A JOCKEYS JOURNAL by Racheal Kneller @Rachealkneller
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Created by Gordon Millard Page !1 Cover Photo provided by Michael Harris Graphics by Lucy Dixon Edited by Polly Rodgers Contents Racing Calendar / Event Focus 3 - 4 Fantasy League Competition 5 Walking The Courses 6 - 8 The Scales and The Importance Of Ice Cubes / Kauto Star Poem 9 - 10 Head Cases (Jockey concussion study) 11 - 12 The Day We Buried Red Rum 13 - 15 A Jockeys Journal 16 - 17 Mullins It Over 18 - 21 Billy Blakemans Guide To Handicaps / Cheltenham Focus 22 - 26 Final Flight Festival Focus 27 - 30 Mullins Domination / Dare To Dream 31 - 33 Midlands Grand National / On Air With Bobby Beevers 34 - 36 Inspiration For A Generation 37 - 38 Pointing News 39 A Catch Up With Saturday Royalty Kerry Lee 40 - 41 Dubai Super Saturday 42 - 43 Meydan World Cup 44 - 46 Photography By Polly Rodgers 47 Editors Cut 48 Page !2 Mencap Charity Day - Friday 4th March 2016 Celebrate the start of spring with the first of two great days of Jump racing in support of a good cause. Winners on the day last year included subsequent December Gold Cup winner Village Vic and as always at Newbury there is a good chance there will be some equine stars of the future on show. The day itself will support West Berkshire Mencap, a charity doing invaluable work to support people living with learning difficulties and their families in the local area. Page !3 Greatwood Charity Raceday - Saturday 5th March 2016 The second of our two days of racing centres around the Grade 3 Greatwood Gold Cup, whose past winners include subsequent Hennessy hero Madison du Berlais. Last year’s winner Sound Investment went on to win the Grade 2 Old Roan Chase at Aintree the following October, and it is always a day of high-class competitive equine action. You can also learn more about Greatwood, a unique charity based near Marlborough which Sound investment and Bennys Mist provides fulfilling futures for former racehorses in last years Greatwood Gold Cup and teaches emotional literacy and life skills to children and young people with special educational needs. Lady Wulfruna Stakes Day - Saturday 12th March 2016 This Saturday afternoon fixture is the only Saturday afternoon fixture of the year, and features the only Class 1 race staged at Wolverhampton each year, the Lady Wulfruna Stakes, a Listed event since 2007 and now an AW Championship Fast-Track Qualifier. Past champions include; Sovereign Debt (pictured), Chookie Royale and Solar Deity. There are a host of further exhilarating All- Weather Championships races, including the Lincoln Trial and a number of Class 2 affairs, increased prize money across the card and the chance to get to Finals Day at Lingfield Park on Good Friday with Fast-Track Qualifier success attract all the top jockeys, owners and trainers on this Saturday meeting. Betfred Midlands Grand National - Saturday 19th March The second longest Steeplechase in the country at 4 miles and 1 1/2 furlongs, the Betfred Midlands Grand National is a true test of stamina and courage for both horse and jockey. Since 1969 this prestigious fixture has been a firm favourite in the racing calendar and with a prize fund of £100,000 it’s no wonder that top jockeys, trainers and owners all want to win the BIG race. Taking place on the 19th March 2016 the Midlands Grand National attracts some of the best chasers in training and previous runners have even gone on to victory in the Aintree Grand National and the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Page !4 COMPETITION TIME Page !5 Walking The Courses By Richard Farquhar @WalkTheCourses In February 2012 I lost my father to pancreatic cancer. My father, who had worked in racing as a youngster, instilled his love of this great sport in me. He became one of the 9,000 people in this country every year who succumbed to a disease with an average life expectancy of just five months and a one in five chance of surviving for a year. My 50th birthday was approaching and in the aftermath of losing him, it occurred to me that the only thing that I had done, to that point, in my life for charity, was to grow the most feeble moustache imaginable for prostate cancer. It honestly looked like a caterpillar with a hair loss problem! And so it was that I began to muse on doing something, just once in my life, of note and scale, that could reach a large audience and raise a pile of cash for Pancreatic Cancer UK , the only national charity fighting pancreatic cancer on all fronts. The big question was……what? A couple of months later, a great friend rang me one day to tell me that he had been racing at Great Leighs (now Chelmsford City) and had, as a result, been racing at every racecourse in mainland Britain. As a lifelong racing fan, this struck me, in a slightly trainspotterish way, as an achievement that I would like to mirror. I remember sitting down an ticking off the names of all the tracks that, at that point, I had visited. I got to 28…….not bad, but a long way from 60! So the idea was sown. But how to do it? I couldn’t simply go racing at each course and expect people to sponsor me. Riding between them was out of the question as I don’t ride. Cycling likewise was a non-runner, as years of quick bowling have left me with a left knee that does not like one particular angle of flex. And then I considered walking. Physically I thought I was probably capable of getting myself into shape to do it and it did sound like an endeavour that might be deemed worthy of support. And then I did what all sensible people do when they come up with a ludicrous idea, namely to come up with all the excellent reasons why I shouldn’t undertake such a hare brained project: too old, unfit, job to hold down, family. So the idea was mothballed, set to one side, but not quite put out with the rubbish! It was two years or so later in June 2014, when Lambourn trainer John Hills passed away, that I really decided that I had to carry it through. John was but a year older than me, also had four children and succumbed dreadfully quickly to pancreatic cancer. I did not know him at all well, but it was clear from the heartfelt tributes that he was a hugely popular individual, who was enormous fun to be with. I had always had a huge respect for his father Barry and the rest of the Hills dynasty. I remember my father relating the story of how Barry set himself up as a trainer by landing a coup on the winner of the 1968 Lincoln, Frankincense, when assistant to Gerald Oxley. I knew that an inevitable by-product of John’s tragic death was that the racing world, which is largely such a caring community, would get behind my project. So I took the decision to go ahead, subject to a number of key stakeholders agreeing: my family and my employer most notably! To my considerable surprise, my employer, fund management group Liontrust Asset Management, agreed and hired someone to cover my responsibilities for as long as the project would take. The family also agreed and, crucially my eldest daughter Minty, who had just left university and was thinking about finding her first job, consented to come to work full time on the project with me. The other major decision I took was to incorporate Racing Welfare on the ticket. All fans of racing Page !6 know all about the Injured Jockeys Fund, which does such wonderful work for the heroic occupants of the weighing room. Not everyone know of the fantastic work that Racing Welfare does for the legion of workers without whom racing simply wouldn’t happen: for example, stable lads, stud hands, box drivers, racecourse employees, breaking yard workers. An army of 45,000 people who give so much, without whom racing simply wouldn’t happen. So from September 2014 through until March 2015 the planning was in full swing. There was so much to do: devise a name, plan the itinerary, liaise with the racecourses, develop a media presence, build a recognisable brand…….to say nothing of getting myself into shape! By the time I departed the Rowley Mile at Newmarket on March 20th heading for Towcester, we had got the support of all the key stakeholders (racing authorities, racecourses, media) and I had lost 10lbs by walking about 45 miles per week! Whether I was in shape to walk the 3,000 miles over 13 months to complete the project only time would tell. There have been so many highlights since I started. The racing Gods smiled on us in a big way when Many Clouds, our equine ambassador, won the Grand National, for one of our project supporters, Oliver Sherwood. We had great fun on the leg from Catterick to Cartmel, on which we were joined by Oliver and wife Tarnya, joined by, among others, Alan King and Simon Sherwood. I had amazing support on the “Lambourn” leg from Ascot to Newbury, with trainers Eve Johnson Houghton, Daniel Kubler, Jamie Snowdon and Harry Dunlop joining me, along with Many Clouds - our equine ambassador Sir Anthony McCoy. The story was the same on the trek from Yarmouth to Fakenham, when I was joined by Ed Dunlop, William Haggas, Sir Michael Stoute, Roger Varian and Stuart Williams.