Reverses and setbacks come as part and parcel of the job of training racehorses.
It was probably best summed up by the trainer who, having seen defeat wrestled from the jaws of victory, wearily declared: “I’ve just seen hope disappearing over the hill with its arse on fire”.
Jim Goldie is not a man to moan but he could have been forgiven for detecting a slight whiff of something smoking last Saturday when he watched as Henry Brooke performed something out of a circus act on Plus Jamais in the handicap at Ayr.
The horse’s saddle had begun to slip with a circuit to run and the weight cloth, carrying the extra weight, was about to fall off after Plus Jamais jumped the second-last fence. Brooke somehow reached back to catch the bag, held it in his right hand and rode a finish for one of the most spectacular third places seen in a long time.
“When he went by the first time I thought ‘that number cloth is further back than I put it’,” Goldie said with a laugh. “Then Henry kept looking down and between his legs and I thought ‘your dangers are beside you not behind you.’ But he was quick thinking to grab the weight cloth. We’d have gone close otherwise but the jockey was playing survivor.”
Mistiroc went close enough to winning at Doncaster a month ago and Goldie thinks he has live chance when he takes the horse back at Town Moor this afternoon for the Betfred November Handicap.
Four weeks ago Mistiroc was leading when he seemed to stumble about 50 yards from the line, allowing Argus to win by half a length. “I wouldn’t say he stumbled,” Goldie pointed out. “He saw something and pulled himself up. I don’t think he’s ungenuine, and I’ve resisted putting blinkers on him so we’ve kept the same gear [the horse runs in cheek pieces] as last time.
“To me he had the race won but if you lose momentum that close to the finish that’s it. He’s drawn in stall 19, so that’s going to be a tough task, but he’s in form and should go close.”
Mistiroc’s task was made a little easier once Argus was withdrawn by his trainer, Ralph Beckett yesterday with a dirty scope, but Goldie thinks that Beckett’s other runner, Green Light, should not be ruled out. “He’s well drawn, they’ve got a claimer riding him and we only beat him a short-head in that race at Doncaster so he could be a danger.”
Mistiroc cost just £6,000 at Doncaster sales while the owner of Argus will now have to wait another day to recoup a bit more of the 400,000 guineas he paid. Talk figures like that and Goldie just smiles. Ask him how much is the most he has paid for a horse and he will reply “too much.”
“But that’s the fascination of racing,” he said. “I doesn’t matter how much they cost – it’s how they run.”
If Mistiroc keeps his momentum this time Goldie might look forward to a reversal of fortune.
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