I’m back home again after my sojourn in France, and it feels a little strange to be honest. Hackney is a strongly contrasting environment from the small village in which I was residing and, whilst it’s lovely to be back in Geegeez Towers, I miss the braying donkey, and the stroppy
madame in the cafe…
In any case, my return was greeted by a ‘close but no cigar’ call in the Cesarewitch and, in today’s Monday Mish Mash, I’ve got a run down on the Newmarket racing from Saturday, and a look at what’s set to be a running debate: the introduction today of the new whip rules.
It’s all about the jocks today, so chocks away!
Firstly, let’s look back at the weekend’s racing from Newmarket, with a view to next year’s Classics, but before that, a quick review of the Ces.
I’d made a pretty robust case for a horse called Ermyn Lodge in my
Cesarewitch Preview piece at the end of last week. Those who followed me in were rewarded on the place part of the bet, as Ermyn Lodge battled bravely to beat 31 of his 32 rivals and finish second.
But the plaudits go to Frankie Dettori, a man I’ve lambasted a fair bit on here over the years, largely because he doesn’t always give a horse the benefit of all of his considerable talent. Saturday was one of those career defining victories, and bookended the week when he was lucky to win his 500th Group race, with a victory here that he had no right whatsoever to claim.
His mount, Never Can Tell, was drawn in the car park’s car park in 36 (which was actually the 33rd stall from the shortest course, due to non-runners, and the widest of all). If you think that makes no difference over two and a quarter miles, the stats disagree. And so does this image.
Frankie wins the Cesarewitch from an impossible position
It took Dettori two and a half furlongs to tack across to the far rail which was favoured and, using bad maths, and even worse Pythagorian theory, I estimate that to be the equivalent of 45 metres extra distance. Or, in horse lengths, about 22 lengths.
What’s more remarkable was that, once the field entered the interminable Newmarket home straight, Frankie was alone in deciding to race down the centre of the track.
We (I!) often criticise jockeys for a lack of bravery, especially in terms of choosing a furrow where they perceive the best ground to be, and this was brave bordering on foolhardy in such a big race, and as the only one of 34 riders so to do.
But he’s not the best for nothing and, on his day, Dettori is simply unplayable, to use parlance from other sports. This was a master class ride in every sense, and if we who had backed Ermyn Lodge were to be beaten, then we have to concede defeat in the most sporting of contexts. For me, this was probably the ride of the season.
It was simply brilliant. And Frankie knew it. You don’t see him do this when he wins Group 1′s, so to see him do it in a handicap (albeit a pretty good handicap) told you a lot about how chuffed the micro-Italian was with his efforts and those of his gallant Montjeu filly, Never Can Tell. Have you ever seen Frankie do this before:
A delighted Frankie Dettori punches the air after a truly brilliant ride on Never Can Tell wins the Cesarewitch
Formidable ride, Frankie. Well done mate.
And there was more credit to be distributed in the finishing positions of the Cesarewitch as, aside from our brave Ermyn Lodge, a three year old – Colour Vision – was just outbattled in the closing stages. Granted, Mark Johnston’s 20/1 shot was getting a fair whack of weight for age, but this was a great effort nonetheless.
And a further fine effort from the super tough and genuine victim of his own partial success, Mount Athos. Lugging top weight here – as is his penance for fine run in defeat after fine run in defeat – Marwan Koukash’s second frame placing (he had the winner as well) deserves a big race success.
So it was a great effort and we got a fine run for our money, but ultimately 9/2 the place is not nearly so good as 9/2 the place
and 18/1 for the win (returned 16/1). Onwards and downwards…
The more material races for the future were the juvenile ‘trials’, and it was an Irish jamboree as both the Middle Park and Dewhurst pots were snatched across the sea to the Emerald Isle. In fact, they also snaffled the Rockfel Stakes to boot!
First, it was Crusade who proved three-quarters of a length and more too good for his rivals in the Middle Park Stakes over six furlongs. It’s a race that typically produces a high class sprinter rather than a Classic contender, but that doesn’t normally stop the winning owner from trying to stretch the stamina beyond the implications of the form book.
Crusade was having his fourth run and was perhaps a typical winner of the race. In his previous three races, he’d been beaten twice at seven furlongs and won his other effort… over six furlongs. This is the Classic Trial for non-stayers!
In behind they were mostly reasonable to quite good sticks, but nothing in here is going to win a Group 1 next year beyond six furlongs (if at all) I wouldn’t have thought.
Onto the more meaningful Dewhurst Stakes, presumably named after ‘the master butcher’, a proper trial for the 2000 Guineas won by the likes of Frankel last term, and Teofilo, Sir Percy, and Rock of Gibraltar in recent times.
It had also been won by Jim Bolger in three of the previous five years. So quite why his Parish Hall was sent off at 20/1 is beyond me!!! I was playing football at the time and, naturally, hindsight is both a wonderful thing and affords full 20/20 vision.
I do hope that trainer pattern was spotted by some of you as JS Bolger had prevailed here with an ‘unfancied’ 20/1 shot as recently as 2008 (Intense Focus). He also had the 33/1 third, Glor Na Mara, behind Frankel last year.
OK, so it’s obvious looking back. But what about this chap’s future prospects?
Well, he won’t be winning six furlong races next term, that much is clear. His dad is the aforementioned Dewhurst winner, Teofilo, and his mum calls Montjeu ‘daddy’, so there’s a nice blend of middle distance blood there.
It looks as though he needs at least seven even now, and he might turn out to be a Classic contender next season, without having the pace to win a Guineas or necessarily the stamina to win a Derby. Saying that, he’d probably have a better chance in the Irish version of the latter race than the Epsom one.
He’s unlikely to feature on my ticket for either unless showing considerable progression in the Spring prep races (possible).
Nothing in behind is especially worthy of mention, with the runner-up – favourite, Power – looking all over a sprinter (might win the July Cup next year, you heard it here first!).
The third home, Most Improved, lived up to his name and looking at his pedigree (by Lawman out of a Linamix mare), he might have a nice future. This was only his third run, and there ought to be a fair bit more to come next season. He’s a name to remember.
After the Cesarewitch came the Group 2 Rockfel Stakes for juvenile fillies over seven furlongs. Not too many top notchers emerged victorious here, though 1000 Guineas winners Speciosa and Finsceal Beo, the latter for that man Bolger, were two, and Music Show wasn’t bad either.
Wading was much the best here, coming home two lengths clear of a good yardstick in Pimpernel. Wading was second of 20 on debut and, since then, has won back to back races. She looks a stayer, by Montjeu out of Cherry Hinton (a daughter of ‘super-dam’ Urban Sea, mummy to Galileo and Sea The Stars as well as this lass).
While 10/1 is hardly generous for the 1000 Guineas, it is at least reasonable as she was clearly the pick here, and it’s hard to find too many standout candidates for the race elsewhere. She looks certain to progress, this being only her third run, and being a Ballydoyle runner, she won’t want for good care.
The 12/1 for the Oaks with Paddy Power is, again, hardly supreme value, but there are lots of reasons to believe she’ll a) go to Epsom, and b) go to Epsom with a chance. I’ve had a cheeky each way on her with PP, and the link below will enable you to do likewise, should you so wish.
“A huge success,” proclaimed both the FEI and the London Prepares press offices in joyful union. But was everyone and everything perfect, or have some people been carried away by the wave of mass Olympic euphoria pervading London’s World Heritage site this month?
The arena itself is raised off the ground to combat the natural slope and again no significant holes have been dug. The logistical problem of getting the horses on site was solved by having a “staging post”outside the park gates which all worked smoothly according to organisers, riders and grooms.
But the fact that there was a need to find this “logistical solution” only because of the choice of venue was conveniently forgotten.
The competitors and their connections were impressed. The grooms were accommodated in the nearby hotel and could not have been happier, according to a spokesperson for them. The stables were a good size although possibly not as well ventilated as one might like in warm weather but this issue will be addressed by next year.
“It is, after all, a test,” said Tim Hadaway, Equestian Manager. The riders very much liked being in the city with all the shops and restaurants Greenwich village had to offer.
“It is great being so central with a pub outside the gate and there is so much more room than the I was expecting after all the things I have heard,” said one rider, who had clearly forgotten, as this was “only a test”, that there would be no chance of visiting the local pub (assuming the security services let it open as usual during the Games proper anyway) because the competitors would be ferried in and out from the Olympic Village in Stratford.
And with 50% more competitors and horses, a 30% larger arena and double the infrastructure plus a set of grandstands ten times as big as those currently on view, there is not going to be so much room, either. Particularly as much of the green space would be taken up by the cross-country course which, the press were assured by Tim Hadaway, would be the full 10 minutes long, double that which was tested.
And talking of the course, more than one experienced observer was heard to remark that the visibility was very bad from fence to fence because of the tree cover, making it very difficult for the television cameras (one will be required for every fence) and, more importantly, for the fence judges, who might only have scant seconds to stop a horse when it finally comes in to view. So it seems the tree surgeons will indeed be required for “severe pruning” and a sceptic might say that one of the purposes of the test event was to lull the objectors into a state of false security and demonstrate how little the park would be damaged because most of them know little about horses and horse shows and would not be aware of these considerations.
One also wonders, if the venue was not for an Olympics and in front of the iconic view, whether any event rider would be prepared to ride a championship course at a place which Mark Todd described as “a little cramped” and where the course (even at only five minutes long) was “a little like riding a jump off”. William Fox Pitt thought it resembled “a BMX track”. And these comments were made BEFORE the rest of the infrastructure, etc, is in place as already mentioned. A party of people with much experience of international events, especially in Hong Kong, walked around for a few minutes and then asked me where “the rest of it” was. On being told that this was it, mouths dropped open and there were expressions of “but Sha Tin was bigger than this” and other words to that effect.
When William Fox-Pitt completed his dressage test and came out of the arena expressing joy at the lovely “springy surface” anyone with any depth knowledge of show jumping should have heard alarm bells ringing. Nick Skelton, Laura Kraut and William Funnell used words like “dead” and “holding” and that “jumping 1.45 felt like 1.65” in the conditions.
Event riders hardly ever get a prepared surface to jump on, as often as not they make do with a boggy grass field but generally they are only jumping about 1.25 and not against the clock, either. At any other major championship with mixed disciplines, the surface is usually put down to suit the show jumpers because if it works for them, everyone else should be fine.
But the London Olympic Games Organising Committee created another problem for themselves because they failed to appoint anyone amongst the Equestrian management team who, from what I can see, appeared to have the kind of experience needed to run top-class show jumping and dressage – especially that being run at an inner city outdoor show. Run almost entirely by eventing people with little or no experience of either world class show jumping or inner city shows, eventing was the main focus. This is the area in which Great Britain is most likely to win Gold as far as equestrianism is concerned. But, this discipline is selected by the IOC as the one for testing because the facilities for all three Olympic disciplines can be assessed at once – not because Great Britain is the best at it and could run a big British Equestrian Federation PR exercise.
For most other countries show jumping and dressage are far more popular disciplines, which is why tickets for the Kür in dressage and the individual show jumping final are much much more expensive than their eventing equivalents.
To excuse the basic lack of sporting expertise other than eventing, once again the refrain “this is a test event so we can test” was heard. Probably it is fair to say that certain things do not need to be tested: the surface in the arena is hardly a new idea and there are outdoor shows in places such as Rio, Rome, Monte Carlo, Cannes and Valencia to name a few, all of which are inner city shows and jump on a prepared surface whose organisers could have been asked for advice. Rome has many significant parallels as it is run at the Piazza di Siena, right in the centre of the city on the small park attached to the Villa Borghese.
But as far as we know no advice was asked of any of these shows.
Discussions about the showjumpers’ reactions did provoke what could only be called the most staggeringly ignorant comment from a professional rider heard all week. One event rider proclaimed in an airy fashion that “the show jumpers were much too fussy, they should just shut up and get on with it”.
Indeed. Just as the eventers should if their BMX, jump-off type cross country track happens to come up wet …
The BEF had handed out many tickets to various riders, officials and organisers of all three Olympic disciplines, but primarily British Eventing. The members of that august body descended upon Greenwich in their droves and professed themselves delighted with everything as they sat on the grass (mostly in spaces that will not be available next year) in the sunshine. When asked about the absence of the locals (local adults had just a tenth of the ticket allocation), the opinion seemed to be that “the locals would not want to come anyway” or “they all objected, why should they be invited” and “they will only have to put up with it for a couple of weeks”.
The residents who did appear were mostly supportive but rather dismayed at the lack of information provided to them. “We won our tickets through the 500 offered by the local paper,” said one couple, “we know nothing about horse sport and we had no idea there was even a test event until the notices went up in the park a few weeks ago. Until then we thought, as did most of our neighbours, that the work going on was for next year.”
Another comment comment from the horsey faithful was that “it was a working day in London so local people would not have come anyway,” but perhaps with more notice and a larger ticket allocation, more of the population could have rearranged their schedules as the BEF’s invited audience had. Unless of course none of them have jobs they would usually have been at.
It is also somewhat surprising that despite initiatives like the so far toothless London Horse Network and HOOF, virtually none of London’s horse people appeared to have been invited to attend, either.
Many of them have specific expertise regarding keeping horses in urban environments (because that is what they do all the time!) and had they been consulted possibly could have made some of the problems faced at Greenwich easier to overcome. Out of five London riding schools asked, only one had had a single ticket. Lord Coe has said the legacy of the London Games will be to bring sport to a new and wider audience. It is a pity that the people who will be responsible for the education of any potential new equestrians were not given a taste of the Olympic experience.
“Frankly,” said one proprietor, “we wish them luck but the Games has done nothing for us, we keep thinking that if there is going to be a new riding public some of the money spent on Greenwich would have been better used in improving the riding facilities in other London parks and commons.”
Local support should be encouraged, though. There is much disinformation floating about currently which will only end up confusing the non-horsey residents or, even worse, alienating them.
Even Lord Coe, in a BBC London debate this week, referred to the “two weeks” of the Games. Perhaps he has forgotten the Para Olympics, which will mean Greenwich will not be able to get back to usual for about six weeks. Mark Evers, who is the Director of Transport for London (TFL) Delivery Unit said during the same broadcast:
He fell short of actually confirming which roads would be closed but it was interesting to note that Lord Coe later discussed the reason that the Marathon course was moved away from the East End. Had it stayed there, it would mean the closure of Tower Bridge for two days, which would cause havoc in the area for both athletes travelling to other venues and the public.
One supposes that the havoc which will be caused by closing the Blackwell Tunnel, even partially, for a month, is acceptable then, despite the volume of traffic that it carried probably exceeds Tower Bridge by 10 to one. Mathew Beard of the London Evening Standard made the excellent point that if the ORN was open only to athletes and actual officials instead of the entire “Olympic Family” which includes media, guests and sponsors, that would be 22,000 less persons needing preferential treatment and therefore not so many closures.
Mark Evers also mentioned the closure of several railway stations, particularly around the Greenwich area (eg, Maze Hill) because visitors might get confused as to which one to use for the actual venues; never mind all the local commuters. “This was an opportunity for them to explore alternative ways of getting to work,” he said in what can only be called a patronising fashion. The Maze Hill station is just outside Greenwich Park’s eastern gate, and the closure of this station will be a major inconvenience to those who live and work on Trafalgar Road, for example.
A few other non horse considerations (my comments are in bold):
One Greenwich resident mentioned at the BBC debate that the bill for the equestrian phase is heading for £60 million. Interestingly, Lord Coe did not contradict him. A member of Team GB senior support staff who did not wish to be named said that he had never seen such a waste of money in his life; it was being “thrown about like water”. There are riding tracks and exercise rings in many London parks including Richmond, Wimbledon, Tooting, Mitcham and Streatham commons, Trent Park and Lee Bridge. No money has been earmarked for any improvement in any of these facilities.
As well as the fencing off part of Blackheath (also against the law and ignoring a charter several hundred years old) which would not need to be done if the venue was big enough, Blackheath was never part of the original plan submitted to the IOC. LOCOG have also applied the same high-handed approach to Wanstead Flats. The area of marsh and heathland is home to many species rarely seen in London, and another much-used and loved by the locals but it has been partially fenced off for the use of the Metropolitan Police during the Games.
Lord Coe: “We are providing London with the venues it should have had 40 years ago. Bringing the Games to the capital will involve more people in sport, that is the real legacy. We wanted to regenerate east London.” However the residents in the area are not getting preference for the available jobs and according to Mathew Beard there has been no regeneration east of Stratford unless you count disreputable brothels being turned in reputable bed and breakfast establishments.
A study has recently been done to see the long-term impact of having an Olympics in any city going back many years. It seems you need five or ten years to assess the impact properly, a statement which was echoed by Lord Coe in a different context when he said “that we would need to wait to find out the real legacy of the London Games”. So far only Barcelona (1992, which by the way, had all the equestrian except the cross country inside the city at an excellent facility still much used) has come out ahead. The most recent city in the study was Athens. The impact on the Greek economy has had an impact on ours as Great Britain, along with many other countries, is currently bailing them out of bankruptcy. Barcelona is also the only venue so far where unemployment was reduced by the arrival of the Olympics. Rushana Ali, MP for Bethnal Green (close to the main Olympic Park) commented that in 2005 Lord Coe said winning the Games would create new jobs, but that in the London Borough of Newham, employment figures had barely changed since, and only 20% of any jobs created had gone to locals.
Kevin Fewster, who is the director of the National Maritime Museum and was in charge of a similar institution in Sydney during the 2000 Olympic Games, said: “There are two Olympic Games, really. There is the one that you present to the IOC which has lots of things in it that probably are not workable in reality but you are trying to win, and then when you have won, you have to make things work and so there is a second Games where things inevitably change and have to be twisted and turned about to make that happen. When London won, instead of Paris, things in the original bid had to be altered.” This is an interesting comment if taken in reference to Greenwich, where Mr Fewster works, because it implies that LOCOG could have changed many things including venues, after winning the bid (and in fact have done so) but on this occasion decided spending untold millions on Greenwich was a better alternative.
“I am not really sure how LOCOG could have been surprised by the demand for tickets, they ramped it up as ‘the greatest show on earth’. You cannot even find out what tickets are available for which purposes. Like these 125,000 set aside for children (according to Lord Mayor Boris Johnson). What sort of tickets are they and when and where? It’s all so vague.”
Sarah, Beckenham resident: “I was mad keen when we got the Games, but we didn’t get tickets, my offer to volunteer seems to have got nowhere despite hundreds of emails and I feel, as in integral part of London, that I have been ignored. I am very disillusioned that there is such a lack of opportunity to get involved.”
Tony, Tooting resident: “There was no preferential treatment for London residents and I cannot get in either as a paying customer, a volunteer or a member of the media.”
Andrew Gilligan (Daily Telegraph London Editor): “The principle sponsor of the games is us, the public. The ticket figures are not adding up. Lord Coe just said there were two million tickets available in the UK out of 22 million in total. But eight percent of those went to corporate sponsors. I understand they have paid for those tickets in some way but Londoners are also paying through a £250 rise in council tax. Would it have been too much of a stretch to give London residents an extra shot in the ballot or something, after all we are the ones paying for a great deal of it.”
Munira Mizra, Cultural advisor to the Mayor of London: “Boris Johnson has said he wants at least one out if every eight children to be able to attend and schools which want to take advantage of any ticket offer must register with the LOCOG Get Set programme by December.”
The Last Word …
… probably ought to go to the teenage student from Stratford who cannot get one of the jobs promised at the new shopping centre, which will in effect kill off the current one and add to the problems already facing Stratford High Street, which is in danger of becoming a ghost road.
“At the Olympics,” she said sadly, “the only time the rich and poor will meet up is at the traffic lights.”