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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Rounding up the usual suspects at York
Of all the Gimcracks in all the world he has to run in mine.
Or at least that is what he should have said. Mark Johnston, that is. Bemoaning his third near-miss in a Group race at York this week.
Heavy Metal beaten just a head by Blaine - a half-brother to last year's sales race winner Bogart, named after the lead character in that timeless classic 'Casablanca'.
He'd be entitled to point frustratedly to the 3lb penalty his colt had to carry, an imposition not designed to encourage a trainer to run a proven Pattern racer in a Group 2 contest which can often fall short of its old quality nowadays.
But the custom for the winning owner to make a speech at the Gimcrack dinner remains so Matt and Lauren Morgan can address the traditional gathering and tell them: 'We'll always have York" if not "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Things were very much back into perspective this afternoon. On Wednesday we were the talk of the world. Today we were only the third biggest story in York itself.
With no Frankel around, the news agenda really hit back at the Ebor meeting.
No complaints about the coverage given to the Paralympic torch which made its way up to the city by train from London today - it's deservedly newsworthy as the starting-point for a big, worldwide event.
Nor can you blame news editors for leaping on the story coming out of the University of York. Fitting tiny radio backpacks to ants so as to study how they communicate with each other.
Fascinating stuff, not least for the revelation mentioned in passing that for every person in the world there are reckoned to be a million and a half ants.
Conditions more suitable for worms than ants on the Knavesmire today after overnight and morning rain - after the opener, Silvestre de Sousa reckoned the ground was 'a bit sticky and and dead'.
But when it comes to discussion of the ground, horses can occasionally make you look a little foolish.
Witness Robert Cowell's 'tweet' after a phone conversation with fellow Nunthorpe Stakes trainer Paul Messara:
"just hung up with @Paulmessara, his going description of York is - mate I'm telling you it's 'worse than soft to shit house 'Eloquently put!"
But come the big race, their horses were not stuck in the mud. Far from it.
Cowell's Spirit Quartz looked all over the winner 100 yards out only to be caught close home by Messara's Ortensia who passed more than half the field in the last half-furlong to score a remarkable victory.
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