Manning not the only naïve jockey in the Nassau

By Ian Carnaby

Pressed for my favourite Goodwood memory, I suppose I’d have to go for a lovely old mare called Nicolina, who used to run early in the week at the ‘Glorious’ meeting, making little show, then turned out again on the Saturday afternoon, possibly in the Singleton Handicap, and win. I was a boardman for Ladbrokes in those days, chalking up the prices in Pound Tree Road, Southampton, then riding an energetic finish as soon as the old Extel blower picked up Nicolina making her effort.

It all ended sadly as her trainer, Roy Pettitt, fell on hard times and sold a nasty story to the tabloids, claiming that he perked her up with something between the two races. I never believed a word of it and simply assumed that she found one sprint much more straightforward than the other. I believe what suits me. I certainly don’t believe that George Gershwin is dead, for example, and I choose not to acknowledge that Matt Le Tissier has retired. The world inside my head is a strange place and I doubt you’d like it, but it’s home to me.

I remember all sorts of things from Goodwood. I had a drink with the late Jeffrey Bernard there and even tipped him a winner at 9 to 2. He thought it was wonderful and proceeded to drink the bar dry of vodka. He was very funny and no mean writer, but could be very hard on complete strangers when he wanted to be left alone. He did some truly extraordinary things in drink, sometimes in the company of Irish jumps jockey Barry Brogan. Returning late to their hotel in Huntingdon one night, they managed to locate their room, or what they thought was their room, except that they were one floor out. It was sheer bad luck that the key worked, especially for the elderly couple already in bed when Jeffrey and Barry lay down. No action was taken the following morning, on condition that neither of them ever set foot in the hotel, or indeed Huntingdon, again.

In the 1983 Richmond Stakes at Goodwood, Lester Piggott rode the 1 to 3 favourite Vacarme for Henry Cecil. Although I always knew that Lester went his own way, irrespective of what people thought, which was supremely irrelevant to him, this race left an indelible impression on me. As we now know, the far rail at Goodwood comes in slightly and horses can run out of room. It also means that the other jockeys can keep a horse hemmed in without breaking any rules. Which is what they must have thought when Lester, still cantering on Vacarme, found himself half-way up this blind alleyway. A lot of people would have checked, switched, come around the outside and hoped for the best but he is not made that way, of course.

Without the slightest hesitation he kept dead straight on Varcarme, which meant something had to give, and that something was the horses on his outer. Vacarme never came under the slightest pressure and was still on the bridle as he passed the post in front. The stewards disqualified him and placed him last, with Piggott making no comment at all. It wasn’t that he had no respect for authority (although he hadn’t, of course), it was just that he wasn’t interested in it. When he took the flighty Shadeed out of the parade before the 2000 Guineas and went straight to post, it was to give him every chance of winning the race. The subsequent fine was simply irrelevant to Lester because the only thing that mattered was the result. Why would you even waste time discussing it?

The two fillies with something to prove at the trip were allowed to dictate a steady pace

I thought of Vacarme when Kevin Manning got into all sorts of trouble on Lush Lashes in the Nassau the other day. He came in for a lot of stick and there is no doubt he should have won, although Lush Lashes did not quicken much when the first inviting gap presented itself. What you never do at Goodwood, though, is dive for the far rails when things get really tight because you are likely to run out of room. That was a desperate manoeuvre, doomed to failure.

The strange thing about the Nassau was that the two fillies with something to prove at a mile and a quarter, Halfway To Heaven and Muthabara, were allowed to dictate a steady pace. The reason none of the other jockeys disturbed the status quo was quite possibly because they were happy enough to keep Lush Lashes boxed in on the rails. The difference between good jockeys and great ones sometimes involves a willingness to work from a different script. As soon as he was given the slightest chance, Manning should have come out and ridden Lush Lashes for stamina, even if it meant leading some way from home, because that would have forced Johnny Murtagh’s hand on Halfway To Heaven who, in my view, would have been outstayed. By staying where he was, he found every bit of trouble going and ensured a rather tense evening chez Bolger.

There was something slightly tetchy in Khalid Abdullah’s racing manager Teddy Grimthorpe’s assertion afterwards that ‘we (Passage Of Time) have been beaten by two milers’. Not true, of course, because Lush Lashes won the Musidora over ten furlongs plus. More to the point, Ted Durcan had the chance to make use of Passage Of Time’s stamina but chose not to do so. Manning may have made the wrong choices, but he was by no means the only one at fault as Murtagh rode his weighing-room colleagues to sleep. A long, hard look at the video would do them no harm at all.