Following record winnings at Fontwell will Rockerfeller emulate Beech Road?

Fontwell for their biggest meeting of the year, and the richest race ever run at the unique Sussex track. There was a good turnout on a cold day for a meeting which both 'family Sunday funsters' and racing aficionados could enjoy.
The winner's prize of £35k (yes £35k at lowly Fontwell) had attracted a decent quality field for the National Spirit Hurdle. The runners included Grumeti, winner of last season's Cesarewitch at Newmarket. It is wonderful to see a horse good enough to win the first half of the famous autumn double at the home of flat racing, come to humble Fontwell to compete in a hurdle race.
There was even a parade before the race.

I know the jockeys and trainers hate these but for the crowd in the grandstand it is great.
As it was poor old Grumeti was burdened by the Cox dollars, causing him no doubt to fade out disappointingly on the final circuit. That is not to take anything away from the winner, a rapidly improving handicapper Lil Rockerfeller, trained by the up and coming (but still underrated) Neil King. He won by a wide margin and will not be competing in handicaps for a while now.
I have quickly checked the Champion Hurdle entries and see that Lil Rockefeller is not entered so he will not be able to emulate the famous previous winner of the National Spirit, Beech Road, by going onto to lift the hurdle crown. That is unless the owners stump up £20k to supplement him. I guess they will not but they have a possible contender for next year on their hands.
Obviously all this money swilling around at Fontwell around has had wider impact - at least that's the only explanation I can think of for my sorrow drowning Guinness costing £5 a pint. Sad to record it was even poured all in one go.
I hung on to the end for the bumper just to see how the Di Grissell runner did, following the Brightling trainer's triumph at long odds in the flat race at Plumpton 13 days previously. My interest had been further piqued because the horse concerned, Nelson's Victory, has a twitter account which appeared on my timeline. Sadly it was no Battle of Trafalgar. Poor old Nelson's Victory Defeat was tailed off and will need to improve a great deal to warrant the erection of a column in his name. Still may be the runaway winner, King Uther, can emulate Cue Card and go on to win the Cheltenham bumper after a triumph at Fontwell?
29 February tomorrow - and a once every four years chance of an extra day's racing. Plumpton here I come.

Let's bring the Derby Roar to Hove

Wimbledon Dog Track will close this summer. Planning permission has been given to knock it down and replace it with a block of flats and a new football stadium (London does not have enough soccer grounds apparently).
In the wider population this will be greeted with an indifferent shrug, but for us greyhound fans it presents a real dilemma.
I had a part share in a dog (bitch) that did well enough to reach the semi-finals of the Greyhound Oaks some years ago. Kearney's Keep could have won the final with a bit of luck, but even back in 2000 when I went there to see her run (and win the first round at 33/1!) it was obvious that Wimbledon Stadium had atmosphere but was already unloved, neglected and something of a dump. Fifteen years later it is to be finally put out of its misery.
I regret this but it is hardly surprising. Wimbledon took over as the host of the Greyhound Derby after the even sadder demise of White City. It was felt at the time that the premier dog race had to stay in the capital.
With no tracks left in London after this summer that is no longer the case. Where should the Greyhound Derby move to now?
Belle Vue (Manchester) is favourite. There's the new northern powerhouse thing and it was the first dog track opened in England. Towcester wants to give it a go. They can accommodate the crowds and are in the middle of the country.
To me though the ideal site for the 2017 Greyhound Derby is Hove. It is a fair galloping track, the crowds are coming back, we have the road and rail links, there are hotels to stay in, everyone likes visiting the seaside and the facilities are pretty good.
Wouldn't this be great - Brighton and Hove Albion in the Premiership, Sussex County Cricket Club returning to Division1 of the County Championship, and Hove hosting the Greyhound Derby? You'd be able to hear the famous Derby roar from the top of the i360!

Lingfield is now an old friend

Lingfield Park racecourse is turning into an old friend, both the track and the horses which regularly run there.

When the all weather racing first started it was grudgingly welcomed for providing some action when the rain/frost in the winter months led to the abandonment of the jumps. In the early days there were even hurdle races staged on the plastic at Lingfield, until that was wisely stopped on the grounds of safety.

There were though always suspicions about the integrity of what went on in the early days. I heard many reports of a couple of senior jockeys deciding who would win each race at the start of the day in the weighing room. Gossip it may have been but there was the ring of truth about some of it. The advent of the betting exchange did mean that money could easily be made from actually stopping horses.

Complacency has to be avoided of course but I am confident that those dark days are over, and that the all-weather is now by and large clean. There is the odd incident of a horse running 'conservatively' shall we say, in order to protect or enhance its handicap mark, but no worse than what goes on over jumps or on the turf. The challenge for us punters is to spot when that happens.

Lingfield now races 2, 3 or sometimes 4 times a week throughout the winter. It provides opportunities for some of the lessor lights (trainers, jockeys and horses) to have their day in the (winter) sun, and it gives us fans the chance to get close to the action away from the concert night, family fun day, face painting for the kids, crowds. 

Just occasionally a really top class horse will run. Today we saw Ralph Becket's £200k purchase, Golden Chapter win the maiden fillies stakes.

She almost certainly will not run on the all-weather again. Indeed it is possible her next outing will be in the 1000 Guineas itself.
Just as impressive was the acceleration shown by the previously unraced Mukaabra, seen in the pic with his rider Andrea Atzeni (and yes Andrea is a bloke - it's an Italian thing I'm told). This Jim Tate trained horse will win some very good races this season.

But even better than that in some ways are the lower grade horses which can come back again and again. Just as the course has become an old friend, so these plodders do as well.

There was a great example today in the 4.20 Apprentice Handicap, worth £2.5k to the winner. To describe the runners as modest is to over praise them. The form read for six of the seven runners as follows-

• 'Poor'
• 'Very modest'
• 'Failed to trouble the judge in five outings'
• 'Record is 0-9 but is one of the more solid contenders (!)'
• 'Well beaten and doesn't look entirely solid'
• 'Five race maiden'.

The contest was won by the Gay Kellaway trained New Abbey Angel. He had started at 100/1 in his last race but had run okish. The problem was that his pedigree suggested he would not 'stay' the increased distance of 1mile 2furlong. As it was he lasted home well, and won going away under the jockey Lulu*, and giving the owners probably an even bigger thrill than Sheiki Hamdan gets when winning a classic.

Lingfield has well and truly won me over, even before this sunset.

*Lulu Stanford, a rather impressive young woman rider, whose parents I am guessing are either Scottish or fans of Eurovision, or both.

Triple 9 - Loud but may need subtitles

Going to the cinema in the afternoon is a - slightly guilty - pleasure.  There's always that feeling that you should be spending your time more productively, but being able to stretch out, put your coat on one side, your bag on the other and relax is far preferable to taking in the 'flicks' (as my mum used to call it) when they are busy.
It is something which it is possible to do on a regular basis as you get older - and that really is the only downside, illustrated by my problems this week with the well-reviewed gangster film, sorry, heist thriller Triple 9.
I do not mind a bit of violence in films (Pulp Fiction is after all one of my favourites), and bad language in this context is simply realistic, but there needs to be a good plot. The problem with Triple 9 for me, and this is why I have confess there may be an age issue, is that I found it very difficult to hear what the actors were saying. It was certainly loud enough but not clear enough. The story may have been excellent but I found it virtually impossible to follow it.
The Jewish Russian mafia were involved, a cop was being blackmailed, other cops were carrying out crimes, and there may have been one 'goodie' cop whose police chief uncle was a sort of goodie with problems (he certainly took drugs).
Spoiler alert - I think the goodie chap triumphed in the end, most of the the baddies (dirty cops and gangsters) got shot or blown up but it was not entirely a happy ending.
I did though learn that 999 in the USA is code for a police officer being shot, hence the film's title.
2/10 but that could increase if I watch it again with subtitles.

Lovejoy at 100/1 and a defective bus provide welcome distractions at Fontwell

Fontwell on Thursday for their first meeting of 2016. The ongoing monsoon rains had flooded out the first two fixtures of the year, so this was my chance to use my brand new Fontwell membership actually at Fontwell. Wearing the members badge even prompted one (admittedly well-refreshed) racegoer to ask me for a tip as "You look like you know what you are doing." Sadly I bottled it, looking quizzically at a nearby puddle and suggesting today was not the day for a bet.
The going was officially heavy but a more accurate description might have been gluey. The previous two dry days had allowed the course to race, but had made the track as testing as it could possibly be. Added to that the rails had been moved to find 'fresh' ground making each race longer than the official distance. One local expert even suggested that the 2 mile 5 furlong handicap chase, was really run over 3 miles. Any horse with the description 'slow plodder' in the form guide might finally have its day.
Venetia Williams drives very fast sports cars, but as a trainer specialises in training staying chasers which thrive in slow going. It's as if she drives a Ferrari but trains a fleet of Landrover Defenders. With this in mind a small investment on her Cloudy Beach, ridden by well-regarded young jockey Charlie Deutsch, yielded dividends in the second.
The other highlight was the novice hurdle, in which there was a real hotpot. Chef D'Oeuvre was sent off the 1/5 favourite (i.e bet £5 to win £1). The trainer, Warren Greatrex, places his horses really well (remember any of his that run at the Cheltenham festival next month will be worth a second look), and on all known form Chef D'oeuvre was set to win easily. By instinct I am not an odds on man, but there are times when a horse is so superior that the bet amounts to buying money. I was tempted but resisted because of the state of the going - this was a race to watch rather than punt on.
As it turned out the favourite prevailed, but not without a battle which would have caused some hearts to flutter amongst anyone who had gone large on the jolly. At one point it looked like Norman the Red, a 100/1 shot, might cause a shock; as it was he left all his previous dire form well behind and finished second.
The outsider was trained by Jamie Poulton. He's been training, mainly bad, horses around the south of England for years, and I noticed drives the horse box to the track himself. Some punters know him as 'Lovejoy'. Not due to any dodgy dealing but because he really does remind people of the Norfolk antique dealer popularised by the actor Ian McShane in the 1980's TV series. It's the outrageous mullet haircut, tight jeans and pointy shoes which does it.
Highlight of the day for me though was the journey back to Barnham Station on the complimentary bus. Owing to the rail replacement services operating to Littlehampton, there was obviously a shortage of coaches. Our conveyance was an old double decker, c.1972, with two doors downstairs, one near the driver and one in the middle for passengers to get off.
We set off from the course full to bursting, with the second door open. Someone suggested telling the driver, but the consensus amongst the passengers was that if we did that then the bus might be defected and we would have to walk home. It was like being driven along in one of those vans favoured by builders in the '70's, with sliding doors which they always kept open expect in mid-winter. The urge to shout "Ello darlin" at every woman we passed was resisted, but the fault did enable those of us near the door to perfect a flying dismount while the bus was still (just) moving, thereby getting on the platform with 5 seconds to spare to catch the 1708 back to Brighton.

Victoria Pendleton - brave, foolhardy or a bit of both?

I have been suckered in. I will be watching Olympic gold medal winning cyclist Victoria Pendleton riding in the 4.10 at Fakenham this afternoon. It's live on At the Races (Sky 415, Virgin 535) but more importantly from horse racing's point of view it will be covered by the mainstream broadcasters for their news and sports bulletins.
Pedleton is brave, maybe even foolhardy, because I am certain that an element of the interest is to see her make a hash of it. Riding in a steeplechase is a dangerous activity. Even the best jockeys fall off about 1 in every 13 rides, and it has to be the only profession where you are quite literally followed round by an ambulance as you go about your work.
Today's race is her first ride in a steeplechase under 'rules.' Her mount, Pacha Du Polder, is easily the best horse in the race - in cycling terms it is the equivalent of her riding a racing bike and all the other jockeys pedalling away on Raleigh Choppers. In short if she does not fall off she will win.
I hope it goes well but I fear it may end in tears. 

Fair play to the Romford Foghorn

As an aside on the racing front, I must confess that Lingfield surprises me. I expected to hate it, but the opportunity to attend for free (because of my new Fontwell membership) has got me to go there more often and I am beginning to actually like the place.
The home made 6 inch sausage roll tastes ok, the woman in the bar who serves the Guiness is lovely and the racing can be quite interesting.
That though is not why I am writing this shortish (please note KT) piece. No the reason is that I feel duty bound to record something positive about Barry Dennis. My regular reader knows that I have in the past expressed my reservations about the Romford Foghorn - a self-publicist who seems to take delight in abusing his customers. 
Dennis has two pitches at Lingfield, the second one operated on his behalf by former Hove Dogs bookie, Mark Green. They signal to each other all the time and their prices do not differ; I am sure there is some logic to it all. It's not that though which impressed me. 
Rather it's the fact that old and brash Barry Dennis is the only bookie I have seen who goes to the pre-parade ring before each race, taking notes on the fitness of each horse. Nearly all on course bookies now simply follow the exchanges. 
Fair play therefore to Barry, if I am interpreting his paddock observations correctly, for exercising his judgement, and giving us his opinion.