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Your support makes all the difference.Racing
RICHARD EDMONDSON
It is Super Saturday for racing viewers with 11 televised races. BBC1 and Channel 4 will screen five live events each, while the Irish St Leger will also be shown. If Harold Macmillan was still around he would be telling turfistes of their good fortune.
The Corporation also offered five live races yesterday, announcing a hitherto unknown interest in the sport. This means one of two things. Either Auntie is in penance for the scant coverage it has afforded racing in the past or there is very little else on this sporting weekend. No offers the latter.
At Ayr the quality race is the Doonside Cup, which should go to Captain Horatius (3.35), but this is of little interest compared to the Gold and Silver Cups, which will see huge fields come crashing down the straight.
To ride this surf of runners it seems essential to catch the periphery of the wave. Trainers represented at the Scottish track seem unanimous in the view that those drawn in the centre are at a disadvantage. This opinion is exceedingly harmful to Branston Abby, the indefatigable favourite who seems to run on every day that has a "y" in it. She is drawn 18.
Willie Haggas, whose fancied Patto comes out of box 28, said yesterday: "I'm pleased to have a rail draw. I didn't mind if his draw was high or low, but I didn't want to be in the middle."
James Eustace, the trainer of last year's Silver Cup winner, Master Of Passion, who is up with the big boys this afternoon, was pleased both with his draw (26) and the proximity of Haggas's horse. "I certainly wanted to be drawn on one side or the other but certainly not in the middle," he said. "I'm delighted. It's also important what is around you and with such as Patto and Lord Olivier nearby I'm rather pleased."
MASTER OF PASSION (nap 4.15), who ran with much credit in the Portland Handicap at Doncaster, will take some beating here. Stolen Kiss (next best 3.05), who ran well at this course on Thursday and again has a high draw, could be the one for the Silver.
At Newbury, the main consideration is the Mill Reef Stakes, which has attracted Kahir Almaydan, the colt who made some private handicappers and clockers rather excited at Ripon last month when winning by nine lengths. Little is certain in racing, but it is long odds on that John Dunlop's representative will try to make all.
Among the leaders in the posse should be Desert Boy, who is one of a strong juvenile Manton team. His trainer, Peter Chapple-Hyam, considers the colt has come on dramatically since beating Leonine at York and that is persuasive form in itself. As Desert Boy (3.30) is the least experienced in the field and consequently open to most improvement, he is the selection.
Kahir Almaydan has twice finished behind Chapple-Hyam's Polaris Flight, who is also in action today, in the National Stakes at the Curragh. He and Neville Callaghan's Danehill Dancer attempt to annex an unusual Group One race for the Irish in that they regularly manage to keep the prize at home. Heart Of Darkness, in 1990, was the last British winner.
On the same card is an Irish St Leger of pure joy for trainspotters. If Vintage Crop succeeds, and he is on hat-trick in the race, he will become the first Irish-trained horse to earn more than pounds 1m. "All his preparations have been geared towards this," Dermot Weld, the gelding's trainer, said yesterday. "He's in good form and I'm confident he'll run a big race."
The jotters will also come out of the duffle bags if Moonax succeeds. Barry Hills's colt has already captured the St Leger and the French equivalent and now goes for an unprecedented treble of Europe's staying Classics.
Chapple-Hyam's weekend spills over to France tomorrow, when his Woodborough and John Gosden's Lord Of Men contest the Prix de la Salamandre, which the French traditionally give up with the meekness of a cornered rat.
Better British hopes may rest in the Prix du Prince d'Orange, in which the Derby horses Spectrum and Tamure represent the same two trainers.
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