A NATIONAL HUNT VENUE ONCE MORE - AND A HINTERLAND

Light Programme.  Owned and trained by Uttoxeter-based permit holder Tony Forbes, ridden by Eugene Husband, a one-length victor over favourite Dunkerron (Jack Joseph / Richard Johnson) from 4lb out of the handicap and the 25-1 sixth favourite of seven.  Four minutes four seconds (19 seconds slower than standard), overround of 112%, race off at 9.10pm or thereabouts.  Mark Johnson called it.

This, back on July 15^th, 2002, was how National Hunt racing at Wolverhampton ended, seemingly forever, with a nondescript 0-105 event to conclude a six-race, 47-runner card of the old Class D or lower fare (including both a claiming and a selling hurdle).  A double for David Wintle and Warren Marston was the most obvious immediate highlight, and the Pipe-McCoy team’s novices chase winner Golden Alpha – next victorious in the following spring’s Red Rum Chase at Aintree – by the looks of it the only animal present with serious prospects at a more vaunted level going forward.

A week and a half after it had started with a Friday afternoon fixture, Dunstall Park’s allocation of two jumps events for both the entire summer jumping season and the season as a whole had been and gone – exactly as had been the case every summer since 1997, if you gloss over the July 5^th meeting of the latter year having been lost to the weather. 

Proper “blink and you’ll miss it” stuff, this was, and the fact National Hunt racing ever returned to Wolverhampton at all after its conversion to the country’s first floodlit artificial surface Flat venue by December 1993 (nine months after the meeting on Friday March 19^th, the day after Cheltenham had finished that year, had first brought jumps action to an abrupt halt there) may well come as a surprise to some.

This small-scale return of what, by that stage, couldn’t be called the “winter sport” anymore (except on pain of death, according to every racing editor I’ve ever worked for) wasn’t entirely without its own small notes of interest, however, for all that the fare was with relatively little exception moderate.      

1) Tony McCoy was mustard around the place, and only twice in 11 visits from 1997 on did he leave empty-handed.  The second of the two fixtures in 1997, 1998 and 1999 between them netted him 10 victories – a four-timer and two hat-tricks.  That’s all the more impressive considering every meeting bar that of July 6^th 2001 was limited to six races.

2) July 13^th 1998 was the occasion of McCoy’s four-timer, with Martin Pipe supplying every one of the winning quartet.  One-time Royal SunAlliance Hurdle third, 6-1 Coral Cup favourite (well beaten behind Top Cees) and 149-rated timber topper Daraydan was the class act of the lot, though as on his chasing debut at Worcester five days earlier he took the opening novice chase here without appearing to care that much for the discipline.

Meanwhile, 31l further down the track, the heroic Quixall Crossett was racking up Rules defeat number 75 under a 7lb claimer by the name of Jim Crowley.

3)  Daraydan wasn’t a one-off quality-wise, though it frequently felt as if Pipe ploughed a lonely furrow in terms of bringing potentially well-above average animals summer jumping to Wolverhampton – certainly until the arrival of an Ian Balding inmate towards the very end (see below).

Maybe, just maybe, some suspicion of the tight track; of the intersections with the then Fibresand Flat course; of the potential for “summer fast ground” (which over-watering nuked on at least one occasion anyway); and/or of the brush hurdles that Wolverhampton enlisted, played a part. 

Either way, the master of Pond House profited with good or promising horses where others feared to tread.  The McCoy/Pipe hat-trick of July 12^th 1999 featured a win in Daraydan’s novice chase for “nearly horse” Nocksky.  What might he might have achieved, had injury not robbed him of 2000, 2001 and 2003. 

A little later on the same card, the brand new French import Carlovent made an absolute nonsense of an opening handicap hurdle mark of 119.  By that autumn he’d won a Free Hurdle off 133, and within 18 months been awarded a rating of 155 after running Baracouda to 3l in a foot and mouth-necessitated World Hurdle replacement Grade 1 event at Sandown.

4)  Fourth in the Grand Annual (2m) and brought down at the first in the Grand National (4m4f!) in successive races earlier in the year, Logician’s win off 131 in the feature 0-135 2m handicap chase on July 5^th 2002 (part one of, inevitably, a McCoy double) gave Ian Balding the first of four successes in the final half-season of National Hunt of his long and distinguished training career (son Andrew took over the following January).  Gunner Welburn, at Chepstow just before Christmas, was one of the other three.

5)  For all of Pipe’s heavy scoring at Dunstall Park, the notional award for the best training feat of the 1997-2002 era arguably ought to go to Robin Dickin for bringing back Sagaman to land the opening handicap chase on July 4^th 1998. 

Winner of the Galway Hurdle for Liam Codd in 1991, the German-bred 12-year-old had been a martyr to tendon and muscle injuries in more recent times, but under Jim Culloty made light on this occasion of an absence of a staggering 1,002 days.  No “bounce” followed – Sagaman doubled up at Market Rasen a month later, and scored once more the following summer as a teenager.

6)  If his perch of 131 made Logician the highest-rated animal to land a handicap during Wolverhampton’s revival of jumps racing, then the 53 of Curragh Peter on July 7^th 2000 made him comfortably the lowest – and one of the very lowest anywhere, in fact, since the late-1989 revision of the ratings scale.  The Pippa Bickerton-trained, Steve Wynne-ridden 40-1 outside of six additionally achieved the feat from 11lb out of the weights, though the tragic coda to his so doing was a fatal heart attack post-race.

7)  Quixall Crossett was not the only cult hero to take in the action at Dunstall Park in this period.  A novice hurdle of July 6^th 2001 bore witness to the racecourse debut of none other than Amjad, at the time an ex-Clive Brittain 4yo hope for Pat Haslam.  Still with the leaders bearing down on three out, an unfortunate loss of footing brought he and McCoy down to earth and a chance begging. 

Few of the wily old rogue’s subsequent losses (another 83 since then over jumps alone, interspersed with four victories when he’s felt like it) have required many excuses making, however; and by dint of a latest outing in October 2012 at the time of writing this now 16-year-old is unsurprisingly the last horse to have jumped an obstacle competitively at Dunstall Park still in training under Rules.

8)  Away from Rules action, finally, May 12^th 2002 also witnessed the last occasion of the course’s foray into Point-to-Pointing, with the Wheatland hosting its fixture there for one final year before decamping to its still-current home at the outstanding Chaddesley Corbett. 

A venture first embarked upon in 1996, and by 2002 thought well enough of by connections of Pointers for 86 horses to face the starter across eight races that afternoon (no small turnout for a late-season event), the 20^th and final victory (19 between the flags) of Sheila Crow’s indefatigable Whatafellow in the Men’s Open ranked an obvious equine highlight; though for those spectators of a more waspish disposition towards artificial surface racing, maybe getting to park their vehicles all over the actual Fibresand racing surface was at least as gratifying.

If all of these fixtures had escaped many of your attention, chances are that an earlier, but ill-starred, attempt to rekindle National Hunt action at Wolverhampton might have also.

Perhaps with a view to swelling attendances to late-1980s sorts of figures (6,346 customers paid full whack in 1989), or perhaps as an appeasement to Midlands jumps fans with Nottingham’s own National Hunt line confirmed as doomed (and never used again under Rules after February 29^th 1996), the decision was taken to convert the lucrative Boxing Day fixture of both 1995 and 1996 back to one of hurdles and fences.  Each, however, fell to the weather.

Turf jumping, of course, is now a logistical impossibility at Dunstall Park.  The conversion of the course from Fibresand to Polytrack in 2004 also took with it enough vestiges of the turf line that even a part-grass, part-sand course cannot be entertained.  Additionally, nearly 19 years on from the abrupt cessation of hurdling on an artificial surface in this country, when the hideously conspicuous demise of the miles-clear War Beat at Lingfield (February 24^th, 1994) proved one loss too many for some in racing to stomach, there’s no obvious prospect looming of Polytrack or Fibresand hurdles and chases returning on even a trial basis.

As such, this blog’s trip down memory lane today shouldn’t ordinarily enjoy any sort of present-day context – National Hunt at Wolverhampton is over and done with, finished, kaput.  But go back to the second paragraph above, and the words “seemingly forever”.  Seemingly, but not actually.

For the ninth time since the concept was first tried out on a British racetrack at Kempton back in December 2010, this Sunday will see the hosting of a “jumpers’ bumper” card of National Hunt Flat races for horses with experience over obstacles.  For the first of these occasions, the card will take place at Wolverhampton.  A return, then – not one with jumps in it, but one with jumpers, so a return nonetheless.         

Seven races, 79 runners; and whilst not exactly wall-to-wall quality, at least two or three animals for whom connections have sensed that some outing – any outing – over a weekend for which they may well have been primed to have a final pre-Festival outing is necessary and welcome. 

Hence, perhaps, the appearance of Nicky Henderson’s 2m4f-3m chaser Mush Mir, whose current rating of 135 would walk him a place in the Kim Muir line-up if connections wanted it, and for whom stable amateur Nico de Boinville would represent a logical choice of partner (it’s Jerry McGrath who’s on board this time, however).  It’s no hindrance to his prospects on Sunday, of course, that he’s already recorded a good second in another jumpers’ bumper as recently as last month.

Hence also, perhaps, the second run on the comeback trail for Have You Seen Me, the trailblazer on his return from 20 months out in the Paul Stewart at Cheltenham last time before a lack of race-fitness inevitably told, but surely better for that outing and not one for giving up on with big 2m4f-2m5f handicaps in mind in the coming weeks barring a setback.

Hence perhaps above all, and among a phalanx of lesser Paul Nicholls animals entered, the appearance in the finale of Hinterland, already this autumn the winner of the erstwhile Free Hurdle and runner-up in both the Henry VIII and Wayward Lad Chases.  If a little shy of top-class in the novice chase ranks, as appears to be the case at this stage, the Grand Annual looks more his metier.  An authoritative display on Sunday would do little to nothing to derange that thought.

Assuming the 140s-rated hurdler and chaser proves amenable enough to this change of discipline to oblige, you may want to start rehearsing the following: Hinterland, owned by Chris Giles & Portensis Ltd, trained by Paul Nicholls, ridden by Daryl Jacob and sent off at something cramped.  The times, overrounds and other sundries I’ll leave to you.

That, then, will become the new holder of the title “last jumps winner at Wolverhampton” – except to anyone insisting that the runner had to have jumped something to qualify...

POINT-TO-POINT 2012-2013: SYBARITE ENDS A COOL STREAK

LARKHILL RACING CLUB

Larkhill (RH 13F, 18J)

Sun, 6 Jan 2013 (Good)

The old place was certainly due a change of luck, that’s for sure.

Larkhill’s 2011-12 season had been one of extremes, at least if judged on entries and runners.  The Avon Valley fixture, cursed to fall on the hottest weekend of the whole spring (March 31^st/April 1^st), cut up to just 16 runners (the third lowest anywhere all term); bad weather claimed the Combined Services (Coronation Cup and all) initially, and the rescheduled fixture in mid-March drew the season’s joint second lowest entry of 51 horses; and the South & West Wilts meeting in mid-April fared little better with an initial intake of 55, just four more. 

Yet even when things were better numerically not everything found universal favour, with the Larkhill Racing Club fixture in January attracting the entire season’s highest tally of starters (126), plus its only 20-runner race (the Restricted) and only 18-runner Opens, but also a measure of criticism in one or two quarters for some purported jar underfoot (a contention strenuously countered by the groundstaff).

What Larkhill needed for this latest renewal of its Racing Club meeting was some outstanding fare on a genuinely good surface, the latter of which it hadn’t been able to produce since the 2010-11 campaign.  Both it got, with the ground rendered absolutely perfect by dint of a soggy Christmas.  No jar, a very good print, and a racing line which despite a little opening up and deadening late on stood up to the day’s rigours even better than the card (albeit two races longer) at Cottenham seven days previously.

Whisper it, but if it is what’s required to produce grade-A conditions at some of the calendar’s venues, maybe there’s something to be said for these diabolically wet winters yet…

Not that initial hopes of being afforded an untrammelled view of the afternoon’s fare were especially high, with the putting back of racing from 11am to midday a calculated risk to see off fog not so thick at the time as to obscure the view from the final fence to the line (often the rule of thumb on such matters under Rules), but thick enough to impair seriously the view much beyond that.

In the end, it was a gamble well worth taking.  The fears of racereaders (and for all this writer knows, of the afternoon’s two duty commentators as well) that walkie-talkie reinforcements would have to be deployed around the course to relay and record all the action were thankfully not realised, as half an hour later the pea-souper had dissipated sufficiently for even the furthest point of this enormous course to be fully within view.  Given that the equine tally held up splendidly to the very end (116 out of 161 entries ran, at a participation strike-rate of 72%), trying to account for the also-rans and non-finishers proved easier than any of us had dared expect mid-morning.

The uncertainty of racing also proved little deterent to the arriving public, the steady trickle of whom continued throughout the hour delay (in anticipation of a delay, perhaps, or having not known about the original intended early start?) and gave rise to a very respectable-looking turnout for an early-season event.

What inspired them to come?  The adoption of a £10 per capita admission fee likely played its part.  At least as much at play, though, was that whilst the transfer of increasing numbers of Pointing fixtures from Saturdays to Sundays hasn’t found favour with all of the sport’s hardcore of fans (putting it mildly), here at least was one instance where it was easier to sell the main reason for the switch, namely to avoid the clash of previous years with a fixture at nearby Wincanton. 

Indeed, as if to reinforce the symbiotic relationship between the National Hunt and the Pointing venues yet further, fence 5/18 – the last on both circuits – was sponsored by Wincanton Racecourse, and that venue’s Wessex Area Lady Riders Final on May 14^th received a full-page plug in the racecard (despite today’s meeting not being one of the four at Larkhill this term to hold a qualifier for that event).

RACE ONE: CLUB CONDITIONS (Div. 1)

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If the decision to delay racing one hour was a gamble that paid off well, then that to divide the Conditions event at entry rather than at scale was an absolute triumph.  Every one of the 15 initial takers for this first leg faced the judge on race-day itself – a figure five up on 2011-12’s biggest perfect turnout of 10 runners from 10 entrants in the South East Hunts Club 2m4f Maiden at Charing.

Although no duffer going left-handed (as evidenced by breaking his Maiden at Bratton Down), the rump of CERTAIN FLIGHT’s best work in the last two campaigns – including another three wins – had been produced when granted a clockwise undulating track.  It’s no shock that the Convinced 8yo took so well to Larkhill at the first time of asking, then, content to bide his time under a confident Will Biddick before being sent closer entering the final mile. 

It did get hard work up the run-in, but notwithstanding either that or the feeling that at least one of the second or third home ought to have run him a shade closer still, the fact remains that he had the “right” horses right behind him in recording his eventual 1.25l victory and the form looks solid. 

All of the first three home are going to have to prove capable of breaking the ceiling and developing into genuine Open class performers this term, with Certain Flight – part of an across-the-card double for Keith Cumings, with The Wealerdealer on the mark at Wadebridge – already having at least lain down a fair marker when running Arbour Hill to 4.5l in the season’s final Mens Open (his first start in the grade) at Bratton Down last June.

GLASS’N A HALF had recorded a winning time two seconds slower than SHY JOHN’s when each won one half of the Intermediate at Barbury last month, and his 3l finish ahead of that one here isn’t a wholly accurate indication of their relative merits on the day.  His jumping, very deliberate early on at Barbury, was at least better this time round, and he may still be on the up seven races into his career.

Shy John either needs the matter settled a good way out, as when breaking his Maiden at Upton-on-Severn last Easter, or else produced on the bit late on after a cute ride, as on his two most recent outings.  The hat-trick bid here was foiled what looked like a slight overdoing of those latter tactics, with the short Larkhill straight (a contrary feature of what’s otherwise a course with such very long sections) proving too short for Peter Mason’s charge to be delivered successfully off – an extra furlong after the last fence would have tipped things more in his favour.  He’s always going to need things to fall right for him to a greater or lesser extent, but on this occasion at least he performed better than the bare result implies.

AMBER LOVE, revitalised by a change of feed in 2011-12 and the winner of the season’s final Intermediate at Bratton Down, struck the front at the same stage of the race as when escaping Restricted grade at the Avon Valley fixture here in late March, but she proved unable to withstand the better calibre of challenger this time.  In receipt of weight but conceding two or more years of age to the first three home, she may not be quite up to making the successful transition to Opens.

ASHTOWN BOY faded sharply out of things again, having been bang there three from home.  He hasn’t been in the same form in four starts since toughing out victory in fearsome conditions at Tweseldown last March, and it’s looking increasingly fair to suggest that that day’s enormous effort may have left a mark.

Last year’s Lord Ashton of Hyde Cup second KING OF THE ROAD, absent since lasting just six fences in the Aintree Fox Hunters’ (an inadequate test in any event, surely), looked ill at ease throughout and will be happier set a proper slogger’s assignment once again.

TRICKY TANGLER’s unseat here took his form figures around Larkhill in the past 12 months to U1U, and as when departing in the Restricted at last year’s fixture still had cards to play this time. 

Last year’s race winner ORIENT LEGEND did not have the benefit this time around of a previous outing, and he can surely only strip fitter for what on the face of it would otherwise have looked a tame effort.

RACE TWO: CLUB CONDITIONS (Div. 2)

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Not a full house in this division, with just 11 of the 16 initial entry turning out, but the correct horses were again to the fore and the winner’s effort is well worth marking up.

MENDIP EXPRESS, racing for only the fourth time since turned over at odds-on in a Maiden by subsequent National Hunt Chase runner-up Harry The Viking on this card two years ago, had been put away after an easy Bishops Court Restricted victory last March, his then assistant trainer Harry Fry reasoning at the time that there was no sense wasting time with this proper chasing type over hurdles.  The virtues of doing all his growing up in the interim at home rather than on the racetrack were plain to see in this latest comfortable score, one that nevertheless could have been easier still had the King’s Theatre 7yo not shifted out to his left over a succession of fences – a conservative effort would be that it cost him 15-20l in lost ground on the way round. 

Theoretically, better rivals in Open class may be able to exploit that tendency if it recurs especially often hereafter - going out to the left was also a feature at least late in his one hurdles outing around similarly clockwise Wincanton 15 months ago.  On the other hand, a return to a left-handed track, the enlisting of headgear or even (after still only six career runs) just more time to mature mentally may put him right.  He remains of considerable interest.

The result will show that LITTLE CORNHAM ran Mendip Express to 3l, and the in-running comments that he was only finally outgunned by the winner inside the final 100 yards.  Both details flatter him slightly as they stand, given how much further he would have been beaten had that rival charted a straighter course, but this was still a tidy return to action for the season and there was fresh air back to anything else. 

The wins on his first two career starts were recorded around the sharper tracks of Ston Easton and Cothelstone, and it would be interesting to see if returning him to something of that nature will be what sees him in the best light once switched to Open company in due course.

WEST CORK FLASH needed it absolutely filthy underfoot to give of his best in Irish Points, winning three, and his career-best Rules effort at Thurles last March was similarly recorded on soft ground.  No surprise, therefore, to see him struggle to go with the first two from the third last on this British debut, but he warrants another looking at next time if conditions suit him better.

RUAPEHU was unlucky not to have finished on his British debut at Barbury, his saddle giving away between the final two fences to leave Glass’N A Half a bloodless victor.  It’s harder to claim that fortune deserted him on this occasion, however, as the errors on his way round were of his own making and cumulatively caused his challenge to falter from two out.  Maybe this good ground - the fastest he’s ever encountered - was enough to hurry him out of getting into a good jumping rhythm, for all that Larkhill’s long straights should theoretically encourage such alacrity.

MY FELLA showed up well for a good way on what was effectively his first run of the season (only lasted five fences at Barbury), and on the evidence of previous campaigns probably needed it.  Victorious against 15 rivals when escaping Restricted class at Bonvilston in June, big-field Conditions, Confined or Intermediate events this term won’t faze him.

NEEDS MUST took to Sam Paining instantly when teaming up for a career-best second at Whitfield last May, and this first run since was shaping up into another step in the right direction before the partnership went its separate ways five out.  The Alflora gelding’s previous form figures make for grim reading, but the ability to take a small race certainly lurks – and he’s still permitted to drop back to Maiden class in pursuit of victory.

Pointing debutant QRACKERS, mostly below form since running up a summer 2008 novice hurdle/chase four-timer for Paul Nicholls, has never won and indeed rarely completes beyond 2m4f under Rules.  The jury’s still out, given his pulling up here just before stamina ought to have started to become an issue.

RACE THREE: AGA LADIES OPEN

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Seven fewer runners lined up this year compared to last, but Mid Div And Creep was the only leading fancy in the initial strong entry not to line up come race-time. 

What came to pass was a genuinely excellent contest run at a punishing pace, and declining the worst excesses of that early speed eventually proved to be exactly the right move by Emily MacMahon aboard MASTER MEDIC, although it didn’t quite look like it would be when the 12yo was shuffled back a few places six out.

MacMahon was under strict orders from trainer Sally Alner not to hit the gelding, however, but instead to let him rally late on via less aggressive means.  This he did in no uncertain terms, going through the gears really impressively for one of his age from the penultimate obstacle to mow down a trio of rivals who’d all looked to be holding a winner’s chance themselves at some stage.

An unseater in the Mens Open on this card last year but otherwise unbeaten in four Points now, this former 156-rated chaser still retains an appreciable quantity of his back-class.  He evidently won’t be too savagely campaigned in the autumn of his career simply to flaunt that class, though, and indeed the switch from Mens to Ladies races this term was predicated on Alner’s belief that he shouldn’t be carrying up to 12st 7lb in races anymore.  On that basis alone, and with him ineligible for any age, sex or jockey allowance in the race, it makes it difficult to recommend him as one to consider for Cheltenham Foxhunter honours this season despite his eligibility having long been assured.

DESCRIPTION gave it a real good go on his attempt to win this corresponding race for the third year in a row.  Unlike on those previous outings, however, the uncontested lead which he has increasingly favoured in recent years was denied him by fellow pace influence LITTLE LEGEND here.  If anything specific contributed to his defeat, it would have been the effect of launching such a sustained – but never successful – attempt to overhaul that rival once and for all. 

There remain Opens to be won with Description – and good ones, too – on those occasions when he’s allowed to boss a field to his absolute satisfaction.  There may be hunter chases he can take as well, though falls in each of his last three starts in that sphere inevitably temper some confidence in him so doing.

Like Description, BILLYVODDAN could have done without any interference from the blundering of others two out, but the veteran had soon regained lost momentum so quickly as to be out in front turning for home.  Too soon, perhaps, given both the strength of rival still in there pitching late on in this race and the 14-year-old’s innate quirkiness – trying to drop him on the line instead this time might have been the better way to go. 

Regardless, this mainstay of the AGA Series has returned with most of his ability seemingly intact, for all that defeat here was the first time since the 2009-10 campaign that he’d opened with a defeat.

LITTLE LEGEND always threatened on paper to be the likeliest pace rival to Description, and this seven-time pillar-to-post winner (from eight career victories all told) proved to be just that in practice, framing the really strong gallop and never allowing the Alan Hill gelding to do as he pleased.  A faller in one of the Conditions races at this fixture last season, Little Legend’s jumping held mostly firm this time until a calamitous error two out, but it’s to the 9yo’s credit that this wasn’t his cue then to curl up and back out of the contest – he rallied up to a point and was beaten fewer than 6l ultimately.

A loser of his reappearance run five years running now, Little Legend’s season begins in earnest next time.  He should be able to clean up his share of unconsidered trifles close to home if nothing else, unless trainer-rider Cynthia Haydon plumps for a more ambitious itinerary for him.

BATTLE BRIDGE hadn’t been seen since victory in a three-runner Intermediate at the rescheduled Combined Services fixture here last March (firm) had gained both him and rider Chloe Swaffield a third career success.  The Amilynx gelding scored on reappearance last term after a break only marginally shorter than this, however, so it’s to be hoped that this stiff opposition explains away a comeback run which could still perhaps have delivered a touch more.

CLASSIC SWAIN’s 2011-12 Pointing campaign lasted just a race and a half, with his third here on the one completion still not entirely advertising his claims as a stayer of 3m (he remains winless beyond 2m3f in all forms of racing).  Stamina remains under scrutiny following a failure to finish this comeback run.

SPIRIT OF BARBADOS has got too far behind in both Pointing starts this winter now, and unlike at Barbury last time there was to be no picking off flagging rivals late on.  His one victory under Rules for David Pipe came chasing the pace, a strategy perhaps worth revisiting.

RACE FOUR: 5-8yo MAIDEN (Div. 1)

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Having claimed both Conditions contests, a further winning ride for Will Biddick aboard CHAMPAGNE ROSIE in this first leg of the Maiden completed his hat-trick, enough to secure him joint-top place in the National Men’s Championship with Mike Heard (himself in treble-winning form concurrently at Wadebridge) by the close of play.

As on her Pointing debut in mares-only company at Barbury, Champagne Rosie started her forward move six fences from home.  Unlike that race, however, the Shambo 7yo had the fortitude not just to sustain that effort, but to develop it further and appear at the leader’s quarters two from home. 

She doesn’t come from the most promising immediate family for a Pointing career, being one of four half-siblings who are collectively 0-23 under National Hunt rules and with a damside littered with minor 7f Flat and 2m-2m2f hurdle performers, but she’s in good hands – those of Angela and Charlotte Davis, responsible previously for former Connolly’s Red Mills Intermediate champion Massimo - to maximise what potential she may have for this discipline.

Rider Joe Ponting’s statistics for the season had read UFUPPPF entering this contest, so there may well have been relief at registering a completion as much as delight at SLIGHTLY HOT’s performance following his 8l second on this Pointing debut. 

A brother to Towcester pre-Christmas bumper second Sweet Like You, as well as half-brother to the Pontings' recently deceased hunter chaser and Pointer Dollydo, the Kayf Tara gelding had looked a little above average in three consistent bumper finishes in early 2011 before disappearing until today.  Assuming he comes out of this first outing in 21 months without any fresh setback, Slightly Hot can take a small Maiden on this showing.

BUCKLE END was ultimately beaten further than had seemed likely three or four fences from home, with stamina reserves seeming to ebb away late on and not for the first time.  He regressed with each subsequent start after a promising (but weak-finishing) Barbury debut last season, and needs to prove next time out that he isn’t about to fashion a similar downward form trajectory this campaign.

CASPIAN PIPER hadn’t stayed the 2m4f trip at Barbury, but although not lasting out upped to 3m here either did actually stay meaningfully involved for longer after a more prominent ride.  He’d only finished his Irish Rules career in July, but in time he may well prove to be an animal that needs the runs getting into him frequently before he can start to lose fitness and condition.

CHARLIE WINGNUT, once upon a time a £40,000 purchase by Highflyer Bloodstock for and with Nicky Henderson, didn’t display the same over-the-top early over-keenness here which had often checked his progress in bumpers and hurdles.  Nor, however, did he suggest he’s going to find the full Pointing trip within his compass in the immediate term.  Short Maidens remain an option for the duration of this season.

OUR FLORA split Gioiello and Champagne Rosie at Barbury, but consistency had never been an overly strong point during a 2011-12 spent Pointing and summer jumping, and a big backward step here didn’t surprise overly.

RESPECTUEUX’s best placed form under Rules in Ireland for Jason Cairns had been recorded on good to yielding or good and around right-handed tracks, so nothing about today’s course or underfoot conditions should have inconvenienced especially.  Perhaps this was needed.

RACE FIVE: 5-8yo MAIDEN (Div. 2)

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This was the division won in the quickest time, and the difference on the stopwatch between this and the other legs would have been starker still had SILENTPLAN stayed on his feet when well clear at the last.  However, the Tom Malone owner-trained import opted to get right into the bottom of the fence, giving himself a thumping fall and Sam Waley-Cohen little prospect of staying in the saddle. 

It had been a copybook introduction to British Pointing action for the Blueprint 5yo up to his departure, with time duly bidden early on before being produced with what had looked a decisive forward move three fences out.  Progressive form-wise over the course of three Irish starts between the flags scattered across 2012, compensation surely awaits in future if he carries no lasting baggage from the experience.

ALSKAMATIC (Emily MacMahon, completing a second career double), therefore rates a fortuitous victor, though at the same time it's worth highighting that even second place would have rated a career-best finish on this first start since May, and it's possible that this Systematic 7yo son of a one-time Taunton hunter chase winner has matured significantly over the summer break.  That being the case, prospects of defying the step up to Restricted class hereafter are likely better than they first appear. 

ALL GREAT N THEORY seemed to enjoy himself out in front for a long way before being headed three out, though without any previous instances of him having tried to make all on his portfolio it's still conjectural whether this tactic, or the 13-month absence from which this Irish import was returning, was the greater cause of his fading late on.  The next outing will tell us plenty more about this son of an unraced half-sister to Comply Or Die.

LENNIE DA LION, out of a Teenoso mare that pulled up on a solitary outing at Lydstep for David Brace in 2005, couldn't sustain the forward move launched early down the final back straight and may still be weak.

STEEL GOLD had shown very little in two beginners' chases last summer, and a 39l last of four finishers here was only marginally better.

ITS RILINGS can number Oliver Sherwood's 2m5f-2m6f winning racemare Kaituna among his half-siblings, but his two Irish Point performances had been only modest and this was less impressive still.  Perhaps the first feel of a surface quicker than yielding to soft was against him. 

OLD GRANGE might have been expected to improve for a switch to a longer track, having succombed to a pacier rival late on at Wadebridge in December, but his fall just past halfway leaves us no wiser for the time being.

RACE SIX: 5-8yo MAIDEN (Div. 3)

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Marginally the slowest of the three Maidens, and the biggest-priced winner on the card.

ZAGOVA had proven something of an underachiever for Philip Hobbs, pulling up on his handicap hurdle debut (3m110yds) off 96 when last seen under Rules in March, and the 1-19 Pointing record of his half-brother Victor Bravo offered only limited encouragement.  A patient ride topped off with a late charge inspired a revelatory effort from the Zagreb gelding here, however, one well-enough timed by Jack Barber to wrest the spoils up the run-in.  The trip plainly holds far fewer terrors for him than that disappointing handicap run might necessarily have inferred, and the win itself completed an across-the-card double for Leighton McGuinness, on the mark again in Maiden company with Lady Boru at Wadebridge.

BOARDWALK EMPIRE, a £13,000 Ascot purchase by owner-trainer Edward Magor at Ascot last June, had the persistent STAPLETON for company for the first two miles of the journey, and perhaps in the final analysis it was the effort expended in shrugging that rival off which left him with insufficient left to re-pass Zagova once headed.  He arrived on these shores a bit more exposed than some Irish imports, this and his British debut at Barbury last month already constituting his eleventh and twelfth career starts, but the talent is definitely there to win something and he’d be of particular interest  in a contest  bereft of any rival pace influences.

 

Stapleton has returned this winter after 20 months out, and the two pulled-up runs at Barbury and Chaddesley Corbett in December were presumably needed.  This was much better, for all that his dicing with the runner-up probably did neither all that great a favour, and his turn may be coming near.  Again, an uncontested lead may help his cause on today’s showing.

CARRIGKERRY, second at big odds in a Barbury 2m4f contest last month, was ridden to get the longer trip but could never get himself close enough to make serious late inroads on the leaders.  Copper-bottomed effectiveness at 3m will remain to be proven next time.

Gradually brought into matters from about two-thirds distance, MYSTICAL ROSE blew up three out like a horse that hadn’t seen the track for 21 months.  Assuming no fresh setback has been suffered, she can surely only come on for this.

At first glance odds-on favourite SIEGE OF TROY ran a similar sort of race to Mystical Rose in so far as he faded markedly after a patient ride, but his whole movement forwards and back through the field was all completed in a rather shorter period of time.  The deployment of a tongue-tie on this racecourse debut did concern somewhat, and this Presenting gelding (a son of a half-sister to last season’s Pointing-to-summer-jumping success story Bobowen) has it to prove now that there isn’t something in wind or limb holding him back.

RACE SEVEN: MENS OPEN

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As with the Ladies, the corresponding race attracted 18 runners last season, the most of any Mens Open in the entire campaign.  Only the withdrawal of DORAN’S LODGE, who went beserk in the box park, prevented the same total from lining up this time.

This looked a strong renewal beforehand – deep enough for one of last term’s “Classic” winners not even to feature in the first five in the market. 

That quintet duly filled came home one to five.  That they did not do so in betting order was primarily thanks to 7-1 joint third favourite SYBARITE, who produced a searing burst to head Aintree Fox Hunters runner-up ROULEZ COOL after the last and to inflict a first ever Pointing defeat upon the Waley-Cohen gelding.

Still in the ownership of Raymond Mould, as he had been for his entire Rules career with Nigel Twiston-Davies, Sybarite – whose name indicates a person devoted to luxury and pleasure - had not added any further wins to an impressive Uttoxeter bumper debut success of September 2010 entering this contest but had placed at up to Grade 2 level in novice hurdles in the interim. 

Having unravelled jumping- and especially confidence-wise over fences last winter, much about his prospects here depended on whether a change of scenery with Phillip Rowley or the lower obstacles in Points (or indeed both) would provoke a revival, and provoke one they duly did. 

The decision just before the preliminaries to deploy earplugs helped the cause as well, as did a good, patient, pace-declining ride by the in-form Alex Edwards.  In essence, this was the win of a sometimes mentally fragile animal made to feel better about himself than has probably been the case for a while, and future prospects will depend on him being kept as contented.  Longer term, and with the likes of Cheltenham in mind, note that stamina beyond a sharp 2m7f remains untested around a Rules track.

Roulez Cool was officially rated within 2lb of Sybarite as a hurdler, but never ran to within 18lb of that rival’s best Racing Post Rating over the smaller obstacles (from admittedly few attempts).  On that basis maybe it’s not too surprising he was done by something with a bit more tactical speed than many Pointers here, and although now 3-4 between the flags rather than unbeaten this doesn’t rate a disastrous result by any means. 

Presumably the big hunter chase events remain on the agenda this term, assuming he keeps sound enough to race (only averaged three runs a season in over four years here) and the errors which hindered him at Cheltenham and Newbury last year are kept in check.

2010 Coronation Cup hero COOMBE HILL has now finished third in the Ladies, won a Conditions event and finished third in the Mens at the last three Larkhill Racing Club fixtures.  Resurgent in 2012 with a win at Cheltenham representing the best of his four victories, this was a very solid seasonal return, albeit one in which the main protagonists were able to give him the slip with three to jump.  His versatility as regards track types alone should ensure he can be placed to advantage in Points and hunters this winter.

Although beaten over 12l in the end, this was a superb comeback run from DANTE’S STORM, helped in no small part by what was a really assertive ride by Phil York even allowing for the gelding’s natural inclination to front-run.  Fired by York at every fence and answering the rider’s call each time until flagging from the third last, this will have blown away the cobwebs after his second career break of 20-plus months and no mistake.  That it constituted a first defeat in eight Points to date is surely of less importance than the hope that this still genuinely exciting performer emerges from the outing with a clean bill of health.

OFFSHORE ACCOUNT had a race-fitness edge on all the leading protagonists on account of his third at Barbury last month, but the late gears to go when the leaders applied maximum pressure three out weren’t there.  He’ll have it all on to retain every bit of his ability at 13, but the heart is still plenty willing enough to try to give the Suttons some more fun on bigger stages than Larkhill again this term.

RADETSKY MARCH’s six hurdle and chase wins for Mark Bradstock were gained under prominent or forcing tactics over 2m4f-2m6f (most surfaces), attempts to make a marathon chaser out of him as a younger horse before that having backfired somewhat.  He could never get as close to the leaders as preferred so this 37l sixth was no disaster in the circumstances, and this Rules winner off 126 as recently as December 2011 can be found openings this season when more falls his way.

Reigning Lady Dudley Cup holder ROSIES PEACOCK has only ever scored once before his third start of a given campaign, and never on reappearance, so both this outing (beaten 63l) and maybe the one after it are going to be needed. 

BENEDICTUS is not a betting proposition at Larkhill, having pulled up on all three visits here now, and nor has he ever shone on his first run back.  His prospects in this first full season as an Open- and hunter chase-level performer will be determined by his jumping, still prone enough to the odd lapse to floor him in three of his final four outings last term.

VINTAGE CLASS landed one division of the Conditions event on this card when reappearing for the 2010-11 campaign, but otherwise has mediocre figures of 904PP first time out under Rules or in Points following a failure to finish here.  There may be better to come, though his 2.75l third in this Open last term (after a run) comprised his only real near-miss of the campaign, and he’s got it to prove now that he’s still up to taking any halfway decent Open.

RACE EIGHT: RESTRICTED

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The race that drew the single biggest field of any last term (and would have been bigger still but for balloting) was “only” an 18-runner affair this time around.  The first four in the market filled those places, although again not in the expected order; whilst the two naughty boys of Black Forest Lodge, BURIED GOLD and OUR JOE, both jumped off alright today.

PARSTARA’s Jockey Club/PPORA Mares’ Maiden victory here last March (firm) had come against a real mixed bunch, of whom subsequent series winner Tenawa alone has done very much for the form in the interim.  What she beat that day she beat by a convincing 15l, though, and the same margin of victory on this first start since (backed from 7-1 into 4-1) marks her out as a pretty progressive performer now, not least as she’d had the matter sewn up a good way out once more. 

The dam won three Wincanton 2m-2m5f chases for Colin Tizzard (as well as four events around Larkhill), so the precedent for making a successful transition to sub-3m events under Rules at some point is certainly there.

GRUMBLERS HOLT did most of the spadework here until headed six out – a change of tactic, having let others cut out the fractions for him on both starts in 2012.  Already looking to be losing the argument with the winner when left in a clear second three out, this was still a fair return, and whilst not as apparently rampantly progressive as Parstara right now is no less entitled to improve after fewer than half as many starts (three) to date.

Irish import GARSTIN was marched from 10-1 into 5-2 favouritisim in a bid to give Sally Alner a double, but this son of a niece to the top-class Waterloo Boy struggled to find the necessary changes of pace to go with them from the third last.  His next run may tell us whether what is needed most was this first start in 10 months, or else a surface as slow as that of his Kirkistown Maiden victory.

GIOIELLO’s Jockey Club/PPORA Mares’ Maiden win at Barbury last month had been recorded in easily the slowest 3m time of the day, but the form of that effort had received a boost with Champagne Rosie’s victory earlier on this card.  She couldn’t repay the favour here, weakening inside the final half mile, and maybe this came a bit soon back for what has hardly been an overraced 8yo hitherto.

IRISH LACE has won or gone closest when she’s seen more of the early lead than this big field of rivals was ever prepared to let her.  She also improved with a run or two behind her last term and can do again this.

ONE WISH had been headed by the winner at the time of his departure four out, so it would be a brave call to nominate him as an unlucky loser.  A place finish still looked very attainable, though, and he’d done well to get the outing in the Chaddesley Corbett mudbath only nine days earlier (pulled up two out) as much out of his system as it appeared he had.  He’s not for giving up on yet.

IS BIG BROTHER THE BEST SHOT AT REDEMPTION – CAN WE BE FRANK?

"Big Brother House… this is Brian (because Davina’s jumped ship).  Please do not swear".

It’s a bit late not to swear, in all honesty.  Many have come the cry - why the hell is Frankie Dettori dignifying Celebrity Big Brother with his presence for what could amount to the next three weeks?

Celebrity Big Brother, for heaven's sake.  That well-known temporary repository for non-celebrities.  That one, yes?  You know it?  You ever heard of many of the others on there this time either?

Actually, let’s put to one side for a moment the most well-worn wisecrack aimed at this long-running franchise, as it's not helpful.  After all, whilst the likes of X-Factor competitor Rylan Clark (already busily re-christening the jockey as "Frank" on launch night), former Eastender Gillian Taylforth, Ryan “Toadfish” Moloney, one-time soccer hard-man Neil Ruddock, Tricia Penrose from Heartbeat and Steps frontwoman Claire Richards may all stretch some people’s definition of “celebrity” to breaking point, the majority of them will at one time or another have performed their respective day jobs in front of regular terrestrial television audiences greater than any to have watched Dettori go about his. 

In comparison the Derby has typically played out to between two and three million viewers on the BBC in recent years (though peaking at 3.3m during its Frankie-less 2012).  At the highest end of that range, that’s still less than a third of those regularly tuning in for X-Factor 2012 in what’s been generally accepted as a bad year ratings-wise for ITV1’s cash cow (or cash Cowell, even).  Compared to many he’s sharing his newly found incarceration with, Dettori’s celebrity - if equated simply as being one and the same as drawing a sit-at-home audience - thus falls short.

But that’s not a major concern in and of itself.  A wider future mainstream celebrity, ubiquity, recognition, call it what you wish, can be attained regardless of the level of pre-existing public profile if a tenure in the house goes especially well.  It's on such a platform that champions in the regular, non-celebrity incarnation of Big Brother have founded subsequent careers – none more successfully so than current host Brian Dowling, rarely too far between engagements on stage or screen since himself landing series two of Channel 4’s run of the reality show in summer 2001 as a hitherto unknown air steward. 

There’s time enough for Frankie to be elevated to previously uncharted levels of mainstream star status, if viewers take to him, but that’s if viewers are able to take to him on the evidence of what they see.  The Frankie Dettori now being beamed out from behind the fifth telly button is no more certain to be as well-rounded, accurate, fulsome and flattering a representation of him as equivalent depictions of other celebrities in many similar British reality shows over the last decade and a half now.  If he didn’t know that before, he ought to have; or at least someone ought to have advised, citing examples that are hardly tricky to call to memory.

As recently as this end of year just gone, Nadine Dorries’s rationale for deserting her Mid-Bedfordshire constituency for I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! was to reach out to the voting populace to a degree that no other popular media outlet or political organ would ever afford her.  George Galloway’s participation in Celebrity Big Brother almost exactly seven years ago was similarly predicated on the belief in politicians using any available opportunity to communicate with people. 

The former never really got the chance, being drummed off the show by the voting public at the earliest opportunity, whereas the most meritworthy oratory highlights of the latter during his own (and longer) reality-show tenure were largely thrown to the cutting room floor whilst his notorious cat impersonation and savaging of Michael Barrymore’s drinking demons were retained.

Both Members of Parliament would have wanted – and maybe if especially naïve, expected – a free window during their respective incarcerations within which they could make their points, and their capital, reasonably unopposed and taking up as much time as they required.  As if that was ever going to happen.  Party political broadcasts were never going to be allowed to fill the airtime, regardless of how much there was to fill - Dorries’s and Galloway’s political agenda carried insufficient weight set against the editorial agenda (in short: "to entertain") of their shows’ producers and editors.

Dettori alone, meanwhile, will know whether he intends to pick a time during his stay to explain in detail what prohibited substance he tested for at Longchamp in September, what prompted him to take it, what remorse he feels and how he intends to bounce back.  He may have set his stall out to tell the lot on-air, and with a drug infringement more inherently interesting to a tabloid broadcaster (as it's probably not too unfair to label Channel 5) than political dry bread, he may stand more chance of his doing so appearing precisely as he desires. 

A fair trial-by-television is nothing to be certain of receiving, however, and Dettori’s public perception going forward – and indeed his public rehabilitation, with the Daily Mail website's more excitable posters already regarding him as heinous a miscreant as Lance Armstrong – could largely live or perish on how kindly he is edited by the Endemol backroom team.  That’s a big, uncontrollable thing to have to put one’s trust in, and “edit” really is the word here, as a quick check of Channel 5’s schedules suggests coverage of Celebrity Big Brother this year errs more towards fast-moving one-hour bursts rather than continuous, interminable live streaming.

What doesn’t want to be making the cut in those edited highlights packages are Dettori rants and fall-outs.  It's already as much as the sport of racing can bear to have one of its two most recognisable personalities tarred as a bad-tempered, unsympathetic piece of work, largely as a result of his own Celebrity Big Brother experience eight years previously.  It doesn't need another.

But reality show makers love conflict, and on the assumption that at least some of every year’s contestants are chosen on the grounds of their likely ideological, ethical, temperamental or intellectual incompatibility with each other, some ugly and heated exchanges of views may well prove to be in the offing once again this time.

If there’s bait to be taken and a fiery temper to lose, Dettori is no less likely than any to do so.  On entering the celebrity house this evening there came the tacit admission to Dowling that his being “very Latin” could prove his undoing, something which chimes with wife Catherine’s newspaper interview description in 2008 of the 42-year-old’s mercurial temper (“he’s up and down all the time… and can get in a bad mood every five seconds”).

Much will be determined by how, if at all, he reacts when the tiger’s tail has been tweaked once too often by the inanity of the tasks set the housemates, by the demands of entertaining an unnaturally small immediate audience around him for longer than usual (even Wolverhampton's meetings get more than 12 spectators and finish after 15 or fewer races), or by one of that number’s interest in the drugs offence proving too intrusive.

Our man should never have left himself open to such provocation in the name of entertainment as faces him in the bizarre hyperreality of the Celebrity Big Brother house.  Having done so, though, escaping the show however many days from now with dignity intact - if he does - would be a feat to rival the overwhelming majority of any of those which he's ever achieved on horseback.  

Good luck, "Frank".