Snow Fairy winning in Japan for the second time.
The Queen Of The Turf feature in the Racing Post has brought back some fond memories and it was fantastic to see two horses trained by my father appear in yesterday’s edition. Salsabil and Habibti were both great fillies with Salsabil being the first filly to beat the colts in the Irish Derby since 1900 when winning the 1990 renewal. Habibti possessed a lot of speed and as my father recalls when reflecting upon her Sprint Cup victory, ‘She annihilated them.’ Snow Fairy is in today’s addition and I take a lot of pride looking back at her career. She rose from humble beginnings but gave us so many magnificent days. Winning the Oaks was special, as was her wide margin win at The Curragh, going to Japan not once but twice to win the QE II was phenomonal, winning the Hong Kong Cup at Sha Tin was another special moment and then to win the Irish Champion Stakes in the manner she did was the perfect sign off to an amazing career. I look forward to training her daughter Belle De Neige this season, she is by Mrs Patino’s stallion Elusive Pimpernel.
We do not have any runners today and so I thought I would reflect on our handicap mark changes this morning. Global Revival has been left unchanged on a mark of 73 after his staying on third at Wolverhampton. It did not look a strong race and the handicapper has taken a similar view as he has raised the winner by only three pounds, the second by two and he has dropped the fourth a pound. Our horse was returning from a break and now we know he can stay a mile and a quarter we may ride him closer to the pace next time. Dutch Uncle was given a revised mark of 84 after his short-head second last Wednesday, this was exactly what we thought the handicapper would do, he raised the winner three pounds and it seems fair. He will return in the near future and as I mentioned before we will more than likely try some headgear with him.
Marwa was given an opening mark of 64 which was very close to what we were expecting. We felt if the handicapper took a harsh view we may end up with a mark of 67 but her opening mark of 64 looks to be fair and reflects what she has shown so far. She will step up to a mile now and we hope this can see her improve a little. Our last change was Magdalene Fox and a rise of 5 pounds looks slightly harsh, especially since the handicapper has dropped the third a pound. It was not the strongest race on paper and our horse got the run of the race from the front, the second has been raised three pounds for a half length beating and it may have been fairer to raise us four and the second two or three. The handicapper does tend to take a dim view of a marked improvement in form but our colt had shown some ability two runs back at Chelmsford and he then got caught wide and was too free early on when disappointing at the same venue. It effectively takes us out of 0-60 company given that grade tends to fill to maximum fields and we will enter him in a 6f 0-65. We hope he can still be competitive off of this mark and the handicapper is right.