2011 – A Review
By Rolf Johnson
Inspector Clouseau yells to the taxi driver “Follow that car”: so the cabbie gets out and legs it. (OK, it played better on screen in Pink Panther).
Follow that! crowed the Jonahs as Harbinger headed into the blue yonder last winter. They were right, inevitably. Not that there was ever any profit basking in the afterglow of Highclere’s best-ever season with the best horse in the world, and everyone stretched themselves to stay within cab calling distance of last year’s achievements.
Racing cannot be reduced to statistics and tables. The verdict on one season is given not at Doncaster in November but the next year when what has been learned is digested, when this year’s crop of juveniles realizes expectations – or otherwise. Highclere yearlings are acquired with more than one eye on their Classic year and for that they are trained. And that doesn’t just mean Group 1-placed Bonfire.
In 2011 the place to start is saluting Richard Hannon and Paul Hanagan for retaining their titles. Last year Ritual’s three victories were the gap between Paul and Richard Hughes; this year the former’s two Highclere victories on Abdicate and the one on Rose Blossom didn’t influence his result – but they were no less important than all the others to the champion.
Note, a pair for Abdicate, one for Rose Blossom: Richard Fahey wouldn’t have believed it if you’d forecast that score: how he, and we, wish for one to follow the flying Rose Blossom.
Highclere’s Census, Forgive, Usain Colt, Numeral, Graphic and Gusto contributed towards Richard Hannon finishing £1m clear of his rivals.
Forgive winning at Yarmouth and The Rock Sand Syndicate with Gusto after his Haydock win
We couldn’t emulate last year’s fourth in the owners’ list especially with our season kicking off as late as April – there had been no all-weather action but Pepe Simo kept up his winning streak right to the end of the jumps season at Newton Abbot.
On April 3 Firebeam ran second on his Doncaster debut provoking the Form Book comment, “He’ll take some beating next time out”. Actually it took some believing that a horse who ended the season on a rating of 106, heading for Group class, did get beat next time, at 3-1 On at Southwell.
Later that April day Prompter ran third in the Doncaster Shield, heralding what ought to have been a memorable season for the Royal Ascot Club. Somehow Prompter contrived to go through the succeeding months without winning though consistently running above his rating.
Normal service appeared to be resumed when, shortly after Exchange dead-heated at Beverley, Deity blew home that same mid-April afternoon on her debut at Newmarket.
Neither were to win again – not in Highclere colours anyway.
And, as a harbinger (no apologies) of what might be in the offing, Dominant immediately laid claim to be the unluckiest loser of the season, at Sandown. It was hardly an exaggeration to call his second placing a ‘miracle’ and eventually he overtook Firebeam to reach a rating of 110. There remain those who would rather Dominant’s biggest laurels had been gained here than, as they surely will, in Hong Kong.
Firebeam winning at York and Dominant winning the Tattersalls 3-y-o Trophy at Newmarket.
The easiest job for an interviewer would be to cherry pick Highclere syndicate members for those purring over continued success – as opposed to the stoics who regard disasters as stepping stones. So apologies to the many who have helped me form my opinions through the season and are not named here: I hope they will be at least as trenchant in future.
I introduced friends a couple of years ago to their first connection with horseracing. The two horses in their syndicate, Primary and Asset, were both Group winners: they had a record Sheikh Mohammed would envy. They didn’t renew, racing wasn’t for them. Take nothing for granted in this game.
Frank Belcher must be one of most philosophical of syndicate members – “On a personal point it started off a lot better than it finished and I was disappointed Dominant went but I rely on Harry to make the decisions – that’s what he’s paid for. One abiding regret is you make friends with people in the syndicate and next year you find yourself in a different one and lose track.”
Jon Collins expressed similar regret about Dominant’s departure. Financially it was undoubtedly the right thing to do but we’re all in it for different reasons not least the pleasure of owning good horses. But there’s Firebeam to look forward to.”
Harry Herbert will be looking for more Dominants in 2012.
The obvious one is Bonfire who took Dominant’s “unluckiest loser” medal when, in November at Saint-Cloud, the Andrew Balding-trained colt met more traffic problems than a bad day on the Peripherique. Yet not one of the thirty six (yes 36!) supporters who turned up that bleak November day in Paris was dismayed – as the song says, “don’t stop thinking about tomorrow”.
Bonfire winning his maiden at Salisbury and the Pocahontas Syndicate in France for Bonfires run.
Things are never so bad that they can’t get worse – for some – and the critics had a field day on May 1. Speaking to Richard Hannon on the occasion of her November sale, the champion trainer, seven months on, still can’t believe Memory didn’t win the Guineas – let alone not even start!
Everyone was aware she was a “character” but probably a world-beater into the bargain. The fact that she has joined Her Majesty’s broodmare band and is to be covered by Galileo, the pre-eminent stallion of our time, shows the possibilities she bore – without heed.
Katharine Whitaker has been involved with horses “as soon as I could walk”. Apart from being in Memory Katharine was involved in Theology who mustered one maiden in his Highclere career but fetched 125,000 at the Sales; and Quadrant of whom she asks “surely he was a bargain for somebody for his sale price?”
But, Katharine added: “We had plenty of runs, the good days made up for the bad and racing is a whole experience. So you’ll understand why we enjoyed the year. The winning is important, so are the stable visits, the sales, the parades.”
Anthony Deal volunteered: “Highclere continued to run an unbelievably professional operation – you’re made to feel an individual and the attention to detail was appreciated by me and my wife. 2010, with Approve and Memory, was the most exciting time of my racing life: this one has been indifferent. Memory was an emotional moment and Harry called me personally to apologize for the behaviour of a filly to whom we had become attached”.
Royal Ascot snappers had to do without the photo that completes their portfolios – Harry Herbert’s ‘Haka’ – his victory dance in a winners’ circle overrun with Highclere members.
For once our colours didn’t carry off one of the cherished Royal meeting prizes though Inetrobil in the Queen Mary and Census in the King George came close.
Richard Dickerson, than whom no one tracks form more assiduously, wonders if there isn’t an undue concentration on Royal Ascot but his “roll on 2012” is heartfelt as he singles out “Forgive and Mossbrae” as his big hopes for the future.
The standards are set so high that some disappointment was inevitable. Census went on to better things in the Group 3 Geoffrey Freer and gave us half a shout in the St Leger.
Census winning the CGA Geoffrey Freer Stakes at Newbury and Firebeam winning at York.
He will continue to give the lie to those who affirm Richard Hannon doesn’t train stayers – Martyr anyone?
When Activate made his winning seasonal reappearance in May at Haydock, extending his sequence to three, a season of achievement beckoned.
Yet he never recovered from being brought down at Goodwood in a crash so traumatic it ended Ryan Moore’s hopes of wresting the jockeys’ title back. We weren’t a third the way through the season but patterns had been established – had we but known.
Quadrant duly won his Newbury maiden – three months later he was disqualified having failed the routine dope test. He won his second maiden – at Ffos Las in September – to underline there was no impropriety at Newbury, but the heart had been taken out of his season.
Guards Chapel won as expected in a minor handicap on the first Thursday in June at Lingfield – whereas the plan had been for him to turn out at Epsom forty eight hours later – in the Derby at Epsom. A let down for those with higher aspirations; a delight for those who had lost faith – racing was ever thus.
The season was stalled but Firebeam’s took off in mid-June when he won his maiden by six lengths. A commentator on RUK expected him to be sold when his season closed at Haydock in September where he won “unchallenged”.
Hopefully not too many members heard this or the syndicate may have required a name change – Blue Peter to Blue Air. Firebeam is next year’s horse with this year’s foundation on which to build.
Would you believe it – a second faller within a month – Numeral, whom members had waited a year for his reappearance, was hampered and unseated Jimmy Fortune at Windsor.
If anybody should get a medal for perseverance – apart from Numeral – were those in the Flying Fox and he rewarded them when becoming almost unbeatable on Kempton’s sand.
This is not a dissection of 2011 still less a confessional. There was no winner sent off at bigger odds than the 9-1 about Graphic at Kempton in September – it wasn’t as if matters were out of everyone’s hands.
My own enduring memory came on a Spanish beach in August. I’d sought out a Sunday paper, ripped open the sports page and in a remote paragraph found “Brown Panther secured his Leger place (oh dam) despite (anticipation) defeat (wait for it) in the Geoffrey Freer Stakes by (serenity of sunbathers comprehensively disturbed as Englishman runs amok) Census”.
This year’s yearling parades were so selective that it was virtually impossible to guide friends and enquirers in the direction one would take oneself. And the tautest anticipation, for a form student at least, will be a horse who appeared right at the back of the class.
The 2011 Yearling Parades
In fact Teacher could be marked “absent” on his public appearances. He has beaten one horse in three outings. Yet William Haggas than whom there is no deeper thinker, has given assurances that the son of Danehill Dancer who started 66-1 on his last outing, will be alright.
The awards season dominated by Harbinger and Memory in 2010 passed us by. Will we see the like of Harbinger again? If the answer is no then we had better give up the game. Frankel came the year after Harbinger, both so soon after Sea The Stars – so ignore invented ‘narratives’ and, ignore racing politics too: and revel in the decision you made to take up the challenge.
Racing’s glories cannot be foretold or manufactured: next year it could be Bonfire or some as yet unsuspected champion who will, in his or her turn, evoke cries of “follow that”.