A SUNDAY OF JUDGMENTS - HERE ARE SOME OF THE WRONG ONES

The Old Roan Chase. The Summer National. The Greatwood Hurdle. The Becher Chase. The Grand Sefton Chase. The National Spirit Hurdle. The Perth Gold Cup. The Borders National. The Newton Abbot Summer Festival Handicap Hurdle. The October Hurdle at Aintree. The Independent Newspaper Novices’ Chase. Listed novices’ hurdles at Kempton and Exeter. The Coors Cumberland Handicap Chase. A couple of dozen class 3 - or better – handicaps, including many throughout the summer months and two last Sunday.

Proof in spades that Tom Segal’s assertion in the Post four days ago that, “the two jumps meetings are, as usual, of very low quality – it is a Sunday, after all”, won’t necessarily rank among the most accurate he will commit to print this year.

Notwithstanding, and being a magnanimous soul, I will of course gladly mention that Segal remains a tipping titan at his very best, as the finding of Regal Parade ahead of his win in the Ayr Gold Cup, and two wins out of two on Sunday with Lord Ryeford and Always Bold, have most recently attested to.

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In all honesty it was a bad Sunday for anyone to choose to pick a fight with the racing calendar, as the two jumps cards in question at Plumpton and Uttoxeter had a greater concentration of genuine puzzles between them – as opposed to races which looked mere formalities for just one, or certainly no more than two, of their competitors – than most of what had preceded them in recent weeks.

This corresponding Plumpton card, its first for four months, has additionally enjoyed a burgeoning reputation in recent times. The presence of a near-£11,000, 0-125 class 3 handicap hurdle has played some part in that, for sure, but so too have the two novices’ hurdles, one juvenile and one 4yo+, which both increasingly attract some decent types either on debut or just a race or two into their new careers. King’s Quay was sent on the monster round trip from John Quinn’s yard in Settrington two years ago to make a winning start in the latter race, and last year’s winners of each contest, Hypnotic Vibes and – the eventually 141-rated – Alsadaa, have both certainly proven to be very capable animals indeed.

Mention of these contests cannot pass this year without namechecking Wyeth, winner of the older horses’ contest for the dominant local force of Gary and Jamie Moore. Timber-hopping in Sussex surely wouldn’t have been on anyone’s minds when Wyeth was foaled and then sold for 420,000gns as a yearling, what with the Group1-winning quality of his by then six year-old full brother Grandera having been well established and the also appreciable talents of his half-sibling George Washington about to be.

The 2 ¼l win here, and the one in a Bath gentlemans’ handicap that preceded it, probably don’t as yet go anywhere close to meeting the likely lofty expectations of yore. However, after eight mostly underwhelming performances previously (all bar one for first trainer James Fanshawe), which to me looked to have exposed Wyeth as clumsy, backward, and even on occasion a bit thick (hence my passing over him when tipping on the race for Betfair Radio in favour of the eventually well-beaten Muraco), these recent gains have to go down as a triumph for Team Moore. Having proven wrong to have written him off all too soon, I shall watch whatever continued development follows hereafter with great interest.

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The recurring theme of getting it wrong brings us neatly to Uttoxeter, and to the most high-profile incident over the jumps on the day (in another class 3 event, incidentally, just to labour the point made earlier). The returning Paddy Merrigan, partnering Bill’s Echo on his first ride for nine months following his well-documented self-imposed hiatus, thinks he might have got his timing slightly wrong on Alistair Whillans’ gelding – I happen not to agree, as even with an earlier move, and without a blunder two out, nothing on the day was going to master an Alphabetical free at last of his wind-based infirmities.

What has been got wrong, majorly so, is the decision of the stewards at the Staffordshire track to impose a ban upon him, and one to the tune of seven days at that, for an ill-judged ride. That Bill’s Echo came late and hard, having been put into the race as far on into it as three fences from home, is not in dispute, but there were sound reasons for doing so which should have prevented any steward familiar with them from acting as punitively.

To this pair of eyes the race certainly seemed to be run a deal quicker throughout than the attendant post-race analyst suggested, as evinced, perhaps, by the way all the front-runners barring the operation-enhanced winner were swamped by the more patiently-ridden late on; and as such Paddy Merrigan’s opting to keep Bills' Echo away from the worst excesses of that pace seemed entirely sensible.

As the gelding’s co-owner Charlie Byers told the Post subsequently, Bill’s Echo had similarly come from a different parish when winning a class 2 Huntingdon 2m handicap chase for Richard Guest almost exactly three years previously. It’s also worth pointing out that not only was Paddy Merrigan engaged at Guest’s yard at the time, but he also finished 7l second behind Bill’s Echo in that race on stablemate Wet Lips. Further still, Bill’s Echo and Merrigan’s subsequent tenures with Paul Nicholls also coincided, and they teamed up for a Newbury 2m chase in early 2007 – they recorded a nearest-at-finish fifth place, achieved by exactly the same method as in the other two examples given.

Simply put, Bill’s Echo and Paddy Merrigan go back a long way, and the latter knows what makes the former tick as well as, if not better than, most riders in circulation. Sunday's ride was palpably imbued with that familiarity.

Keep in mind also that Bill's Echo had only once raced over further than 2m4f before this race (2m5f), pulling up over 3m at Aintree in May; and whilst he had admittedly won over 2m4f at Uttoxeter 18 months ago, that was in a more muddling, small field contest - and with the inspiration of first-time blinkers - when at the height of his powers for Paul Nicholls, rather than a big-field speed-fest like Sunday’s whilst at a lowish ebb (his four previous runs for Whillans this year having been universally poor).

Heaven knows it has not always been easy to love Merrigan. It is hard to forget the staggeringly miserable response to perfectly reasonable interview questions from Mike Vince in the winners’ enclosure at Market Rasen last September, following what was back then the biggest win of his career aboard Iron Man in that course’s big autumn chase. It is probably also fair to say he is unlikely to pick up rides from certain yards again as a result of more than one mysterious or untidy split in what has already been a turbulent short career.

However, whilst I'm not sure I would quite describe the Uttoxeter stewards’ actions as agriculturally as he did in the press, on this occasion Merrigan is certainly the wronged boy rather than the boy in the wrong.

And about that much, I’m sure I’m not wrong.