Hearing that the Queen has both a real and an official birthday, a small boy asked the obvious question: ‘Does she get two lots of presents then?’ Horses, too, have an official birthday: no matter the month in which they were foaled, they all become one year older on 1 January. The advantage for some is that they then become eligible for the increasingly popular veterans’ races confined to horses aged ten or more, like the classic Unibet Chase we saw at Sandown last Saturday.
What racegoers love about these contests is the presence of familiar names on which they have won money, or narrowly lost it, over the years, with whose idiosyncrasies and running styles they are familiar. There on Saturday, for example, in the Cue Card colours, was 13-year-old Theatre Guide, second in the race two years before and third last year. Alongside him was 14-year-old Regal Flow, without a win since his Midlands National victory in 2018 but a close second in the veterans’ event last year, alongside his conqueror by a short head, the 12-year-old Jepeck.
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