The definition of good luck in Russia is state security knocking at your front door and demanding ‘Ivan Denisovich?’ when you are able to reply ‘Ivan Denisovich lives two doors down.’ Sometimes you just have to be thankful it is someone else’s bad day. Steaming around the M25 on Saturday towards Newmarket’s Juddmonte-sponsored Cambridgeshire Handicap day, I suddenly noticed there was no traffic on the other side of the motorway. Soon I realised why: a huge overturned truck was blocking all three lanes. As I passed mile after mile of frustrated motorists, some leaning on their car bonnets for a smoke, I realised that if it had been on my side I would have been lucky to get to headquarters for the last race. Instead I knew my luck was in, and I would make it to one of my favourite fixtures with its three Group races for two-year-olds that start to reveal the potential champions of 2024.
The father and son partnership of Simon and Ed Crisford have been building quality for some time. Their Havana Grey colt Vandeek was unbeaten in three races and though some, including the maestro Aidan O’Brien, were ready to make excuses for O’Brien’s opposing River Tiber, who finished behind him in the Prix Morny in France, I was convinced that he would stay that way in the Group One Juddmonte Middle Park Stakes. He did so in breathtaking style, taking the lead a furlong out in the six-furlong contest with a real injection of pace which induced his jockey James Doyle to call him ‘a pure ball of speed’. Said James: ‘He’s an electric horse and he coped with the quicker ground well, which opens all sorts of options.’ For his jockey he is a sprinter in the making rather than a 2000 Guineas horse, but he doesn’t look like your typical chunky speedster.
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