A beautiful hill. Sussex’s Garden Party…
Gentler than Ascot. Breeze off the Solent. Sussex by the sea…
Day One. Duels on The Downs aplenty through the week…
Starting off with Scandinavia and Trawlerman. The race of the Royal meeting. An Ascot Gold Cup for the ages. The Ballydoyle heavyweight prevailing by the barest of margins. The Godolphin horse is a pound better off this afternoon. A pound make a difference over this trip….??
Handicap puzzles. Luck in running. Head for the cut away or steer wide and true ? Bumping and boring and boxed in for some. Clear sailing and wind in the sails for others. Conundrums and conjecture as form books are pored over by plenty. Others alighting on a name or some cool silks and making mugs of the “professionals….”
A 5 day summer dance. Grey skies right now – but not for long, and soaring temperatures and deep blue skies will form a heat hazy backdrop…
Picnics. White table cloths. Sunflowers plucked at dawn. Enough bottles to sink a battalion or an Armada. Ticket touting. “Any spare badges ?” a constant refrain through our week. Juggling…
Our runners today at the bottom of betting lists and most likely rightly so…
But the team in raging form, and we will roll several dice through the week ahead…
DESERT COP (Benoit de La S) in the 5 furlong handicap. A million to one with the bookies. Well, not quite, but big and ignored and seemingly with nil chance. They are probably right. Probably…
ATLANTIS BLUE (Luke Morris) and PERDY IN PARIS (Kieran O’Neill) in the Fillies Handicap. Atlantis Blue running a huge second in this race a year ago. An “unlucky loser” according to those clever Racing Post folk. This race has pretty much been the plan ever since. A light weight. Ideally, a bit more juice in the ground, but nothing that we can do about those Weather Gods…
Perdy In Paris is cool and young and progressive. Straight into deep waters, but she is talented and will not be disgraced…
On we go. A mighty fine week. A trip that will take some getting…
Duels on The Downs to be witnessed. This was one of the best. You can see the moment when Canford Cliffs cried enough and turned away from the battle. Frankel, the Wonder Horse…
