Ralph Beckett’s winning way with the fillies

Fretful horses who waste their energies — and often their racing potential — ceaselessly pacing their stable dormitories are known as ‘box walkers’. Some trainers merit a similar description, dragging nervously on one racecourse cigarette too many. It isn’t sharing the washing-up but their teeth that have left their nails worn down to the quick. Their brows are furrowed as they saddle up their hopes. Instead of enjoying a joke with an owner’s wife their eyes flicker nervously to their four-legged charges skittering around the paddock for fear they are sweating up. Nervousness is easily transmitted between man and beast and I always feel more comfortable when the handler responsible for the horse carrying my tenner looks relaxed.

William Haggas is a smiler, so mostly are Richard Hannon and Michael Bell. Another man who invariably looks as though he is enjoying his racing is Ralph Beckett, and after a recent visit to his gloriously peaceful Kimpton Down stables near Andover I can see why he has established such a good record with fillies.