|
French weekend headline: “Soumillon bluffe Auteuil”. Your English correspondent interprets this (literally of course) as France’s leading Flat jockey having se foutre de his jumping counterparts when running away with the Grande Course de Haies on Mandali.
Soumillon gives out some strange signals, most notably when pointing to his backside at Ascot one day – a gesture not well received by those in his rear.
Royal Ascot week bluffed the whole world that things are fine in British racing. Betting turnover was good; the racing was gripping and champagne fountained as huge crowds happily cheered home winners wherever they came from.
Actually racing in the UK is in turmoil as we gaze enviously across la Manche at the riches bestowed by the PMU. We are looking very nervously at this week’s emergency budget in Westminster. If the promised belt-tightening hits racing, next year's Royal meeting will be a much more sobre affair.
The performance of the five days came from France’s Goldikova in the opening Queen Anne Stakes though it was not that far in front of Andre Fabre’s similar Group One success with Byword in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes on the second day, Wednesday.
This was the master trainer’s seventh Royal Ascot triumph: The Queen Anne was Freddie Head’s first.
Olivier Peslier we have bowed to often on his Ascot trips – Goldikova was the seemingly eternally smiling French jockey's 14th Royal meeting victory. But Maxime Guyon was new to us and when we ceased misspelling his name (one misguided reporter mused whether “Maxine” was the French version of Hayley Turner?) we admired his assured handling of Byword on his first UK ride.
Byword had chased Goldikova home in the d’Ispahan; Paco Boy was only repulsed by Goldikova’s strength of purpose in the Queen Anne. They all may meet again in Deauville’s Marois where perhaps it is too much to hope for other Ascot principals Canford Cliffs and Dick Turpin, first and second in the St James’s Palace Stakes, turning up to make it the ‘Mile of the decade’. Makfi may be back for that too; he had a reported throat problem when losing his unbeaten record in the St James's Palace.
The frog that lodges in Aidan O’Brien’s throat escaped, and the Irishman's characteristically muffled responses gushed out after Starspangledbanner's stellar performace in the Golden Jubilee..
O’Brien was so over-excited it soon became apparent that this ex-Australian sprinter will not be returning in a hurry to take up stud duties for Coolmore Australia alongside his father Choisir. The Prix de l’Abbaye is likely to be his final port of call in Europe.
Football has, for once, united our nations against a common enemy – our World Cup teams (and Nicolas Anelka). Why racing should struggle for public empathy when it provides entertainment of the standard of Royal Ascot and the Arc weekend, as opposed to the miserable repayment made time and again by our overpaid footballing dilettantes, is beyond me.
|
Frogwatch, by Rolf Johnson 
Comments