Waiting Patiently, Cue Card, Aintree, cobwebs and more
WINNERS ENCLOSURE
What’s been good in racing…
- Ascot’s Betfair Chase Day fully living up to expectations and providing one of the best day’s jumping so far this season
- Waiting Patiently winning the Ascot Chase in terrific style and providing an emotional tribute to his late trainer Malcolm Jefferson and giving daughter Ruth a further winner after Cyrus Darius triumphed earlier in the week for her first victory
- Veteran warrior Cue Card coming a gallant second in the Ascot Chase
- Black Corton extending his winning run to eight consecutive victories, his most impressive so far, and giving Bryony Frost another big-race Saturday win in the Sodexo Reynoldstown Chase – Frost’s ever-increasing profile led to an extensive interview in the following day’s Mail on Sunday
- Simon Holt at the top of his game commentating at Ascot
- Guy Disney, who lost his right leg below the knee when on duty in Afghanistan, winning the Royal Artillery Gold Cup at Sandown for the second year running on Rathlin Rose
- Gordon Elliott landing a four-timer at Navan, a track where he sent out a six-timer 16 months ago, and taking his track tally for the season to 13
- Richard Pitman celebrating his 75th birthday by schooling the Jamie Snowden trained Right Enough
- Ted Durcan calling time on his riding career some 15 years after rode his first winner
- Trainer Dan Skelton and jockey Harry Skelton winning three consecutive races at Market Rasen, with the pick of Harry’s rides when he cajoled home 8-15 favourite Captain Chaos who was less than keen to land the odds
STEWARDS ROOM
…and what hasn’t been so good
- A good win for Yala Enki in the Betfred Grand National Trial Handicap Chase at Haydock (and giving jockey Charlie Deutsch a big-race win only days after riding out his claim) but doing little if anything to clarify the Aintree picture
- An inspection of one of Ascot’s shavings sampling boxes, finding “old droppings in it together with cobwebs”, leading to a report being sent to the BHA
- Yards from a children’s play area, Ascot’s caterers Sodexo charging £2.30 for 200ml bottles of soft drinks – at Sandown the previous day bottles twice the size were £2.80
- A set of escalators breaking down at Ascot inconveniencing, among others, members of Her Majesty’s Press who were forced to climb two flights of stairs between the winners’ enclosure and the press room
- Racegoers returning from Sandown missing a London-bound train because it left Esher station two minutes ahead of schedule – the next train was cancelled
- A seemingly extra-loud firing of a field gun before racing on Sandown’s Grand Military Gold Cup day just yards from the Annual Member’s Room which startled a host of elderly racegoers
- Another racecourse falling foul of not notifying the BHA of non-thoroughbred on the track – this time Fakenham’s hunter and loose-horse catcher causing the problem
- Sandown Park’s CCTV carrying an advertisement for Jockey Club Racecourse with the strapline “200 years of looking forward” – and then there’s the plans for Kempton Park
