Sea The Stars lifts the mood on a dark week in racing

General / Editor / 09 September 2009 / Leave a Comment

Sea The Stars' summer of masteful performances continued on Saturday. His next likely run is the Arc where he trades as the [3.1] favourite

"Aidan O'Brien has always maintained that his pacemakers are in the field to ensure “a good, even gallop”. They didn't do their job in the Derby, but they surely did it here and the result was exactly the same – Sea The Stars first, Fame and Glory a thoroughly-respectable second. The winner was magnificent. I was back in love with racing again."

The Guardian's Will Hayler finds joy in the performance of John Oxx's wonder horse following the tragic events in Norton.

I was, as they say, "in a bad place" on Saturday. I'd woken up, a little hazily, to about half a dozen text messages telling me that Jamie Kyne and Jan Wilson had been killed in a fire in Norton.

I can't claim to be as close to Jamie as Tom O'Ryan, who was able to give such a cathartic and moving account of his feelings, in the Racing Post on Monday.

But I had exchanged conversations with him at the racecourse, where in my usual embarrassing and ham-fisted way, I'd made it plain to him how highly I rated him as a jockey. He thanked me and looked for a polite way to get out of the conversation.

A strong, tidy rider with a 5lb or 7lb claim can make a big difference in an otherwise open race. Against other apprentices, he often stood out.

I napped Future Gem for the Guardian on Friday at Catterick. The combination of a rise in the weights, a drop back in trip and ground that perhaps wasn't as soft as I had been expecting left her outpaced for most of the way but Kyne, who always rode with common sense, brought to her to the outside, got her organised and gave her everything in a bid to come from last to first. She just missed out. It was to be his last-ever ride.

Paul Hanagan, who rode a double at York on Sunday, had it about right. He paid a simple, but eloquent tribute to Kyne and Wilson on Racing UK, saying that their families should be proud of them both. Talking afterwards, he told me that Kyne was one of the most likeable men you could wish to meet. "A few young lads come into the game and they think that once they've had a winner, they know it all. Jamie wasn't anything like that," he said.

Racing can't mourn forever, but I hope that whoever finishes up as next year's champion apprentice knows that they would have had an even tougher fight for the title had Kyne still been around.

After the ultimately-fatal injury sustained by Curtain Call at Kempton and news of a punch-up at the track (which will always be one of my favourites, despite the trials and tribulations of the last few years), I was in a thoroughly black mood and on the verge of packing up the laptop when Sea The Stars came to the rescue.

It was memorable stuff. Set Sail set what looked like a July Cup pace in front. Rockhampton had to be shoved along just to try and keep up. Poor old Grand Ducal couldn't even keep up with Mastercraftsman, let alone his fellow pacemakers.

At halfway, Set Sail had blown Rockhampton away and Loch Long (who any G1 jockey player would know wants to be dropped back to sprint trips) was already beaten.

Then two-and-a-half furlongs out, the picture suddenly and completely changed. Fame and Glory was rushed around the outside of Sea The Stars to pass him and join Mastercraftsman in pursuit of Set Sail. Lord Admiral appeared on the outside of Sea The Stars and it briefly looked as if the favourite might get lost in a mess of weakening pacemakers.

He didn't, of course. Mick Kinane was wise to what was going on, kept Sea The Stars away from the inside of the bend and was able to bring his mount down the outside of Fame and Glory to re-take his rival about a furlong after he had been headed.

Aidan O'Brien has always maintained that his pacemakers are in the field to ensure "a good, even gallop". They didn't do their job in the Derby, but they surely did it here and the result was exactly the same - Sea The Stars first, Fame and Glory a thoroughly-respectable second. The winner was magnificent. I was back in love with racing again.

Short of running through a gap in the rails three furlongs out, it's hard to see how the riders of Set Sail and Rockhampton could have done more to get out of the way of the principals. This is not an anti-pacemaker tirade.

Presumably the aim was for Fame and Glory to catch Sea The Stars and Kinane unaware with that burst of acceleration on the bend. It didn't work. But for me, the tactics used on Ballydoyle's number one were bordering upon contradicting O'Brien's desire to make the race "fair for everyone".

Rockhampton may run again in Saturday's Ladbrokes St Leger, to help set a pace for Age of Aquarius and Changingoftheguard. "In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to run pacemakers," O'Brien said on Monday.

It's not a new issue, of course. When Dancing Brave - the horse who is proving the most popular comparison point with Sea The Stars - won the King George in 1986, there was at least one Aga Khan-owned pacemaker for Sharahstani (Dihistan) and two Lady Beaverbrook pacemakers for Petoski (Vouchsafe and Boldden). Pat Eddery had to negotiate his way around them all on the way to victory.

Vouchsafe and Boldden were swallowed up by the pack half a mile out. History has quickly forgotten their role in the race, just as it will that of Set Sail and Rockhampton in the Irish Champion Stakes. But we must still be wary of the 'what if?' situation.

How I hope we're not all electronically thumbing our way through the 'new and improved' online BHA racing rulebook trying to locate the rules on pacemakers before the season is out.