Combing through race recordings to try to find some fun horses for Spectator readers this summer, I have been struck by how often even the best riders find themselves stuck in equine traffic with plenty of horsepower underneath them but nowhere to go. Gaps open in a flash and then close again, forcing riders to snatch up and probe, often too late, for another opening. It is never, though, as simple as it looks from the stands. One former top jockey was berated by a trainer on his return to the unsaddling enclosure: ‘Why didn’t you go for that gap between the leaders two furlongs out?’ ‘Because, Guv’nor, the gap was moving a lot faster than my horse was.’ Selecting potential equine investments is getting harder: in the autumn I picked horses who’d shown potential on good going. We then had three months of monsoon. This spring I’ve been watching small fields competing while trainers have been keeping their best back in the yard and praying for rain. Climate change is no help at all.
It will nonetheless be an intriguing Flat season: the Derby and Oaks are the most open contests for years. No fewer than five top riders could fight out the jockeys’ championship: holder Oisin Murphy, William Buick, Ben Curtis and the engaged housemates Hollie Doyle and Tom Marquand. It would be handy to tune in to their breakfast conversations — if they ever had time for breakfast. Among the trainers, two of the most likeable men in racing, William Haggas and Andrew Balding, look to have formidable teams. Former top riders Darryl Holland and Kieren Fallon are combining to run a yard together and Sean Woods is back training in Newmarket after a profitable 16 years in Hong Kong.
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