Have horses, will travel. This bastardisation of a well-known phrase barely covers the appetite for winners of Newmarket’s James Owen, who capped last week’s $3.5m Nashville Derby win with Wimbledon Hawkeye at Kentucky Downs with a short-priced double at Stratford on Saturday.
The globe-trotting trainer is chalking up winners at every level of the sport, and the stable’s strength allows him to draw on the best riders too: Frankie Dettori for Kentucky, and Sean Bowen here for his jumpers.
Sad to say, his Stratford achievement did not set ripples in the news, hardly helped by the marginalisation of the fixture to a teatime start, another innovation to extend the betting cycle over more hours. One wonders sometimes where this will end: hopefully not in tears, as proved the case with afternoon greyhound racing. Stratford’s racing regrettably rarely registers in media beyond Racing TV.
Enough of politics for one paragraph however. A thriving yard can turn over horses readily enough if they don’t make the cut. Hence, the master of Green Ridge Stables in Newmarket despatched two runners in the opening conditionals’ seller, and it was the more fancied of the two, Chillhi, who landed the odds with a comfortable 17l win, Nathan Howie in the plate, over favourite Gavin, trained by Sean’s elder brother Mickey Bowen. The stable’s second runner, Laser Focus, did his sire’s reputation (Sea the Stars) no good in finishing a distant 38l fourth. Both returned home as there was no bid for the winner.
Hamlet’s Night looks the right type of horse for the town where the Famous Bard lived, and the four year old maiden, recently switched from Daniel and Claire Kubler, evidently thought so too, following up in good style in the Genair Maiden Hurdle under champion rider Sean Bowen to capitalize on some promise shown at Cartmel a fortnight ago. the 8l margin over second placed Test The Market suggests he can win again in orthodox novice company.
Bowen was back in the winner’s berth an hour later with the David Rees – trained Radharc Na Slaine, who is both a commentator’s challenge to pronounce, and a ride that needs the sort of forcefulness that earned Bowen his reputation. Still only third before the final fence in the Genair Handicap Chase, he was driven to lead just before the line, winning by a neck from Kielan Woods on Gone In Sixty. Winning trainer, Welshman David Rees has a small stable rarely making the news; this was an opening winner fro the term.
The same description can’t be applied to Alistair Ralph, regularly among the winners at Stratford, and again on Saturday in the feature Wynchwood Handicap Chase with 7/2 shot In The Air, ridden by Ciaran Gethings. Three of the stable’s 8 winners this term have been at Stratford, and this latest continued to frustrate Alan King, who has placed Finest View to win three times this summer, including here in July, before a bout of seconditis, this time by 3 1/4l. They say weight stops a train, although top weight Finest View might be flattered by the comparison. He may need the handicapper to show some leniency or re-route through conditions races which are sparing at this level in the UK at least.
Ralph was back in the frame an hour later when Barely Famous proved a distant third to the Ben Case – trained Belles Benefit in the now standard issue Mares Handicap Hurdle. Harry Bannister was allowed a bloodless victory, 10l clear of second placed Mother Ship, one of several runners sent over by Shark Hanlon, who is priming Hewick for another tilt at Far Hills in October. These Stratford forays have been a useful grounding for son Paddy.
Another struggling to find the winning thread is Seamus Mullins’ Basillette, who came off second best again in the closing 2m handicap hurdle, this time to Hill Station, kept handy throughout by claimer Luke Scott, to pick off this Class 5 hurdle, and in so doing, break his maiden at the 15th attempt for Richard Newland and Jamie Insole, a 7th winner of the nascent Jumps season for them, and a reminder their emphasis is more and more directed toward the flat.
