2008 – A Review
AN EXCEPTIONAL YEAR FOR HIGHCLERE, BY ROLF JOHNSON
The boffins have invented an egg without a shell – seriously – so that’s the cliché about not making omelettes without breaking eggs redundant. Let’s use it one last time.
Not every Highclere member was enamoured of the 2008 dispersal, even at eye-watering prices, of some of the contributors to our best ever season. The pressure to replace the likes of Conquest, Prolific, Collection, Colony, Regime and Furnace is on.
But their regular successes helped provide this season’s nest egg. The fact was that of all the winners, Group triumphs included, none were certain of stallion status. Offers that could hardly be refused were received, accepted and sale prices soared for Highclere stock.
We must enjoy their futures vicariously as they strut their stuff around the world. For example Asset has won in Dubai: Collection is favourite for the Hong Kong Derby.
Look back on 2008 by all means but let’s learn from history in order to repeat it. Martyr, Conquest and Hustle quickly kick-started the year: Double Act has given us a 100 per cent beginning to this one. In between were 167 runners, 27 winners and 52 places and over £1 million prize money.
Distingction winning at Sandown (left) and Collection winning the Hampton Court Stakes at Royal Ascot (Right)
Distinction’s victory in the Esher Stakes at Sandown in July was an emotional moment made all the more poignant when the oldest horse to carry Highclere colours retired at the end of the season.
One Royal Ascot winner is much sought after; two is a feast and Collection and Colony’s victories, on the same day, prompted Harry Herbert to audition for Come Dancing in the winners’ enclosure.
William Haggas-trained Conquest’s 40-1 Stewards’ Cup shocker – he had been unplaced in a two penny ha’penny race three weeks previously – had Goodwood punters dancing on their panamas.
Conquest winning the Stewards Cup at Glorious Goodwood (left) and Regime winning a Group 3 race at the Curragh in Ireland (right)
Nobody dictated to Conquest and when he won his Group sprint at Ascot in October he’d been unplaced there two weeks previously.
Conquest had character – unaffected by being gelded.
Michael Bell guided Regime to the Group races to which he was entitled; Redford didn’t achieve all that he might have.
If he can raise his game, the Cammidge Trophy at Doncaster on March 28 could be the springboard to making good his promise – as a sprinter.
Furnace winning the Challenge Cup at Ascot (left) and Prolific winning at Glorious Goodwood (right)
Furnace made his name with consecutive Heritage Handicaps – and helped make Hayley Turner’s name at the same time.
The first female jockey to ride 100 winners in a year rode Redford to win on his seasonal debut at Doncaster – history repeated?
Richard Hughes’ first mount for Highclere last March was a winning one on Hustle at Lingfield. Richard finished runner-up in the jockeys’ championship to Ryan Moore; they both partnered Prolific in Group company, Ryan third in the July Stakes, Richard to victory in the Richmond Stakes. To have these two available to us through their respective stables of Sir Michael Stoute and Richard Hannon doesn’t guarantee success but gives us a cutting ‘edge’.
That’s not to say other jockeys didn’t have a fine record in Highclere silks. Jimmy Fortune gave Conquest one of the rides of the season to take his Ascot Group 3 and if there is a horse who might exceed all expectations this year it is Inventor on whom Jimmy was placed twice in hot handicaps in the second half of the season. Alan Munro did the honours when Inventor landed a valuable Haydock handicap.
The season’s of the colt Fireside and the filly Laughter, two of the most eagerly awaited Highclere runners, lasted one race apiece and were over by the first week in May. The fact that both are on their blocks for this term is not merely a credit to their trainers but to the patience and perseverance of everybody involved. Highclere members – and many are constituents of other syndicates and of course owners and supporters of the game in their own right – are the bedrock of racing.
Tiger Eye winning a Tattersalls Millions Sales race at Newmarket (left) and Colony winning the King George V Handicap at Royal Ascot (right)
‘British racing is the best in the world’ is another cliché with a hollow ring, especially when we compare prize money – with leading racing nations like Mauritius and Cyprus – but such as those who cheered Colony and Collection to the echo at Royal Ascot, the late-lamented Tiger Eye at Newmarket, or trekked to Yarmouth to support Aura’s attempt to break her duck in the seller (hopes unfulfilled), will defy the doom-mongers.
If only the same problems, the problems of success, what to part with and which to retain, breaking up the team, confronted us towards the end of 2009.
The year couldn’t have started better – 100 per cent wins to runs courtesy of Double Act. Custody starts the season on a higher mark than did his stablemate Conduit, St Leger and Breeders’ Cup hero, last year. Their trainer, Sir Michael, has left Harbinger in the Derby. The Dansili colt is unraced and has had issues but his trainer puts stars into orbit: he’s not one to fly kites.
Everyone has a library of memories of the season gone. I hope not to appear perverse proffering one of mine, the frustrating Formation. The handicapper recognised his consistency and kept him in check. Formation didn’t make big bucks largely due to a Timeform ‘squiggle’ which the racing world takes to mean a horse is ungenuine. So ungenuine that for new connections he has won twice and placed twice in four outings. Hopefully any ‘vicarious pleasure’ in his achievements is being translated into some winning bets.
Horses can be a bargain whether they cost 28,000gns, like Formation, or 280,000. The big question is, when the cream rises to the top of our current strength of forty four recruits, will there be a market for them? It would be nice to think that past dilemmas will need to be confronted again – the problems of success, even if omelette making really has been made simple.
The forecast is for bloodstock prices to collapse and that last year may indeed be the last that the values of thoroughbreds held up, for some time. Who isn’t touched by the credit crunch, anywhere in the world? There’s a new book out, Insane and Unseemly, British racing in the Second World War. The title is from the condemnation, by the Labour MP Emmanuel Shinwell, about perpetuating the sport when the U-boat blockade rendered feedstuffs scarce and petrol scarcer. The question boiled down to priorities: racehorses or chickens, horseboxes or tanks?
Well racing isn’t under a siege from V-bombs but falling prize money, attendances and TV coverage are tangible threats that are going to concentrate minds.
Highclere’s immediate concentration will be on repeating 2008.