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With eight meetings over one weekend and a warm week ensuring that ground was raceable everywhere, there is plenty of jeopardy in being a fixture secretary and their committee at this time of year.
The ground at Garthorpe for the Belvoir meeting was perfect. The ex-professional jockey and trainer Clerk of course said so, and the jockeys agreed. So why was nobody prepared to run in the young horse maiden which began the afternoon’s racing? The owners of four and five year olds want a decent race with plenty of runners so that if they win they can go straight to the sales and sell the horse to a professional yard. With nine runners, the Garthorpe young horse maiden should have been a good one, but instead the trainers got on the phone all agreed to go somewhere else. They had plenty of choice, too, as nearly all the eight fixtures this weekend provided an option.
Luckily for the organisers of this fixture, a massive crowd descended on Garthorpe and enjoyed their day out in fabulous weather, staying long after racing for live music and dancing.
With the opening race void, the Belvoir hounds laid on an excellent display of trail hunting for the three Members of Parliament present, a video of which you will be able to see on the Hunt’s social media.
The feature race of the day did not play out as expected either. The Birketts LLP Mixed Open race had two horses entered with ratings over the 120 mark, and nine rated over 110. As it happened, and those in the game know why, most of those runners either chose to run elsewhere or not at all. We started with three: Master Templar, ridden and trained by Gina Andrews and winner of 13 from 20 starts; Midnight River, ridden by Heidi Palin and winner of two from three for Bridget Skelton, and Home Free (Charlotte Butler), the Turner’s eight-year-old Soldier of Fortune gelding, third on his first run in points.
Home Free led to the second fence and jumped right, in front of Midnight River who was just taking off and now had nowhere to go. Heidi Palin’s mount landed on the hind quarters of Home Free and had no chance. Home Free made a mistake at fence 6 resulting in the jockey Charlotte Butler losing her stirrups, puling up at fence 8 and leaving Gina Andrews and Master Templar to complete the race alone.
The afternoon’s opener was one of the Jockey Club and Point-to-point Association Conditions races for novice riders, with six runners. Much of the running was done by Felix Barlow’s mount, Hardline, trained by Andrew Pennock, but they were caught with three to jump by Young Rich (Molly Legg), trained by Gina Andrews, and they went on to win by three lengths from the favourite Shentri (Poppy Shaw), trained by Kelly Morgan. Master Malcolm (Alice Richmond-Watson) was third for Stuart Morris.
Five runners came to post for the Tryac PPORA Club Members Restricted Race which was won in some style by Sports Magic trained and ridden by George Atkinson who has now won two of the three starts he has had on this horse. This race was notable for many who were supporting local trainer and rider Will Bishop, many times a winner of hunt rides across country. His mount Korkoran was the outsider in the field and looked a handful even before the start. They settled in at the back but Korkoran had other plans and hit the front after a lap without looking any easier to ride and was described by the commentator as bolting. They were jumping the fences, though, and it wasn’t until three from home that they were headed by Sports Magic and in the run-in Will Bishop relaxed just a little too much and nearly got caught on the line. Atlantic Fleet (Charlotte Butler) was the challenger, finishing third by a head for Edward Turner.
The W. Spence & Son Conditions race followed the Mixed Open and produced the second dead heat of the season here at Garthorpe and once again, having seen the slow motion camera footage from the line, it was absolutely the right decision. More remarkable still was that it came in a match race, famously tactical and often slow affairs. Sarah McLean’s Sambezi, with Charlie Case on board made all the running, with Gina Andrews and Fumet d’Oudairies playing the stalking game several lengths behind. When Gina pressed the button with one to jump she was able to ease past Sambezi and many thought that was that. Sambezi had other ideas and the two slugged it out throughout the run-in and as they crossed the line there was that eerie silence which tells you that nobody in the crowd knew who had one either. Inseparable was the call and all parties seemed happy with that decision.
The last race of the day was the Roythornes Maiden race, a traditional three-miler with six runners. A spectator behind me remarked that they never like it when the horse they backed goes out in front from the start, but that is what Maxfly d’Agrostis did to great effect, making all the running from the get-go and holding on to break their duck by a couple of lengths from the more fancied Poliath (Amber Jackson-Fennell), with Talktotherocks (Gina Andrews) some way back in third.
