Weekly Wrap with Chris Mcgrath
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
MONDAY, 4 JULY, 2016 WEEKLY WRAP DURBAN BLOG: THE SUMMERVELD TRAINING CENTER WITH CHRIS MCGRATH Story and photos by Lucas Marquardt As we exited the highway and drove up a dark sideroad that led to Summerveld Training Centre, I thought about two things. First, that after 64 hours of travel, it was nice to not be on a plane. Second, that fields on the sloping hills in the distance seemed to be on fire, and no one else in the passenger van seemed the least bit concerned. I had arrived in Durban, South Africa on Thursday evening, three days after leaving Lexington, Kentucky. There was a cancelled flight, an uneasy sleep in the airport, a cross-city dash, a missed flight, etc. But now it was Friday morning; I made it in plenty of time for the G1 Vodacom Durban July the next afternoon, and all was right with the world again. Except for the burning fields. Cont. p13 Hawkbill | Racing Post IN TDN AMERICA TODAY Just like old times? Well, not quite. But it was undeniably A ‘WORLDLY’ WIN IN THE UNITED NATIONS evocative to see horses representing these two old adversaries Live Oak Plantation homebred World Approval (Northern square up for G1 honours at Sandown on Saturday, while the Afleet) captured his first triumph at the highest level when outcome did permit the Godolphin team to hope that they landing the GI United Nations S. at Monmouth Park Sunday. Click might at least have begun a journey back to the future. or tap here to go straight to TDN America. Television footage of their celebrations, as Hawkbill (Kitten's Joy) held on by a half-length from a Ballydoyle favourite in the G1 Coral Eclipse S, provided a vivid sense of the catharsis uniting the men charged with restoring the damaged Godolphin brand. Of course, those observers who have been proclaiming a broader revival in Godolphin fortunes over recent months are not comparing like with like. The original precepts of Godolphin- -as an elite corps of the Maktoums' vast cavalries, vaunting the benefits of the desert winter--have been so thoroughly abandoned that it is impossible now to pretend that the "stable" retains any coherent connection with the days when Fantastic Light (Rahy) slugged it out with Galileo (Ire) (Sadler's Wells). Its horses are now liable to be found in so many other yards that it beggars belief to hear pundits routinely refer to the amorphous expansion of Godolphin as an exercise in "streamlining." Be that as it may, the success of Hawkbill has unmistakably strengthened the one surviving thread of continuity, however frayed, through Godolphin's two private yards in Newmarket. For his trainer, Charlie Appleby, stands as a symbol of both regeneration and retrenchment. Cont. p2 TDN EUROPE/INTERNATIONAL • PAGE 2 OF 13 • THETDN.COM MONDAY • 4 JULY, 2016 Erupt a Smouldering Talent... Even commercial geneticists accept that environmental Cont. from p1 factors--nutrition, training, going and so on--account for at least This success, much his most resonant since his half of Thoroughbred performance. As such, it is fascinating to promotion to replace the disgraced Mahmood Al wonder how many racehorses might perform better or worse, if Zarooni, not only helped to exorcise a spectre. It plying their trade either side of the Channel. Jockeys in France also offered Sheikh Mohammed a sense of and Britain draw upon their mounts' reserves in such uniformly vindication in having persevered with an in-house contrasting ways that there are surely sleeping giants stabled in core, of horses and horsemen, on the principles traduced by the both Chantilly and Newmarket, yearning for a radically different steroids scandal of 2013. type of test. Yes, the fact that Godolphin horses are nowadays also spread On paper, the G1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud on Sunday looked among proven masters--men such as John Gosden or Jim Bolger much the deepest race of the week. Yet even a perfectly or Andre Fabre--might seem to acknowledge the recklessness of respectable pace, by French standards, could not jolt the entrusting its reputation to trainers without "runs on the board". runners out of habits they have acquired in sprint finishes. There But these horses might previously have carried the silks of was a nearly mechanical air to the way a horse ridden handily Princess Haya, or indeed the maroon and white of Sheikh made a decisive move as his rivals bunched into a crowd scene Mohammed himself. As an entirely bespoke Godolphin project, on his heels. Hawkbill's dramatic progress allows their boss to celebrate his In the circumstances, then, there was much to admire about fidelity to those principles (not least the encouragement of the way Erupt (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) came through so strongly to youth) betrayed by Al Zarooni, but now renewed by Appleby. chase home Silverwave (Fr) (Silver Frost {Ire}). This colt had the Both were internal appointments and both, on the face of it, winner back in fourth when taking the G1 Grand Prix de Paris seemed stubbornly to reject the obvious conclusion, as this time last year, and showed that he handles a very different Godolphin's results deteriorated, that the quality of the raw pace and ground scenario when running very well in the G1 materials was not being matched by the quality of their Japan Cup. If the ground ever happens to dry out, in this most supervision. deplorable of English summers, he could even emerge as an It was said that Appleby was a young man in rather too much intriguing proposition for the G1 King George VI and Queen of a hurry, when he farmed so many all-weather races with Elizabeth S. itself. bluebloods early on. But he must be credited with great circumspection not Brando Could be a Contender... only with Hawkbill, who One apparent deficiency in the training and racing has evidently needed time environment in Britain is said to be the honing of sprinters. A to simmer down mentally, heartening feature of the season there, then, has been the but also with Endless simultaneous emergence Time (Ire) (Sea The Stars of several classy new {Ire}), who returned from forces in this sphere. Charlie Appleby | Racing Post a long absence to win a Brando (GB) (Pivotal Group 2 race at Haydock just 90 minutes before the Eclipse. A {GB}) is another big filly by a sire whose stock improve with time, she has been 4-year-old really finding nursed through the ranks since winning off just 76 at Salisbury his feet, judging from a last May. It seems as though the Sheikh can now make a remarkable race for the G3 Coral Charge on the cheerful contrast between a single bad apple, and the ripening Brando | Racing Post of a highly polished Appleby. Eclipse card. Cont. p3 TDN EUROPE/INTERNATIONAL • PAGE 3 OF 13 • THETDN.COM MONDAY • 4 JULY, 2016 Weekly Wrap Cont. mustering a couple of winners over recent weeks. But the Having gone clear with startling ease, in the end he only trainer whose imprint appears top and bottom in the Derby scrambled home from one that broke out of the pack, the pair winner's pedigree must have known he was up against it when five lengths clear. Having discovered his forte, at the minimum he saddled a filly for a maiden at Tipperary on Thursday. His was trip, Kevin Ryan will presumably ask his rider to hold onto the only runner in a field of five not trained either by Aidan O'Brien Brando rather longer next time. or his son, Joseph, two of whose siblings were also riding in the race. The astonishing thing about Brando's graduation to pattern Time may tell that Oxx's filly did well to manage third place company is that both the two who finished clear in the behind two daughters of Coolmore's champion stallion, as Wokingham H.--over a stiff six at Ascot last month--now seem Promise To Be True (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) looked a very useful certain to prove ideally suited by a sharper test. They don't prospect in the way she woke up come much sharper than the downhill five at Goodwood, over to her vocation on her debut. which both Brando and the narrow Ascot winner Outback Running green in the rear as they Traveller (Ire) (Bushranger {Ire}) hold a Group 2 entry at the end turned in, the sister to Group 1 of the month. But both also have a handicap option, over six, winner Maybe (Ire) received a with equivalent prizemoney. single slap as Seamie Heffernan That anomaly is far less flagrant at Goodwood than elsewhere, sought her attention and thanks to lavish Qatari sponsorship of the meeting. But the fact remained gawky even then. But remains that Brando, having stepped up in class, was able to win Promise to Be True | Racing Post you could suddenly see her ,37,000 on Saturday--compared with the ,109,000 won by cotton on and she showed a really taking freedom in her action Outback Traveller in the handicap at Ascot. as she picked up, switched leads and hurtled past her rivals to win going away. It nearly looked like a public gallop on the A Filly of Authentic Promise... racecard, that's the way she won it out on the track as well. You can't get carried away, of course, after one start. By the same Those of us who have expressed outrage over the neglect of token, however, she could hardly be better named. the great John Oxx--knowing full well that he will hardly draw attention to it himself--have been relieved to see him finally TDN EUROPE/INTERNATIONAL • PAGE 4 OF 13 • THETDN.COM MONDAY • 4 JULY, 2016 GRAND PRIX GLORY FOR SILVERWAVE Sunday, Saint-Cloud, France GRAND PRIX DE SAINT-CLOUD-G1, i400,000, SCD, 7-3, 4yo/up, Caught in the backwash of A Shin Hikari (Jpn) (Deep Impact 12fT, 2:29.20, gd.