Go Racing In Yorkshire Summer Festival: Horse, jockey and trainer to follow
Matt Brocklebank sheds light on three relatively unheralded characters who are worth following throughout the Go Racing in Yorkshire Summer Festival.
TRAINER - Grant Tuer
It’s boom-time for Flat racing in Yorkshire.
Mark Johnston, Richard Fahey and David O’Meara continue to go from strength to strength right at the top of the ladder, while Kevin Ryan isn’t far off the upper echelons of Britain’s trainers, especially when it comes to the juvenile division.
There are plenty of others, too. Jedd O’Keeffe, Karl Burke, Michael Dods and John Quinn have all enjoyed Group One winners, and then there is a bunch of relatively smaller operations making waves at a lower level who seem destined to make their mark in the big league at some stage.
“That’s blowing smoke up my arse a bit, isn’t it?” says one such burgeoning talent among the training ranks.
The refreshingly self-effacing Grant Tuer obviously has a long way to go before he can be classed among Yorkshire’s finer operators but the signs have been good since he took over the licence at Wiske House Farm from his father, Edwin, towards the end of 2016.
And things had hardly looked so rosy than at the start of the current campaign, when Tuer sent out two winners from six runners in March, followed by four winners from just eight runners through April.
Progress have slowed considerably since then, but the trainer admits that he’s had to endure a frustrating time of things and sit on his hands for the past couple of weeks as he waits for the string to click back into gear.
“We’ve been under the weather with a bit of a dirty nose virus from the middle of May in truth but we’re about to fire up again. We’re galloping a few this week and hopefully it’s all systems go.
“We ran a little two-year-old in a claimer at Catterick on Wednesday and he seemed okay so we’ll see how they are. The same two-year-old (Two Hearts) is in the seller at Ripon this weekend and if all goes well then we’ll be having a raft of runners (throughout the Go Racing in Yorkshire Summer Festival).
“Obviously nothing’s been running and we’ve got 20-odd horses to get going. There’s a wave of two-year-olds we’ve not had out yet because they’ve had a bit of the virus so I expect from the back-end of this month we will be really busy.
“It’s been frustrating as we were flying at the start of the season and have had to be quiet recently.”
Among those to make an impression earlier in the year was Champarisi, who won three on the bounce before creditable efforts in defeat at York and Pontefract.
And Tuer isn’t ruling out further success for the Champs Elysees filly when the yard is back to full health.
“She scoped clean the week before the Pontefract Cup but by the following morning she had a dirty nose. So she ran really well in the circumstances and should have won it really.
“I was disappointed but at least we had an excuse the following day. The winner of the York race (Carnwennan) the time before won the Northumberland Plate consolation, and the runner-up (Mancini) went on to win at York on Saturday.
“I hope she’ll be winning again but might not be out again for another couple of weeks.”
So is there anything we need to be keeping an eye on during the Summer Festival?
“There are loads of meetings which is great and they’re not top-level races so I expect we’ll be represented all being well.
“We’ve a really nice two-year-old called Angels Faces who made her debut at Carlisle at the end of May. She got badly hampered at halfway and got no chance, but we think we might have been placed without the interference.
“The placed horses that day have done well – Karl Burke’s horse won the Newmarket maiden at the July Festival last week and Mark Johnston’s has won since and is rated 85. The winner, Richard Fahey’s Exceptional, ran in the Albany at Royal Ascot and couldn’t keep up but we’d like to think ours will be alright.
“Kermouster is another who will be back out soon. She looks well and seems well in herself and we’re definitely getting there, especially with those who had it (virus) earlier on.
“We need to get back rolling again as we need to attract new owners with the yearling sales coming up before you know it.
“We’re still hoping we can make up for lost time and it’ll be a great year.”
It’s fair to say Grant Tuer won’t be the most well-represented trainer at this year’s Summer Festival, but seeing how the small but talented ‘home team’ bounces back from a mid-summer blip will be something to monitor closely along the way. Don’t be surprised if the winners begin to flow freely once again.
JOCKEY - Faye McManamon
Win, lose or draw, Faye McManoman has the kind of smile to light up any race meeting, no matter the weather.
But despite her open desire to find potential opportunities in the media further down the line - she capped a fine last campaign by being recognised with the Richard Davis Award courtesy of Jets4Jockeys - it is on the course in the heat of battle where McManoman has made a name for herself.
Attached to one of the most under-rated yards in Yorkshire with Nigel Tinkler, the 5lb claimer booted home 13 winners during a breakthrough 2018 season and has picked up where she left off with eight winners already to her name this year at the time of writing.
You can keep up to date with the rider and her life in and out of the saddle via short-but-sweet posts on ‘Faye’s Blog’ which can be found by following this link on the Tinkler website.
The very consistent Kilbaha Lady wins the Hull FC Handicap with @FMcmanoman in the saddle for the Nigel Tinkler team 👏 pic.twitter.com/8iUSL1YYPM
— Beverley Racecourse (@Beverley_Races) May 29, 2019
Earlier this month McManoman posted the following: “Beverley continues to prove a lucky place for me. Great couple of days with Tenax winning last night and the week finishing on a high for the stable with Northern Lyte winning this afternoon. Plenty of riding out this week as I am banned for a few days.”
Beverley may have dropped the ‘Samba style’ carnival theme for this year’s Festival meeting on Monday, but the stylish McManoman is back from her ban, enjoyed a wide-margin winner on Allux Boy at Wolverhampton on Monday evening, and is seemingly one to keep on side with a good book of rides this weekend - and beyond that too, no doubt.
HORSE - Debawtry
There were several candidates here, few more tempting than Karl Burke's lowly-rated Gin Gembre, who the trainer was happy enough to nominate as a strong candidate for success at this year’s Festival during a recent stable visit.
The son of Dandy Man has had his mind on other things lately, according to Burke, but was gelded before his last run and is now set to return with blinkers on dropped in grade for the Ripon seller this weekend.
He's evidently thought well capable of winning at this kind of level, providing his ability can be channelled.
But instead it’s Phil Makin’s sprinter Debawtry who goes down as the equine ‘hidden gem’. Makin is building a serious operation just off York Road, Easingwold, and he’s already shown he can eke out a little extra from other trainer’s cast-offs.
Debawtry started out with David O’Meara and arrived at Makin’s yard, via John Balding’s, with just four career starts to her name so the filly has clearly been tricky to train.
But five solid runs for the Makin team since mid-May suggest they’re getting to grips with her and her head second at Hamilton last Saturday was a career best.
The handicapper will inevitably have a say now but the daughter of Camacho might just turn out again at Doncaster this weekend, where she would look well-in, and providing the ground remains fast she’d go to Town Moor with a very obvious chance of chalking up a first win for her new, impressive young handler.
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