Our star columnist Richard Fahey reflects on a good week for his yard, the sale of Great State to Hong Kong and then looks forward to his Saturday runners.
Good week
It was great that the horses performed so well down at Glorious Goodwood last week.
It hasn’t been a particularly lucky track for me over the last few years, but The Platinum Queen was our only runner there last year and she won so it gave us confidence to take a few more down.
They all ran well, with Monsieur Kodi winning the consolation race for the Stewards’ Cup the highlight.
He showed good speed and has gone up 3lb, so we’ll take stock and come up with a plan for him.
On Wednesday we also ran a nice horse at Pontefract in Ajwadi, who won his maiden for us.
I love the horse, so was disappointed he got beat on his first two runs, but he enjoyed coming back to six and it worked. There are no plans for him at the moment, we’ll see what the handicapper does next Tuesday and work our way from there.
Great shame
Great State, who won a Listed race at York for us in May and was progressive, has been sold to race in Hong Kong.
It’s a little bit frustrating for me to lose a horse as good as him, but when you get offered good money like that from Hong Kong it is too good to refuse.
I was hoping he’d fail the vet as they have very strict protocol in Hong Kong – both Mayson and Garswood failed the Hong Kong vets as two-year-olds and stayed with me, going on to win Group 1s as older horses – but he didn’t and he’s gone.
He was a good, hardy horse and I felt he would progress, I felt he was a Group 2 horse and maybe even a Group 1 horse, but he’s a gelding, he’s never going to be covering mares, and when the offer comes you have to take it.
Saturday evening runners
SHOWHOUND – 7.07 Ayr
He ran well first time as he was extremely green for one of mine. He hadn’t had anything wrong with him he just took time to come to himself. I own him myself, so we just ran him rather than take him up the grass and he ran accordingly, very green. He’s worked well since, he’s a half-brother to Great State and like him he’ll improve with racing.
HAVANA RUM – 7.37 Ayr
He’s been disappointing, we felt he’d win two or three this year but we’re looking to find the key to him. We’ve changed something by putting a visor on him, but he worked well the other day and hopefully the headgear will make the difference.
SLIPPIN JIMMY – 8.07 Ayr
I couldn’t knock him, he’s been running with credit. I don’t see why he shouldn’t go on the ground, he’s in good order, running well without winning, so I’d love to see him get his head in front.
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