Half an hour before it might have been Armageddon. The sky was black as pitch and the rain was bucketing down, not the happiest sound in a yard which two years ago was flooded out. But as an athletic bunch of horses jingled round the copper beech in Harry Dunlop’s trotting circle the atmosphere was all optimism.
Racing is all about sudden change. It is all about might-have-beens, too, and the youngest of the three racing Dunlops knows about those already. His Three Moons was a serious Oaks contender. As a two-year-old she had run Henry Cecil’s Midday to a nostril. Two days before the big race Three Moons developed a problem and had to be withdrawn. Midday ran, and was beaten by just a head by Sariska.
The dream was snatched away. ‘It was sad not to get the chance against our own age group and sex, gutting to have her go wrong so close to the race,’ Harry shrugs.
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