From the Rails: Newmarket Serves Up Racing at Its Best
There are afternoons when racing tries rather too hard to manufacture excitement, and there are afternoons when the racecard does the job perfectly well on its own.
Newmarket falls firmly into the second category today.
Across seven races on the Rowley Mile we have two Group Ones, a Royal Lodge containing several potentially important two-year-olds and, sitting towards the end of it all, 28 horses preparing to charge into one of the most difficult handicaps of the British Flat season.
Yet what makes the afternoon particularly appealing is the contrast between its two principal attractions.
At 2.27, the Cheveley Park asks us to compare a small group of exceptionally talented young fillies whose form has become increasingly intertwined as the season has progressed. Just over an hour later, the Cambridgeshire presents almost the opposite challenge, with 28 runners spread across the Rowley Mile and enough variables to make even the most confident form student wonder what they’ve missed.
One race may help tell us which filly is the best of her generation over six furlongs. The other may leave us wondering whether we were looking at the wrong side of the course all along.
There is room for both, and British racing is better for it.
The Cheveley Park has something money cannot manufacture
The strength of this year’s Cheveley Park isn’t simply that Sun Goddess, Senorita Bonita and Libertango have accumulated an impressive collection of Group-race victories between them. What makes the contest interesting is that their careers have already crossed.
Libertango beat Sun Goddess in the Albany at Royal Ascot, before Senorita Bonita defeated Libertango in the Duchess of Cambridge. Senorita Bonita subsequently went to France and beat the colts in the Prix Morny, while Sun Goddess has transformed herself since Ascot, winning four consecutive races including the Phoenix and Moyglare.
Libertango hasn’t exactly been standing still either, adding the Lowther at York to her Albany success.
That history changes the way we watch today’s race because there is already something to settle.
George Boughey’s description of the contest as a “proper smash-up” might not find its way into the official race title, but it captures the attraction rather better than most marketing departments could manage.
These are good fillies with form against one another, and their connections have allowed them to meet again.
Sometimes racing really is that simple.
Then Newmarket gives us complete chaos
If the Cheveley Park offers a relatively neat question, good luck finding one in the Cambridgeshire.
Twenty-eight runners over nine furlongs at Newmarket is the sort of race that can make a perfectly rational person spend two hours studying form before arriving at a selection they hadn’t even considered when they started.
Thunder Run heads the weights, with the likes of Hand Of God, Indalo, Erzindjan and Hard Endeavor among a field stretching all the way down to Dwindling Funds. Somewhere among them may be a horse perfectly suited by the race, the ground and the way it develops, although identifying it beforehand is the part that has been troubling punters for generations.
The Rowley Mile contributes to the fascination because a field of this size creates its own race within the race. Where does the pace develop? Which group gets the best tow? Does the draw matter as much as everybody thought it would, or do we spend Saturday evening explaining why it didn’t?
There will be theories beforehand and considerably better theories afterwards.
That’s the Cambridgeshire.
We shouldn’t have to choose between quality and quantity
Racing occasionally ties itself in knots trying to decide what sort of contests it should be promoting.
The industry understandably wants the best horses meeting each other, particularly in its most prestigious races, but much of the sport’s enduring appeal has also been built around enormous handicaps in which identifying the winner is supposed to be difficult.
Today’s Newmarket card demonstrates why the two don’t need to compete.
The Cheveley Park gives us quality and an emerging rivalry. The Cambridgeshire gives us uncertainty and a betting puzzle. The Middle Park brings another collection of talented juveniles together, while the Royal Lodge may provide clues that become considerably more important when next spring’s Classics begin to approach.
They are different forms of racing entertainment, and each works because the contest itself matters.
That is worth remembering whenever another discussion begins about changing formats or creating something new to attract attention. Innovation has its place, but racing should be careful not to overlook the things it already does extraordinarily well.
Today’s two-year-olds may shape next season
There is another pleasure to this particular Newmarket meeting because nobody yet knows quite how important some of these horses will become.
Today’s Royal Lodge, Cheveley Park and Middle Park are not simply isolated autumn prizes. They are part of the process through which the next generation begins to take shape.
Some of the reputations strengthened this afternoon will survive the winter and some won’t. Horses who look exceptional at two occasionally discover that others have caught them by the following spring, while something beaten today may improve enormously once given more time or a different distance.
That uncertainty is part of the enjoyment.
We spend the winter remembering what we saw at meetings like this and convincing ourselves that we’ve spotted the horse everybody else has underestimated. By Guineas weekend, a fair proportion of those carefully constructed theories will have fallen apart.
Occasionally, though, we get one right.
John Mills’ View
If I had to explain the attraction of British Flat racing to somebody who had never watched it before, I could do considerably worse than show them Newmarket this afternoon.
The Cheveley Park provides the sporting argument I always want to see: good horses whose form has crossed before being allowed to meet again rather than being steered towards opposite corners of the programme.
The Cambridgeshire provides something entirely different but equally important, because a 28-runner handicap remains one of racing’s great spectacles precisely because nobody can control all the variables.
I don’t want every race to look like the Cheveley Park and I certainly wouldn’t want every race to look like the Cambridgeshire.
I want a sport capable of providing both.
Today Newmarket does exactly that.
— John Mills
