The swallows who nest yearly in my garage have agreed that ‘that’s enough baby-making for this year’, and started their 6,000-mile trip to the southern Sahara. Between burps, many thousands of wildebeeste are currently sniffing the Kenyan air and nudging each other south for new shoots on the grassy plains of the Serengeti. To me, Newmarket’s Autumn Double meetings, embracing the Cambridgeshire and the Cesarewitch, bring the same strong sense of seasonal change with the second of those Heritage handicaps over two miles and two furlongs offering a strong challenge to the Flat trainers from jumps specialists warming up their charges for the winter season.
We also look to Newmarket at this time to give us some idea of the leading contestants for the first of next year’s Classics in the shape of the 1,000 and 2,000 Guineas. The Group One Cheveley Park Stakes for fillies and Middle Park Stakes for colts, both sponsored by Juddmonte, attract the cream of the two-year-old generation for handy prizes of nearly £300,000, but it is highly unlikely that this year’s winners of the two races will be heading the markets for the Classics or even turning up at the Guineas meeting.
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