THE QIPCO 1000 GUINEAS (Fillies) 2014 TO BE RUN AT NEWMARKET ON SACRED SUNDAY MAY 4th 2014
3:50 QIPCO 1000 GUINEAS STAKES: ENTRIES:
CH4 MORNING LINE ON SATURDAY TAKE US TO MEET UP WITH
GEORGE MARGARSON AT HOME IN NEWMARKET
George Margarson is a racehorse
trainer based in Newmarket .
LUCKY KRISTALE challenges for Trainer Team (George) Margarson
We meet up with LUCKY KRISTALE and see her working along at exercise. She is a striking, smart and impressive mover. Like she hardly touches the ground but sort of float's over the top of it.
George Margarson Newmarket Racehorse
Trainer | Our Staff
Our Staff. The working yard at Graham Lodge Stables is managed by
both George and Gaye Margarson. Our key
staff have been with us for many years and are ...
256 views 4 days ago
Nick Lightfoot
interviews the trainer of one of the leading fancies for the 1,000 Guineas this
year.
1,000 Guineas (Fillies) 2014
Ch4 Horseracing Team Live from Sandown Park
YESTERDAY CH4 Nick Luck introduces us to Clive Brittain at home in Newmarket with his horses.
Friday April 25th 2014
Clive tells us he is as confident before the race in Rizeena winning the 2014
1,000 Guineas as he was in 1984 before Pebbles won the 1,000 Guineas.
TIME LINE
1984: Pebbles won 1,000 Guineas run on Thursday May 3rd 1984 .
Clive tells us same as it was in 1991 before Mystiko won the 2,000 Guineas (Colts)
Clive tells us same as it was in 1993 before Sayyadati won the 1,000 Guineas (Fillies).
EQUUS ZONE:
Chapter Eight "Pebbles Takes The Guineas" .
Pages 93 to 100
You will notice Clive opens up his Chapter Eight saying:
“She always had it. She was a character. You
look at her and there was something honest. She had that natural ability. She
didn’t look for affection. She was very much her own person. “
“ The racing public adores a top-quality
filly, especially a filly who demonstrates a flash or two of feminine
temperament, and a key test of a top trainer in his or her capacity to bring
the best out of such characters. Clive’s mentor Noel Murless did it with the
likes of Petite Etoile and Clive passed the test with honours in handling
Pebbles, one of the best there has ever been on the racetrack but a nervy sort
who could be easily upset in the preliminaries. As he says: “It was a question of working out her break level. All
that pent-up power and emotion had to be saved and directed.
“Pebbles was not just an
international racing star, the first from Britain
to win a Breeders’ Cup race in the USA, she was one of those who took
her sport off the racing pages and into the
general news column thanks to her ‘love affair’ with the gelding Come On The Blues, a consort who travelled the world with her and help to keep her calm enough to do justice to her talent. In America there were constant calls when she appeared of ‘Where’s the boyfriend?”
“Certainly Pebbles was all girl. Clive likened the
bright chestnut with the white splash running right down her face and a big
bold eye to a lissom French model rather than the more masculine fillies who
have often prevailed in top races. Her trainer, who had won five races with her
dam La Dolce, was convinced from early on that Pebbles, by Sharpen Up, would
prove something special. But she was not the precocious type and many experts
came around slowly to his opinion as her racing career progressed.
TIME LINE MAY 4, 2014
British 1,000 Guineas Newmarket (Rowley Mile)
Will Clive give us a little character
sketch on the life and times of Rizeena before Sunday May 4 in the Racing Post I
wonder? Don’t forget that Rizeena will have started her racing career from an
early age as a foal and then as a yearling on through her two-year-old prep
races last year; and now as a three year old. She will have strengthened up
this year both physically and mentally. They say it is in the first four years
of a child’s life that a child learns more than at any other time in a
lifetime; That is if they are allowed too. It is the same with foals, yearlings, two, three
and four year old. The key, the person who is with them every day, minding
them, little by little.
YES, yes yes .... CH4 Live focus
TIME LINE
(Saturday 25. 04. 2014)
Chapter
Nine 'Pebbles Conquers America'
Page 101 to 116
"How good is Pebbles? Just look at what she
did. She found three lengths more trouble than I did and still she won. ' Steve Cauthen, who rode the runner-up, on
Pebbles' Breeders' Cup victory.
"For Pebbles and for Clive, 1985
was an annus mirabilis in which she was to prove herself the
best filly in the world, winning the hearts not only of the British racing
public but of many Americans too.
PEBBLES TIME LINE 1984
(four year old)
"After the promise shown on her
return from injury in the 1984 Champion Stakes, Pebbles began her third season
back at the track where she had made her racing debut, scoring easily in the
Group Two Sandown Mile. She was then sent to Ascot
to take on the St Leger hero Commanche Run in the Prince Of Wales's
Stakes. Commanche Run, who had opened his season with a 12-length
victory in the Brigadier Gerard Stakes, started at 8-11 and Pebbles at 5-4, and
both were beaten in one of the shocks of the year by the 33-21 shot Bob Back.
But Ascot never seemed to be quite her course.
"She renewed rivalry with
Commanche Run and their Ascot conqueror in
Sandown's Coral-Eclipse Stakes. It was to prove an unhappy occasion for
Commanch Run. He kicked out wildly in the paddock and, although he seemed to
parade and canter down normally, he was found to be lame at the start and withdrawn.
The Jeremy Tree-trained Coronation Cup winner Rainbow Quest, who went on to win
the Prix de L'Arc de Triomphe that year, was made the 4-5 favourite, with
Pebbles at 7-2. If that seemed a generous price, punters had to ignore a
supposed hoodoo in the race. Since its inception in 1886, no filly had ever won
the Eclipse, despite the participation of such great racers as Park Top and
Time Charter. It was a detail that led some to recall the dictum of Clive's
great mentor Sir Noel Murless that June was the point of no return for
four-year-old fillies, with their hormones taking over from that point and
turning their thoughts to matters other than racing at high speed.
"Some had kept the faith, In the
Sporting Life of Saturday July 6, Geoff Lester had taken the front-page
headline with his opinion: "Pebbles ready to Eclipse the colts' . He
pointed out her course win in April and
fast-finishing neck second to Palace
Music in the previous season's Champion Stakes. She could be forgiven her
defeat by Bob Back at Ascot, he said, because
she had been in season two days earlier. She had a run a stone below her form in that but had worked
with great dash since.
"In the Eclipse Rainbow Quest
had a pacemaker, August, but his rider Alain Lequeux didn't pay much heed to
him and settled in behind Pebbles six lengths behind his ally, Steve Cauthen
was on Pebbles and he made a decisive move past the pacemaker August three
furlongs out. He gave Pebbles just one
tap with the whip and she stretched away from Rainbow Quest to become the first
filly to win the race in its 99 years of existence. Rainbow Quest never looked
like having the speed to match her acceleration
and she never gave him a second chance.
JMC note: "He gave Pebbles just one tap with the whip. " If a racehorse is being prepared properly at home one tap with a whip gets the message through fast, receiving the required immediate response from the horse. "
"John Oaksey wrote: "Clive
Brittain's optimism was gloriously fulfilled.
He has taken endless pains to see that Pebbles does not boil over before
her races and yesterday she was
accompanied
until the last minute by her great friend and companion Come On The Blues.
"
"Those
were not the only pains Clive had taken to spare his stable star
emotional
distress.
"For the Eclipse at Sandown we
knew we had to go into the saddling boxes and then across and down into the
parade ring. I knew it would blow her mind if we did that, so I made an
arrangement with the blacksmith. They had the dope testing box on the corner as
you came out of the main block. I waited until Rainbow Quest and the others
went past and brought Pebbles out. We left the paddock area apparently joining
the queue but I said to the guy in the dope box - I was quite friendly with him
- that I didn't want her in the parade ring for too long and asked if there was
any way I could take her in the box because I thought she had got a loose shoe.
I didn't want to announce that she had spread a plate because the jockeys would
all have waited, so I said she had just got a clinch up . I had given the blacksmith a drink to be handy. So
we got her in the box and I kept an eye open. I had a lad overlooking the paddock from the upper end and I told him
to give me the signal when the jockeys were mounting.
TIME LINE
Chapter
Twelve "Working Marvels With Mystiko."
Pages 145 to 158
Mystiko won the 2,000 Guineas (Colts) in 1991
TIME LINE
Chapter Sixteen
"Sayyedati
Captures Another Guineas (Fillies)
(1993)
Page 201 to 206.
"The
combination of Brittain and Sayyedati's jockey Walter Swinburn takes a lot of
beating . Win, loose or draw they always come back smiling and when they have
something as good as this to smile about you cannot but smile with them' .
"George Ennor on Sayyedati's 1,000 Guineas
win. "
"Racing is all
about dreams and when Clive won the 1,000 Guineas of 1993, his second success
in the race, it marked the realisation of a dream that had disturbed owner
Mohammed Obaida's sleep for eight years. Obaida's good filly Dubian, a half- sister
to the three times Champion Hurdle winner See You Then, had finished third to
the superstar Oh So Sharp in the Oaks in 1985 and ever since then he had a
dreamed of breeding a Classic winner from her.
"In 1992 Clive had a string of
potentially top-class fillies. Ivanka and Love Of Silver both went on to win
good races and so did two of Obaida's fillies, Sueboog and Sayyedati. But it
was Sayyerati, a filly by Shadeed out of Dubian, who became the winter
favourite for the 1,000 Guineas
on the strength of her two-year-old form. In four outings as a juvenile she was
beaten only once, first time out in the Halifax Maiden Fillies' Stakes at Ascot in June, when Sumoto beat her by two lengths.
" Sayyedati soon left that form
behind. Three weeks later in the Cherry
Hinton Stakes at Newmarket, ridden by Michael Roberts, she took on and beat the
second and third in that year's Queen Mary (Mystic Godess and Toocando) , the
Norfolk Stakes winner Niche, the Acorn Stakes winner Anonymous (trained by
Clive) and two others, despite idling qwhen she got to the front. After a two -
month break Sayyedati started a short-priced favourite for the Moyglare Stud
Stakes at the Curragh in September. The decision that year to increase the
distance of that race from six furlongs
to seven furlongs brought about an attractive clash with Bright Generation.
Sayyedati won by a length and a half but didn't look comfortable on the soft
ground.
"In optimistic moments - some
would say the only kind he has - Clive had been heard to mention Sayyedati in
the same breath as Pebbles, although the two were different physically.
Sayyendati rangy and attractive with plenty of scope, but both
were high-mettled as well as brilliant fillies and , like Pebbles, Sayyendati
was sometimes provided with a travelling companion.
MONDAY APRIL 28th 2014
Countdown to the 1,000 Guineas 2014 to be run on Sacred Sunday May 4.
TIME LINE
Chapter Twelve "Working Marvels With Mystiko."
Pages 145 to 158
Mystiko won the 2,000 Guineas (Colts) in 1991
‘You don’t win races with wooden horses. They must have fire and passion and it’s our job to control it’ . Clive Brittain on his feisty 2,000 Guineas winner Mystiko.
SOUTH
AFRICAN JOCKEY MICHAEL (Muis) ROBERTS
MYSTIKO’S RIDER.
Both at home every day and in his races
“CLIVE SAID OF ROBERTS AT THE TIME:
“He wins a lot of races before the finish with his tactical skills during the
race. As a man he has great character. He always gives you 100 per cent.
Nothing is too much trouble, If there is a problem with a horse, say with his
temperament, he makes light of the difficulty. He is a tremendous horseman. And
if you listen he is always there with something worthwhile to say. ‘
“To understand why there was such
empathy between Clive and the 11-times South African champion you only had to
listen to Roberts enthusing about Mototo, the great horse he used to ride for
Alex Stewart. I don’t like to get up on a horse, ride him and forget him.
Horses love attention, love to be fussed over. When you get a special one you
give him special treatment, treasure him. That was a natural match with Clive’s
‘put the horse first and let him tell you’ patience and Roberts’ key
contribution was in getting Mystiko to keep his head down and relax.
“Clive has always been quick to spot
the potential of emerging riders from home and abroad. He was one of the first
to give significant opportunities to the hard – working former South African
champion when he tried his luck in Britain and he and Roberts
developed a fruitful partnership, at least until Roberts was riding regularly
for Henry Cecil and the Maktoum family. Clive says: ‘The more I used him the more I appreciated
he had a racing brain [Mind-Set] second to none. Plotting and planning a race were second
nature to him. ‘ Trainer and jockey trusted each others judgement.
“Mystiko had speed and the ability to
quicken off a fast pace. Clive called him the first real Guineas horse
he had had in 19 years’ training and soon spotted his talent. “When you have
speed in a horse you know you’ve got something. Everything comes with speed.
You don’t win the Guineas
without it. I had some good two-year-olds and I worked them in different
sequences over three months. The horse that kept coming out best was Mystiko. I
started thinking about the Classics after he won a Newmarket maiden impressively. ‘
“But Mystiko was also excitable and was frequently exercised on his own,
giving the media much amusement in labelling him the racing equivalent of the
‘I vant to be3 alone’ Swedish film star Greta Garbo.
“Mystiko wouldn’t have won a Classic
with just an ordinary jockey. He was a tearaway. There were only so many
gallops in him. Michael Roberts got on well with the colt. I tended to work him
and pick the horses I worked him with according to the weather conditions. He
did his most serious work on foggy mornings. He was more manageable when he
couldn’t see where he was going. Put another horse with him and he would do far
too much. He was most impressive in fog.
When he passed me I knew he hadn’t done too much. His stride pattern was
OK and he didn’t finish his gallop legless. “
“The South
Africa’s Sunday
Tribune greeted Mystiko’s victory in the 2,000 Guineas of 1991 with the headline
‘Our Champion!’ saying that the victory
of Michael (Muis) Roberts ‘took South African racing to the top of the world’ .
The South African champion , who had
ridden the winners of 16 Classics in his home country was described as having
ridden the race of his life after driving Mystiko to rally over the last 50
yards of the race and deny Steve Cauthen on the French runner, Ganges, in third place.
“Although Mistiko had gone clear of
his field with 220 yards to go the American ace had come hurtling out of the
pack to give chase and had headed Mystiko late on. But Roberts had kept just enough in reserve
to galvanise one further effort out of his grey mount.
“It was a thrilling race but Clive
acknowledges that Roberts’ contribution to the colt’s victory was his tactical
nous and finishing strength in the race itself.
Clive says: “Mystiko couldn’t have won a Classic with
just an ordinary jockey. "
JMC says: Mystiko was an excitable highly strung colt
a tearaway by nature. Like many
racehorses are. Mystiko needed careful
highly skilled gentle handling and riding throughout his entire racing career.
If he hadn’t received that he would not have been seen or heard of on any
racetrack anywhere in the World.
Millions of racehorses around the world never make it to a racecourse
due to ignorant bloodhorse illiteracy. Perhaps Monty Roberts and our Queen Elizabeth in the early 1980's when they met up at Windsor Castle have found the eighth wonder of this world "Bloodhorse Literacy" Listening to the Horses" understanding their language. The Equus Zone the mainly silent language of the horse.
more later
