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| The day started with straight hair - this is how it ended up |
On Sunday I got to the yard early as the 16-race card at Tan-y-Castell meant the first race was moved forward to 1.30pm. Hamish, Mac and Jingo were loaded and we set off with a bag of jelly babies and Robson&Jerome’s ‘Greatest Hits’ (suggesting there was more than one) to keep us occupied on the way there.
Most of the journey was taken up discussing the alleged positive dope test from the two-day Ceredigion meeting a few weeks back. I had heard on the grapevine during the week that a horse had been tested on the Saturday of the meeting and had subsequently failed the test. The BHRC, the governing body that we race under, had received the results on the Friday before Musselburgh (I find it hard to believe it takes three weeks to get a sample to France, have it tested and then send the results back – this is the 21st century after all, but then they took longer to do the Cilmery final winner’s test so it is unfortunately believable). The horse that had failed the test was due to run at Musselburgh, along with several other horses from the same stables.
Now this is the bit where I should tell you that much like when Al Zarooni was caught doping Sheikh Mohammed’s horses, all the horses were put on lockdown and tested and weren’t allowed to race until they had provided clear samples. But I made a promise to myself that I would take harness racing to the masses and I wouldn’t paint a rosy picture in order to lure people in under false pretences. There are cheats, as there are in all sports. Unfortunately though, our governing body doesn’t deal with cheats in a uniform manner, or in fact in a way that is fair to those of us who don’t cheat. Instead of stopping the offending trainer from running horses at Musselburgh, the BHRC waited, let the horses race (the horse that had failed its test came third, another horse won, another came second) and then notified the trainer on the Monday morning. This is unfair to owners and trainers whose horses had to race against them. There is a total lack of transparency as the BHRC has not issued any notice stating that there is a trainer currently under investigation. They have failed to explain how it takes so long for samples to be sent off and tested. They haven’t kept the relevant race committee involved in the process at all. Yet they expect all their licence holders to accept this and not question what actually happens behind closed doors.
I wish I could tell you harness racing is ready to be sold to a wider audience as a complete package, but sadly it isn’t. For all the hard work, commitment and passion put into organising race meetings, advertising the sport and becoming more professional, we as a sport are held back by our governing body.
My final gripe is that although I appreciate the silence from the BHRC may be because they are awaiting the results of the ‘B’ sample before they make a public decision, I am pretty confident that if the horse that had failed its test had come from the stable that the BHRC Chairman is desperate to catch it would have been shouted from the rooftops the minute the results came back (and there wouldn’t have been a three week wait for them either).
So there is the truth, the sport isn’t perfect but the minute we arrived at the track all thoughts of the flaws left us and we got to work. It absolutely hammered down after we arrived, and in a break in the weather we put harness on all three of the horses who were due to run in races 9, 11 and 12. Hamish was crosstied in the back of the lorry and was a little bit…mental. I think he managed to kick The Boss at least once, and fidgeted and jumped the rest of the time. He decided to take him out first so Mac went back on the lorry and we set about getting Hamish ready. He continued to be a bit of a pain, and in between trying to kick us with alternate back legs he managed to twist my thumb back on itself as I tried to hold his head still. To say it hurt is an understatement. The joint is swollen and my boss at the Council says it looks like I have arthritis. I told him it looks like I was in a fight with a horse on the weekend. It will be a relief to you all to know that I will live.
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| Racing in the rain - are we mad?! |
Hamish warmed up, then Jingo went out in the second awful shower and I took shelter in the lorry. The track was then closed for the qualifiers to start and we put them all back on the lorry out of the way. I headed over the other side to grab some lunch from my parents vehicle and watched the first few races with Smarty’s friend Mr Fettah.
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| The three boys in the lorry - can you see Hamish behind Mac?! |
My highlight of the day came in the second race, when Bobby Richards, a gentleman I have met through my work at STAGBI, won his first race on Wellfield Picasso, a horse he has been driving in the qualifiers to get his confidence on. I wasn’t alone in cheering him in as he came up the home straight clear of the field when the second placed horse broke. Wellfield Willy chased him to the line but he’d done enough to secure his first win, beating Roy Sheedy’s horse with another one he’d bred!
When the time came to race I sent The Boss and Jingo out for race 9. He was drawn 7 of 7, and didn’t like the going at all. The inside on the rail was cut up following the rain, and two out was like an ice rink as the grass had been flattened but there was no cut in the ground. I could see Jingo was ploughing his way through the muck on the inside and when he pulled out on the second lap he did quicken on the faster ground and finished relatively strongly in fifth. There was a break after race 10 for the ‘Best Dressed’ competitions so I went to the Langford’s lorry to plait up Pendragon for Emma:
Mac went out for race 11; all hopes for a Best Turned Out were not resting on him as he has random bald patches, mismatching harness and a face only a mother (or me) could love. Despite being drawn 4 on the gate, The Boss did manage to get him in on the rail and he settled in fourth. Coming off the bend onto the back straight on the second lap though he slipped in the mud and that sent him into a gallop, and any hopes of a place went out the window. He trailed home in fifth position, with The Boss slightly disappointed as he’d felt slightly confident before and during the race up to the break.
Hamish went out in race 12, having finally calmed down. This is the same horse that fell asleep tied to the horsebox at Leominster and Walton earlier in the season, so I really don’t know what’s happened to him. Apparently Mervyn has told The Boss before now that he’s ‘a bit of a boy’. Yeh, understatement! Unfortunately he suffered the same fate as Mac, slipping on the corner and breaking stride briefly but enough to put him out of the race. Mervyn was pleased nonetheless, as the horse showed a bit more spark leading up to his break.
I cleared up around the lorry while The Boss went to take out Immortal Joe in the Over-50’s, which was a catch drive he picked up at the start of the day. The horses were watered, the harness was packed away and I grabbed my stuff from the lorry and headed off for a pint with Emma. I found my mother in the beer tent, surrounded by people who I believe were drunk; I told my father he should keep a better eye on her.
Meadowbranch Josh followed his Crock of Gold heat victory by taking the FFA, beating Appleby winner Camden Casanova into second and old stalwart Rhyds Destiny into third. David Bevan then won the final with Rhyds Panache, the same horse that struggled to get past Bongo last weekend. Just sayin’.
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On Monday I went over to the yard to resume my normal duties. The foal, Meadowland Export, was prancing around the field upon my arrival as he didn’t like the sound of my car; Mama and Robbie just looked at him with mild amusement.
After tea and cakes and more discussion surrounding the alleged failed dope test, The Boss and I headed outside to start an overhaul of the stables. The shavings have officially run out, so he decided that rather than buy more, we’d go back to straw. I remember when we first got the shavings, I was glad because they are much less work than straw, or so I believed. Well, now I’m glad we’re going back to straw. Deep litter systems on shavings with horses that are part pig do not make for a happy groom. I also didn’t have the correct implements with which to muck out said shavings, and conflicting advice as to how much of the mucky stuff to take out.
Straw is simple. For a start, our lot eat most of it. What they don’t eat they go to the toilet on. I then take that out, and we start again. Plus it’s much easier to muck out using a fork and my trusty barrow.
Mac seemed the most pleased to be back on straw – he rolled straight away, trying as best he could to get cast in the biggest stable we have. He then spent a bit of time trying to pull a piece of straw off his headcollar that was hanging down near his mouth. The jury’s out on whether there’s anything going on inside his head or not.
Jingo was moved temporarily next to Laddie while I mucked out, and was most put out that Laddie was eating and he was not. He spent the whole time stood looking through the bars at the food, completely ignoring me going back and forth with my barrow, and then The Boss whizzing past with a bucketload of straw in the Bobcat. He did one lap of his new straw-filled stable and then stood by his feed bucket as if to say ‘come on, that little one’s had his, where’s mine?’.
Maverick has completed his two months box rest and is now on two months of walking. Leading him anywhere isn’t really an option because he’s like a coiled spring, so it is times like these that having a walker comes in handy. I could hear him moving a lot faster than the walker allows which means he must have been pushing the paddle in front of him, and there were several kicks to the side wall as well. The Boss stayed with him the whole time just to keep an eye on him, and after fifteen minutes of that he came back to his stable.
We were on a roll at this point, having done four of the six stables so we decided to carry on with Hamish and Melinda’s. Once they were done and we’d fed them all I decided to call it a night and headed home, with the plan being that I return again on Thursday. I asked them all to *try* and keep their stables half-clean for me for when I come back, but it probably fell on deaf ears. The only sound I got in response was six happy horses munching away on their suppers. I think that’s got to be one of my favourite sounds in the whole word.
This week: Tir Prince for the Breeders Crown on Tuesday (Cassius Clay is running for Smarty, Camden Kinki is running for Emma and Fresh Ayr is running for my parents – wish us all luck), and Allensmore on Sunday (all three of ours plus Emma is bringing my girl Star for gate practice).
Update to follow!
Over and out,
Sarah (#1 Groom)
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