The Grand Steeplechase de Paris is one of the major steeplechases in the world; why can't I.T.V. televise the race live during their coverage of the Sunday Series meeting at Hamilton? National Hunt racing in Britain would be better-off if we could encourage more French trainers to run their horses over here. Taking a greater interest in French jumps racing might help that cause.
The Grande Course de Haies d'Auteuil was won yesterday by Losange Blue. Home By The Lee was on a non-going day and pulled-up. Apple Away finished sixth.
It is true, form is temporary, class is permanent, all the more so when the seemingly out-of-form trainer is blessed with having a stable choc-a-bloc with racehorses with the best pedigrees and the best gallops. Charlie Appleby always turns-up at the top meetings and yesterday's success in the Lockinge, bolstered by a clutch of lesser winners at Newmarket in the past few days, is the much needed sign that the guns will be blazing full-bore in the coming weeks. I have a fancy that King's Trail, if he runs at Epsom, is a fair outsider for the Derby at 50/1. He ran okay in the Dante, doing his best work at the finish and looking, at least to me, like a horse in need of 12-furlongs. I am not blown away by the Ballydoyle horses and the Derby is more open than it has been for many years. This could be the year for a shock winner of the Derby.
The victories of Notable Speech and Kalpana yesterday at Newbury is proof, if proof were needed, that it can pay to keep a Group 1 horse in training into their 5-year-old career. For the good of the sport and the breed, I hope this trend continues as what flat racing lacks is star racehorses that race beyond their 3-year-old seasons. The classic winner retired to stud at the end of its 3-year-old season is a horse lost to the sport, even if it becomes a gain for the breeding industry. The thoroughbred only becomes mature in its fifth-year; it is almost a criminal waste of talent for a Group 1 colt to be covering mares at 4 or 5 when its full potential as a racehorse was never known.
Desmond Morris died recently. He was 98. He is famous for his book 'The Naked Ape', though it is a pity one of his other books 'The Horsewatchers' never became acquired reading by those blessed by being able to look after horses of any kind, and especially racehorse trainers. Morris was not simply an academic with no hands-on knowledge of the sport he wrote about. To get closer to the horses he eventually wrote about, he owned a racehorse that won him races and finished fifth in the Triumph Hurdle.
The psychology of horses should be given greater study by trainers. I always wonder what makes a horse suddenly fall out of love with racing - the horse that behaves perfectly on the way to start only to plant himself when the tapes go up or the stalls open - the horse with plenty of talent but who declines to try on the racecourse. It might make for an interesting trial if all trainers were obliged to attend a seminar on the topic as a clause in their acceptance as a licence holder. As someone who has known cats for most of my life, I can attest that if you pay attention they can communicate with you. I am sure it is the same with horses. You cannot say that the human and the cat is a true partnership, though I think it can be said that the human and horse can be a true partnership.
It keeps being said, and, sadly, it must be true, that the French Derby is looked upon by those in the breeding industry as a better race than the Epsom Derby as a stallion maker. As I wrote yesterday, any 'Derby' run over a distance short of 12-furlongs is not a true Derby. When the historic distance of a Derby is altered, what is being said is that, in this instance, the French Derby is no longer compliant with what breeders require, and the said Derby should be abandoned and the race replace with a different race with a different distance, thereby reducing their number of classic races to 4 or 3, as France has done the same to their Oaks. It has been made clear down the centuries: Guineas are mile races; Derbys are 12-furlongs and St Legers 14-furlongs. Horse racing has become the boat that breeders row. It is the tail wagging the dog. It is money before sport.