalty.
Mojo may be small, but he is certainly mighty, and he put his whole heart into that race. Daryl gave him a textbook ride, keeping him relaxed tucked in behind the leaders and out of the heavier going of the inside rail. As Harry has been indicating, this horse clearly loves his jumping and he has really improved on each outing. Kelso was a prime example where he jumped cleanly over course and distance and Daryl left enough in the tank for Mojo to cruise through into contention and take up the running the closing stages.
A top-class effort from both horse and rider, and a special mention to Harry Derham for placing him so well at a premier race meeting, it was certainly worth the trip to Kelso! Mojo gave a genuine performance and there is no doubt, once the ground dries out, that there will be an exciting Spring ahead of him.
Mojo Ego winning at Kelso
Horacio Apple’s Bangor 2023
Horacio Apple’s put in a herculean effort carrying top weight of nearly 12 stone in tough going to come third out of a field of seven. In fact, only 3 finished in his race (all the others pulled up), which shows how tough it was in the rain softened ground. Horacio looked in tip top condition and rightly got awarded the best turned out in the paddock.
Jockey Toby Wynne reported that Horacio felt good and jumped well, but occasionally over jumped which could have been costly in the energy sapping conditions. Horacio is a tough horse to have got round and finished carrying such a weight in attrition conditions, having been dropped 2lb’s to a rating of 110 he will no doubt benefit from running in slightly drier conditions next time out.
Back on the flat it has been a thrilling month with wins on both sides of the hemisphere. Redstone Well was given a fabulous ride by James McDonald to claim the prize in the BM88 Hcp over 1600m at Randwick in Australia. Redstone put in a gritty performance as the field of 15 set of at a decent tempo, but he is a tough horse and maintained the pace and James ensured they had the edge to cruise through and hit the line in front. This horse has shown he can be competitive at every level having shown improvement with every run.
Redstone Well winning in the BM88 Hcp over 1600m at Randwick
Suspicion rounded up the month with a decisive victory in a mile novice at Kempton. Oisin Murphy gave him a lovely ride, following his race plan to the T, settling in fourth on the outside of the favourite Condor Pasa. Oisin asked for more in the home straight and Suspicion responded with a quick turn of foot, battling it out with the Charlie Appleby trained Creative Story in the closing stages. Suspicion prevailed to take the win by ¾ length galloping on strongly all the way to the line. Oisin was full of praise for the colt and Ollie could not have been more delighted having been third on debut and now first in only two outings. Patience most definitely paid off for Suspicion and there are clearly exciting times ahead for this colt!
Tuneful hit a good note in Wolverhampton putting in a pleasing performance to come second in the Best Racing Odds Guaranteed At Betmgm Handicap. The talented young jockey Billy Loughnane took the ride and reported that the filly was very professional both in the paddock and loading into the stalls, reserving her energy for the job at hand. A wide path round the home bend meant the eventual winner Dream Selection, from the Tom Dascombe yard, gained valuable lengths. Billy and Tuneful stayed on well to hit the line in second, only one length behind Dream Selection.
A career best for Tuneful, who certainly looks capable of winning a similar contest and may well get further over time.
Tuneful Warren Hill (March 2024)
Visits
by Frances de Haan
February, although a short (and soggy) month, did hold our first owners visit to Newmarket of the year and we were fortunate to be bathed in glorious sunshine, a rare sight to behold! I would say factor fifty was needed, but there was still a fair chill in the air. Despite this the horses had clearly taken a step forward in both physique and action in the few weeks since we had seen them. The two year olds are fully embedded in their training routines and it was exciting to see that some of the three year olds had returned from their breaks and were back under the saddle. Being able to see all of your horses in the flesh was wonderful, as much as our videos can help tide over the gaps between your visits there really is nothing else like hearing and seeing your horses in real life (or IRL apparently for those that dabble in WhatsApp lingo).
As well as Newmarket excursions, team Dan Skelton also had a visit earlier this month. Emily popped up to Warwickshire and reports that it was a good turnout for the Skelton contingent to see Mount Tempest (Monty) and Valgrand. The ever anticipated return to the track for Valgrand can now be smelt in the air, hopefully like Spring and some warmer (and crucially dryer) weather…
Now March is upon us we there will be lots more visits to come and we look forward to catching up with you all over the coming weeks!
Where Are They Now?
by Frances de Haan
Some wonderful news for Hebrides who we recently retired from the track after William Haggas voiced concerns that he was not likely going to be able to withstand the step up in training.
Fortunately he has already been rehomed to an equine physio based in Lincolnshire who also teaches physiotherapy so he will be used as a low level riding horse and for teaching. Some might say the ideal retirement for such well loved horse!
We will keep you updated with how he settles into his new home!
Clodagh’s recipe
by Clodagh McKenna Herbert
THE DAHL DEAL!
‘A delicious bowl of sunshine ☀️ Chickpea & Lentil Dahl from my latest book In Minutes’
INGREDIENTS:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 green chilli, chopped
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
3 garlic cloves, peeled and grated
2cm piece of ginger, peeled and grated
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon mild curry powder
2 plum tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon
METHOD:
1. Heat the oil in a large casserole dish over a medium heat. Add the chopped chilli, garlic and ginger and sauté for one minute until fragrant. Add all the spices and fry for another 30 seconds.
2. Add the chopped tomatoes, salt, coconut milk, chickpeas and lentils and simmer rapidly for 7-8 minutes.
3. Using the back of a wooden spoon crush about a quarter of the dahl against the side of the pan to break down some of the chickpeas and lentils. This will thicken the sauce.
4. Throw in the baby spinach and stir through until wilted. Season to taste, scatter over the coriander and serve.
SUBSTITUTES FOR CHICKPEAS AND LENTILS
Any mix of tinned red kidney beans, borlotti beans, or cannellini beans work as a substitute for either the chickpeas or lentils.
Rolf’s Rambling’s
By Rolf Johnson
Fortunately, the apple that fell on Isaac Newton’s head was not a Bramley. Not many of them in a pound; it could have concussed the seventeenth century genius and we might never have known the secret of gravity. Instead, it was a bite-size ‘Flower of Kent’ which struck (allegedly) prompting Newton’s discovery. You have to wonder though which variety (an asteroid?) beaned a prominent racing writer lately, prompting his tirade denying the status of genius to Willie Mullins?
If, as in this apostate scribe’s case, you can’t define what genius is, how are you going to convince us what it isn’t? In what category would he put two sixteen-year-old prodigies in the news, one a darts champion the other a young lady who has accumulated 34 O Levels and is sitting 14 A levels?
The title ‘genius’ invariably arouses pundits to purple prose - nothing heinous about that especially if it spreads interest in the sport (let’s leave evil ‘geniuses’ out of it). But Private Eye’s Pseuds Corner is a sin bin for pretentious wordsmiths wallowing in maudlin excessburying facts under compost heaps of hyperbole. (That’s my bid for entry…).
Denying Willie Mullins the accolade as an opinion while not categorically wrong is definitely self-indulgent, because of the absence of definition. In the ongoing abuse of the English language the word genius is sprayed indiscriminately. But signing off the outstanding trainer of his age as a very good operator (indeed) is surely faint praise. The racing scribe denied training racehorses “requires…some kind of high-functioning intellectual, or a mystic who sees things mere mortals can only dream of. Much of training racehorses simply comes down to a good education, experience, patience and planning.”
“Much”? How much? Is he saying you can choose to be a genius. Really? Is he just being provocative for the sake of it?
“The job is about hard work and dedication more than supposed strokes of genius”. Tell that to awestruck observers in the time of Lester Piggott and Vincent O’Brien. So Lester was the genius and Vincent O’Brien the ‘really good trainer’? Or was it the other way round and Lester merely a very good jockey?
On a Liverpool Methodist Church hoarding heralding, “What shall we do when the Lord comes?” was it a genius who scribbled: “Move St John to inside-right”: (that’s Ian St John a 1960s Liverpool football ‘god’). Had the addition been by Banksy there would be no debate - genius. Different ages would bestow the title on, Einstein, Ronnie O’Sullevan, Lionel Messi, George Best, Leonardo da Vinci, Morecambe and Wise, William Shakespeare.
Genius is neither infallible nor invulnerable. Nor are statistics the scaffolding of genius. Mullins training all the Grade 1 winners at the Leopardstown Festival has to be set in its context: a gallery of Vermeers, say, is in an entirely different area of appreciation. Were Mullins to repeat his Leopardstown heroics at Cheltenham, even beating his own record and turning out at least ten winners of the twenty-eight opportunities, in racing annals there would be no comparison.
Of all his deeds, so far, for me none surpasses his victory in the Nakayama Grand Jump in Japan in 2013 with Bluestairmountain (25-1). It is unique. At France’s Cheltenham, Auteuil after another big race success, I wondered why the switch to unfamiliar French hurdles was no bar to his horses. He’d surely schooled his runners intensively over the mini fences?
“Well I bought a set once,” he replied. “They’re parked outside the stable gates at home – the only time the horses see them is when they walk past.”
Sic transit Gloria mundi; so passes the glory of the world. The name of pioneering Martin Pipe is remembered but not nearly enough revered. He claimed Make A Stand from a minimus Leicester hurdle. A year after, November 1995, on the horse’s first run at Cheltenham, he was trounced in a handicap. Four months later Make A Stand, over the same course, routed his Champion Hurdle rivals, improving two and a half stone.
One can’t imagine that the ‘instructions’ ‘Pipey’ gave to his jockey (AP McCoy) as he went out for a 24-horse handicap hurdle at the 1997 Cheltenham Festival, “You’re on the biggest certainty that you will ever ride” said the trainer. That’s hardly Willie Mullins style. He has, in so many races at the Festival, has more than one ‘certainty’! The price to be paid you pay for such standards (genius), is subservience – not in his former biggest owner’s vocabulary and hetook his horses away. Mullins never looked back.
Despite fielding legions Mullins won’t have anything like the overwhelming numerical advantage at Cheltenham that he had at Leopardstown – though he has entered horses named from every letter down to O. If some top class entries hadn’t fallen by the wayside, he would have been close to the full alphabet. He’s had ante-post favourite in half the 28 races andcertainly wouldn’t be satiated were his State Man to overcome Constitution Hill for the hurdles championship: sixty years after Arkle’s first Gold Cup victory over Mill House, some (British) fans have only just got over the shock.
Intimate connection with ‘genius’ necessarily colours personal opinions such as this observer’s time with David Elsworth and Toby Balding. Back in 1984 Elzee took delivery of a twice tailed off shabby £500 filly, Melindra. He insisted he would win with her – and was as good as his word - the Wokingham at Royal Ascot. Not long before, in 1980, when Toby Balding received Canada’s broken down star sprinter Hopeful Answer. So fragile was the beast that Toby daren’t run him - on the flat. But he did train Hopeful Answer the next season to run sixteen times over fences and hurdles and fences, winning four of them. These are not every day occurrences.
Genius is a word the bashful, the overawed can relax with. The problem is there is no stereotype. Genius is found on the palette and not in any formula. It may be lost to neglect. Depressed Fred Archer shot himself; and a plethora of sportsmen squandered their talents, lost to oblivion before their time.
Our debunker wasn’t impressed by “cults of genius (which) don’t do the sport any favours either” persisting, “The job is about hard work and dedication much more than supposed strokes of genius…The ‘genius’ label also implies that Mullins is capable of producing outcomes with horses no-one else could manage. This is not true at all.”
Tell that to the defecting Ryanair boss. Tell that to those who trailed home behind the four thousand winners trained M C Pipe. And then to those likely to be wringing their hands, bookmakers included, if Mullins overwhelms Cheltenham. Or even if he doesn’t. Shakespeare had flops – Measure for Measure wasn’t an instant hit: Einstein got lucky, forever capsizing his boat when he couldn’t swim; Charles Darwin tried to eat a bird on the edge of extinction; Mozart’s contemporary critics said he used “too many notes”; Don Bradman got a golden duck in his last innings.
“Mullins leaves Cheltenham empty handed” – now that headline would be a miracle: and we know as much about them as we do about genius.
Taittinger Moment
Kevin and Cheryl Taylor
This month’s Taittinger Moment has been awarded to Kevin and Cheryl Taylor, who have won this on the merit of travelling the most miles to watch their horses run. From Wolverhampton on Friday night to a more glamorous Tonight in Fontainebleau!
Out and about with the Highclere camera
