MONDAY, 26 JULY 2021 SKALLETI POWERS TO MUNICH TRIUMPH THE WEEKLY WRAP: THE Jean-Claude Seroul=s highly dependable 6-year-old grey BEST AND WORST OF TIMES Skalleti (Fr) (Kendargent {Fr}) posted a career best in ParisLongchamp=s G1 Prix d=Ispahan when last seen at the end of May and doubled his elite-level tally with an impressive five- length triumph in Sunday=s G1 Grosser Dallmayr-Preis - Bayerisches Zuchtrennen over 10 furlongs at Munich. Last term=s G1 Champion S. runner-up had also annexed this term=s G3 Prix Exbury and G2 Prix d=Harcourt in an unbeaten start to the campaign and was sent postward as the heavily supported 3-10 favourite to continue that trend. Skalleti adopted his usual hold-up tactics from the break and settled last of the six nominees as last term=s G3 Preis der Deutschen Einheit victrix Tabera (GB) (Gleneagles {Ire}) established a clear lead by halfway. Cont. p6 Charlie Appleby with his Derby/King George winner Adayar IN TDN AMERICA TODAY Hoycubed Photography GUTIERREZ LIVING THE DREAM WITH LETRUSKA By Emma Berry Trainer Fausto Gutierrez reflects on the ride with his dual Grade To borrow from Charles Dickens, the past week can be I-winning mare Letruska (Super Saver). Click or tap here to go encapsulated in one line: it was the best of times, it was the straight to TDN America. worst of times. Actually, let's face it, when it comes to bad times it hasn't just been this week, has it? Events of this year in particular have made it harder to love racing as we rock from one unsavoury incident to the next courtesy of some of the sport's leading trainers in Europe and America. The image that can now just be described as 'that photo' cast a pall over the Cheltenham Festival and it continues to harm the sport. Without it, there would almost certainly not have been a Panorama programme entitled The Dark Side of Horse Racing. Whether it was deemed to be fair or not, the programme's makers were able to draw a line straight from the shame and horror of seeing racehorses being slaughtered in an abattoir in the most distressing manner straight back to that photo, as the former trainer of three of the horses featured in the documentary was the same as the one sitting astride a dead horse on his gallops. Cont. p2 TDN EUROPE • PAGE 2 OF 12 • THETDN.COM MONDAY • 26 JULY 2021 Yes, it was shocking, but not for that reason. Euthanasia, however upsetting it may be for the individuals directly concerned, is undoubtedly the kindest thing for a horse who may never be sound or pain-free again. But there are guidelines for this set out by the Horse Welfare Board, and they include the line: "Whenever possible, euthanasia should be performed at home or in suitable surroundings, exceptions would include on a racecourse and in veterinary clinics." For all the excellent and extensive work being done in the rehoming and retraining of racehorses for other disciplines, It was made clear that Gordon Elliott was not the person who even one horse ending up in the circumstances shown last sent these horses overseas to the abattoir in the UK, and he was Monday night undoes all of that in the time it takes someone to not the only trainer named in the programme: another horse watch such a programme and decide that racing is cruel. had also been identified as formerly being in training with Gavin There may yet be some good to come out of the Panorama Cromwell. While the latter declined to comment, a response documentary. Britain and Ireland are two distinct nations with from Elliott in the programme stated that two of the horses had separate racing authorities but they are intrinsically linked in so been sent to a nearby dealer upon retirement from racing and many ways, from a shared Stud Book to the sales and the another had been rehomed with one of his riders. A subsequent racecourse. The matter of one of the horses at the abattoir quote in the Racing Post from Caren Walsh, the owner of the bearing the microchip of a horse who had previously been put mare Kiss Me Kayf who also sits on the Horse Racing Ireland down on a racecourse has been referred to the gardai in Ireland board and its Welfare Council, appeared to contradict this. and talks between the British Horseracing Authority and its Irish While fully supportive of Elliott, she expressed shock that her counterpart have already begun. Hopefully they will lead to mare had ended up in Britain rather than the Irish abattoir to joint-legislation being imposed that means racehorses cannot which Walsh thought she had been sent. suffer from someone opting to make a small amount of money TDN EUROPE • PAGE 3 OF 12 • THETDN.COM MONDAY • 26 JULY 2021 The Weekly Wrap cont. from the meat man rather than paying a vet to end a horse's life if that is the only option available. But really, we shouldn't need rules to tell us that this is an extremely suboptimal end for an animal which has been bred for our fun. For there is no doubt that if we do not put horse welfare first, always, throughout all of their lives, then we have Senior Vice President Gary King no right to be involved in a sport which will not be allowed to Twitter: @garykingTDN continue indefinitely if we don't all wake up to the importance [email protected] of this and act accordingly. + 1.732.320.0975 The Blue Knight International Editor And then along came Adayar (Ire) (Frankel {GB}) to cheer us all Kelsey Riley Twitter: @kelseynrileyTDN up. The doom-mongers may have been trying to give the [email protected] mile-and-a-half Derby its last rites but the great race is not for changing, not yet at least. European Editor Twenty years after his mighty and recently departed grandsire Emma Berry Galileo (Ire) completed the Derby-King George double, the Twitter: @collingsberry statuesque Adayar charged along the Ascot straight to remind us [email protected] that those who conquer Epsom can and do go on to be rather special. Have we forgotten in those intervening years New Associate International Editor Heather Anderson Approach (Ire), Sea The Stars (Ire), Workforce (GB), Camelot Twitter: @HLAndersonTDN (GB), Australia (GB), and Golden Horn (GB)? Strangely, another horse who is in danger of being forgotten in Marketing Manager the Galileo/Adayar comparisons is the rather important middle Alayna Cullen man, Frankel. Like London buses, Adayar and his stable-mate Twitter: @AlaynaCullen Hurricane Lane (Ire) have come along in the same year to vie [email protected] with each other for the title of best 3-year-old middle-distance colt in training. Contributing Editors Alan Carasso Christina Bossinakis Cafe Racing Sean Cronin Tom Frary [email protected] Irish Correspondent Daithi Harvey Regular Columnists Chris McGrath | John Berry | Kevin Blake Amy Lynam | Melissa Steele Frankel is the sire of Adayar and Hurricane Lane | Bronwen Healy TDN EUROPE • PAGE 4 OF 12 • THETDN.COM MONDAY • 26 JULY 2021 The Weekly Wrap cont. New Science (GB) (Lope De Vega {Ire}). With their two Group 1 wins apiece to date, they will not only Similarly, Frankel boasts a strike-rate of 42% winners to play a significant role in giving Frankel a good chance of runners in Europe. His tally of 18 stakes winners in 2021 is becoming champion sire for the first time--he is currently bettered only by Dubawi (Ire), who has had 23. leading Galileo, though not by much--but also in perhaps Appleby delivered a positive update on Adayar, who is delivering a first champion trainer title to Charlie Appleby. apparently growing up in mind as quickly as he is in body. He The trainer was unfortunately missing from Ascot on Saturday said, "He's pulled up well and, with Hurricane Lane as well, the having been 'pinged' by the Covid app and forced into isolation. pair of them are so similar in that they have the constitution With typical modesty he told TDN on Sunday, "The job was done that good racehorses must have: their work, their mindset, and all I was going to do was come along and put the saddle on, they're unbelievable." but it would have been nice to have seen him win. We all know The trainer continued, "Adayar came back last night at 8 p.m., that days like that don't come around too often." he ate all his hay and feed, he drank, slept, got up this morning For Appleby, who was released from isolation by Sunday, and went on the sea walker, and you wouldn't know he'd had a those days have been coming around more frequently this year race. It's the same with Hurricane Lane--his recovery rate is so than for his colleagues. Of the trio at the top of the British good. trainers' table with more than ,2 million in prize-money "Adayar has always caught the eye, but what surprised us in earnings, only two of them actually train in Britain. In a human the Derby was the turn of foot that he showed. Hindsight is a version of the royal blue/navy blue duels of old, Appleby is out great thing when you can go back and watch these races. At the in front for Godolphin ahead of Aidan O'Brien, who admittedly time you are just hoping they can stay in front, but when you has far fewer runners in Britain, with Andrew Balding's mighty can go back and digest the race, he showed a great turn of foot season putting him in third place.