WORTH THE LONG WAIT TO WADE INTO THE SOLENT

Some things in racing take rather longer than others to come to fruition.

My "Out in the Sticks" columns for the monthly edition of Racing Ahead magazine exist principally to outline performances that have caught my eye at some of the country's smaller National Hunt tracks, with a view to finding readers as many next-time winners as possible (NB in answer to a question I found in my inbox recently: the concentration on smaller venues is partly due to them being what I know and understand best, and partly due to fellow contributor Andrew Ayres already covering the "bigger stuff" during the rump of the jumps season).

For the greater part, and especially with summer jumping, I don't have to wait long to find out if I am right, given that most horses will run again within two months. That said, I had to wait over six months before Tamarinbleu's reappearance resulted in a Boylesports.com Gold Cup win at wonderfully rewarding odds, and I fear the wait for late 2006 selections Sexy Rexy and Solid As A Rock to reappear may not actually come to an end.

In a similar vein, about nine months ago I was one of several regular contributors to Betfair Radio to take part in what ultimately proved to be an exhausting but terrifically fun two-hours-and-then-some podcast for that station (mercifully edited to a length manageable for human consumption subsequently), in which our thoughts, betting strategies, tips and bismarks for the forthcoming winter's action were shared.

The suggestions for big race honours we made then have subsequently proven to be about half-right and half-wrong overall. Most of us, myself included, thought something would emerge from leftfield to steal the Champion Chase crown from a fallible title-holder in Voy Por Ustedes. If Master Minded were allowed to drink, we'd buy him a pint. Unfortunately, I was also one of a couple of contributors keen to nonsense Denman's aspirations for the Gold Cup - my assertions that the hanging left and jumping errors of his novices' chase wins as Exeter and Cheltenham in late 2006 would be ruthlessly exploited in senior company looked very silly indeed after his Hennessy win, and had practically gained a red nose and deely-boppers come March 14th of this year.

Away from the Championship races, my selections had a mixed time of it. Iktitaf and Granit Jack, regrettably, were both taken from us too soon, and Nevada Royale's season was best described as abortive; but the likes of Newbay Prop (when he was clearing his fences rather than intent on taking them home with him) and Bible Lord (eventually) did me a couple of timely favours. As with the "Out in the Sticks" examples I cited, however, some tips have come home to roost rather later than others, and none more so than Solent.

My logic for choosing him at the time seemed copper-bottomed enough to me. He appealed as one of the classier Flat recruits likely to take his chance over timber last autumn, what with an Official Rating of 100 and a brace of personal best Racing Post Ratings of 108 to his name. He had signed off his time as a Richard Hannon inmate with a grinding dead-heat in the Listed Fenwolf Stakes at Ascot in September, and in so doing reiterated his effectiveness around a stiff track with an uphill finish. That would come in handy at Cheltenham.

Further, whilst that Ascot race over two miles had been run at a numbingly slow early pace, his efforts in truer-run contests at up to 1m6f around the likes of Ascot again and Haydock previously underlined to me that this would be one former "Flattie" who would have no trouble at all seeing out the minimum trip over hurdles, or in all probability a fair bit further, thereby increasing options.

Last of all, and by no means any less significant, trainer John Quinn had been prepared to go to 155,000 guineas at the Tattersalls sale last October to secure the Montjeu gelding's services. That needs putting into context. His high 90s-rated Cambridgeshire aspirant Mastership cost him 67,000gns, subsequent dual Diomed Stakes winner Blythe Knight 90,000gns and future Grade 2 Elite Hurdle victor King's Quay 110,000gns. After Solent, the last-named is the most expensive animal the Racing Post's bloodstock search facility credits Quinn with ever having bought through a recognised sales ring, and cost all of 45,000gns less.

Price-tags don’t win races, of course but it still read like a serious statement of belief in the horse’s ability to take top rank as a hurdler that the Settrington handler was prepared to outlay quite such an amount on him.

So, with the credentials of Solent well enough established in my mind to have put him forward, all that was needed now was for the gelding to make his debut over timber and hopefully prove me right.

So I waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

And then the season finished.

By the end of April Solent had still not appeared, with nothing in the trade press to suggest he had met with a training setback, but at the same time nothing to suggest he was being kept for a summer novices’ hurdle campaign.

When he did finally reappear it was on the Flat at the start of July, over nine months since last seen. However, two quick appearances in the Old Newton Cup and York’s Silver Handicap Stakes appeared to confirm that his current rating, some way in excess of the 90 of his best ever handicap win, was now prohibitive. Even attempting to boss things from the front was no longer going to yield wins in handicaps barring some significant clemency, and he faded to be beaten an aggregate of 99l over the two runs.

Surely, now, unless attentions were turned exclusively to conditions races, we were going to see his attentions turned to the increasingly inaccurately-titled “winter code”.

Indeed we were. Three weeks later, a Solent visibly rippling with good health and looking every inch primed for the job in hand stepped onto the course at Bangor-on-Dee ahead of his hurdles debut. The tapes went back, Solent took the lead immediately, and that was effectively the end of the race as a contest.

Given his previous exploits on the Flat over as little as a furlong shorter than the 2m1f of this race, Solent was always likely to need to scorch off here to make it enough of a stamina test for himself, and he did just that en route to a really taking triumph, in which he never led by fewer than 10l and could have humiliated his rivals by far more than the ultimate 12l verdict had he or rider Dougie Costello wanted to.

It was a performance that the harder-bitten analyst may still want to crab to a degree. It is hard to argue against the claims that Solent probably beat close to nothing, with runner-up Wood Fern still to reappear at the time of writing but the 19l third Hernando Cortes having been soundly beaten in three subsequent hurdles starts (including an awful 80l drubbing at Southwell just this afternoon). Further, whilst his jumping was absolutely spot on, so well it might have been with all his rivals too far behind throughout to put it under even the merest scintilla of pressure.

As the familiar maxim goes, however, you can only beat what’s put in front of you – Solent beat little but achieved plenty at Bangor. Whilst acknowledging that harder tasks will undoubtedly follow (not least with the penalty), my Racing Ahead write-up on this performance concluded that for all it was a bloodless win, he exhibited enough class and professionalism to suggest he would be able to do himself justice in whichever of the better (eventually Listed or Graded?) novices’ hurdles this autumn he may be aimed at.

With some very interesting fellow former Flat recruits having their first try over timber in the same race, chief among them the 2005 Derby seventh Unfurled, I hope that last bold statement doesn’t have me reaching for the metaphorical red nose and silly headgear again after his appearance in a much tougher Market Rasen contest this afternoon.

Even if it does, though, at least I was proven right about Solent for one brief, fleeting, long-delayed five-minute spell. Eventually.