hyperbole: the racing journalist's friend.

​Noun. Deliberate, extravagant exaggeration, used for effect, as in, ‘I knew him … He hath borne me on his back a thousand times’. A line written by Edward de Vere in one of his Shakespeare plays.
Everyone uses hyperbole, even in everyday life and in casual conversation, most commonly, I would suggest, in the after-throes of sex, describing a goal that you witness live and your best friend did not or by politicians telling a big fat porky one.
Writers and journalists do it to. Hyperbole is a good friend to the writer in need of making a splash on the page. The Racing Post was guilty of hyperbole on Sunday’s front page – ‘Long Live the King. Derby ace Adayar emulates Galileo with stunning King George success’.
My initial reaction to Adayar at Epsom was positive; he was a good Derby winner and his stable-mate Hurricane Lane has twice boosted the form in winning both the Irish Derby and Grand Prix de Paris. And I was impressed with him on Saturday, though to achieve the accolade the Racing Post has bestowed on him he will have to continue to impress throughout this season and given my determination to downgrade any top three-year-old that does not stay in training, he will have to prove he has the ability to beat the next generation of classic horses, giving them weight, to have the crown of kingship placed against his name.
On Saturday, he received 11lb from Mishriff and beat quite comfortably by close to 2-lengths and received 8lb from the filly Love and beat her by 4-lengths. Broome didn’t run his race due to being slow leaving the stalls and having to be rushed up to lead and Lone Eagle was not in the same form as when only closed down in the last hundred yards of the Irish Derby, though time might prove that Adayar is 10-lengths superior to Hurricane Lane.
Time and future form-books are the only true conveyors of greatness. By the end of the season, it might be proved that Mishriff is far more accomplished at 10-furlongs and that Love returned home with either an injury or an infection brewing. And though the weight-for-age allowance is in place for an unarguable reason, it doesn’t always comply that a three-year-old is weaker or less experienced than an older horse and it certainly does not imply they are inferior in any way. Receiving the weight-for-age allowance, Nijinsky won the King George & Queen Elizabeth in a hack canter from the previous year’s Derby winner Blakeney and yet there is no amount of hindsight to allow anyone to claim that it was only the weight-for-allowance that allowed Nijinsky to win with his head in his chest. Blakeney has gone down in history as a good Derby winner but far from a great one. Nijinsky will always be remembered as a great horse, even if circumstances determined he had no four-year-old career to consolidate his acquired-by-hyperbole greatness.
As aspect of this flat season that is warming the cockles-of-my-heart is seeing flat jockeys exhibit for all to see the joy of victory. As it was with William Buick on Saturday, punching the air three times, his smile as broad as the winning margin, his eyes ablaze with achievement. Perhaps Adayar has a kind of magic about him that sets afire to his rider’s emotions. Adam Kirby allowed the world to see his surprise and joy at winning an Epsom Derby, as did his weighing-room colleagues who en-masse came out to demonstrate their affection and admiration of him. It must not become just theatre but I hope the flat jockeys follow suit when they win the big races. It shows the sport in a good light when truth of emotion is placed on display. There are too many tears in this sport, none of them of the crocodile variety, so bright beaming smiles makes for balance and true perspective.
Also, cockle-warming, at least to me, is that Godolphin are quickly bridging the gap between themselves and Coolmore and I hope, though we are not seeing him in person at the moment, Sheikh Mohammed is enjoying the season to the same extent as his stable jockey and trainer and that his sporting success is allowing him comfort from the travails of family and State.
I have no personal knowledge or connection to Charlie Appleby but he comes across as a good human being who is grounded and appreciative of the opportunity Godolphin presented to him. And he has opened-up Moulton Paddocks and allowed the public a glimpse of what is actually a happy working environment where the horse, seemingly, is treated as a horse and not a commodity to be pampered and wrapped in cotton wool. Well, that’s my interpretation of the glimpses of life that I witness there occasionally.
And for the whole set-up, I hope Adayar does live-up to the hyperbole of the Racing Post and its journalists. He is not, by a long chalk, a king yet, though he is a king in the making.