A horse you could bank on
Horseracing is a glorious spectacle. The sight of these equine athletes thundering over the turf is breath taking. They strain muscle and sinew to be at the front of the herd. And sometimes they literally give everything.
Last week Beat The Bank was winning his second Summer Mile at Ascot, getting up on the line despite losing his action. The injury was more serious than we thought and the five year old gelding had to be euthanised later.
He was the sort of horse you would love to own. He very rarely ran a bad race and his only defeats in his last fourteen runs were at the top level. He was just a neck shy of gaining that Group One win when runner up to Lord Glitters in the Queen Anne last month. But he won five out of five Group Two races. And he was as tough as nails. And that is part of the problem.
He would give his all, still trying when he would surely have felt the fracture that ultimately robbed him of his life.The last course he saw was one of his favourites as he ran three of his best races at Ascot ratings wise. He actually won half of the eighteen races he ran in and earned £600,000 for his connections.
The bare figures don’t do him justice though. How can they. I am sure I am not alone in shedding a tear for this warrior of a horse. There will be an empty box at Kingsclere and Kevin and Sandeep, who looked after him, will feel the loss very deeply.
Pretty good
Ten Sovereigns was pretty good wasn’t he? He ran the third best July Cup this century according to the experts. That was only the sixth run of his career and it was his fourth win. Maybe the mile of the Guineas took a bit out of him and he has now reached the form those close to him have been expecting.
He was impressive from a visual perspective and Advertise, in second, is a solid benchmark. I think Fairyland ran a decent race but she will find it hard to win a big race with her stablemate looking top class over this trip.
Ten Sovereigns could face Battaash next in a clash of the generations in the Nunthorpe at York. It is on the Friday of the week myself and my better half are away. So I need to arrange to be near a telly at about 3.35.
Big challenger
Japan won the Grand Prix De Paris on Sunday and suddenly he is being put up as a big challenger to Enable in the Arc. I don’t think he won with anything in hand myself. The runner up, Slalom, missed the break and ran into the running rail. He was only half a length behind at the line despite having to fight for a gap. Japan could come on again. But so could the runner up.
