Emma Spencer, a familiar face on Channel 4's racing coverage, finished second in the ladies' day charity race at Glorious Goodwood. Photograph: Jon Furniss/WireImageEmma Spencer, the Channel 4 racing presenter, was out of luck in the ladies' charity race at Goodwood on Thursday but it has been a more productive week for her brother, Anthony Ramsden. Like his father, Jack, Anthony is a renowned punter and said to be one of the country's most successful gamblers. But it was as an owner that he shone on Monday when his colours were carried to victory in a Grade Two race at Del Mar in California by the impressive Up In Time, trained by the former Newmarket handler Simon Callaghan.
Frankel's trainer, Sir Henry Cecil, came home to three cheers from the crowd after his colt's Sussex Stakes victory on Wednesday, but one traditional part of Glorious Goodwood appealed less to him. Cecil was sporting a panama hat in the Goodwood colours on Friday and admitted: "I don't think that I look very good in one. I look like an idiot."
Additional musical entertainment after racing proved one of the success stories of the week at Goodwood, with a sizeable proportion of the crowd staying into the evening without any obvious signs of misbehaviour. But when the band located adjacent to the pre-parade ring struck up Let's Go to the Hop in between races on the first day of the meeting, not everybody was impressed. One trainer, whose two-year-old was showing clear signs of becoming distressed by the noise, somewhat curtly informed a guitarist as to what he'd do with the instrument if the music did not swiftly end. It did.
A couple of major owners were entitled to wince at the results at Goodwood on Thursday. A couple of weeks after Sir Robert Ogden sold Casual Glimpse for 83,000 guineas, the three-year-old looked worth every bit of that when winning a competitive handicap for his new owners. Meanwhile, Lost In The Moment looks a smart staying prospect for Godolphin after just being touched off in the Goodwood Cup. The four-year-old was sold for 130,000 guineas last year by the British Horseracing Authority chairman, Paul Roy, and Michael Tabor, having landed a huge gamble when winning his first start in a handicap.
Alan Spence, the Chelsea vice-president and leading racehorse owner, was sporting what looked like a nasty selection of wounds on his forehead at Goodwood. But it was by no means as bad as it looked, as the affable Spence had suffered an unexpected allergic reaction to after-sun cream.
The former Liverpool and German international footballer Dietmar Hamann was roped in to help with Thursday's draw for Saturday's Stewards' Cup, but he ducked out of suggesting which horse would win the big handicap. Hamann, now the manager of Stockport County, is a well-known enthusiast of the sport and used to write a column in the Racing Post, but was reported to have racked up a gambling debt of ?600,000 several years ago. "I couldn't pick the winner of a four-runner race yesterday, so I don't think I can pick the winner of this," said Hamann, who evidently was not a supporter of Frankel.
No comments:
Post a Comment