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Your support makes all the difference.GOODBYE, and good riddance. The 1993 Flat season - the one on grass, anyway - shuffled into retirement at Folkestone yesterday after eight months of persistent under-achievement. No speeches, no well-wishers, just an overwhelming air of indifference.
It was a natural reaction, when 4,000 races and an entire generation had so clearly failed to justify the springtime optimism which laced the Craven meeting. Natural, but negative. Since bad years are as inevitable as wet days in April, they are likewise best greeted with stoical good humour.
Chuckle, for example, at the memory of Tenby, hailed as a champion and made odds-on favourite for the Derby after winning the Dante Stakes in May. On his next five starts he finished nowhere, third, nowhere, nowhere and fourth. Joining him in the 'Where are they now?' file are all those other leading two-year-olds of 1992: Armiger, Lyric Fantasy, Taos, Fatherland, Wharf . . .
Next, allow yourself a mischievous grin at the thought of how many of these second-raters will not stand at stud in Europe, but in Japan. Multi-million yen deals have secured Commander In Chief, winner of one of the poorest Derbys for decades, White Muzzle, Kingmambo and Opera House, the tough, dependable but uninspiring five-year-old whose wins in the King George and Eclipse were Exhibits A and B in the case against the Classic generation.
Smile ruefully and think of Zafonic, who looked special in the 2,000 Guineas but ran just once more, in the Sussex Stakes, when a broken blood vessel ensured that his career ended in defeat. Remember too User Friendly, who caught the gloomy mood and only once approached her three-year-old form.
Also worth a snigger is the thought that while judges will magnify and scrutinise a photo-finish print for 20 minutes rather than declare a dead-heat, the titles of champion trainer and even champion jockey are saddled with ambiguity. Pat Eddery has ridden 32 more winners than Kevin Darley, but Darley's broken collarbone will be mended within a week, and he intends to ride on the all-weather tracks. What if, after 12 months of effort, he overtakes Eddery? Is a winner at Southwell in December somehow inferior to one at Catterick in April?
It is a thankfully unlikely scenario, though whatever the final positions, Darley's achievement in equalling, and no doubt soon surpassing, Edward Hide's record seasonal total for a northern-based jockey is considerable. He must now ensure that he does not emulate Michael Roberts and follow a season of success with one of disappointment. Last year's champion lost his title and his job, as Sheikh Mohammed's retained jockey.
The identity of the season's champion trainer is simply a matter of opinion. Richard Hannon's scattergun approach has brought him 182 winners - a new record - from 1,192 runners (a strike-rate of just 15%), while Henry Cecil, with a similar number of horses, has 94 winners from 406 runners, a more impressive ratio of 23%. Hannon's weight of numbers ensures that he holds the edge in total prize-money won, but the selective approach of Cecil means that he has a slight edge in terms of win prize-money alone.
Most people's sympathies would lie with Hannon, if only because of the wretched run of luck during which he lost three of his best performers. Niche was killed in a freak accident, then Pommes Frites died after an operation, and finally Lemon Souffle was badly injured in the Cheveley Park Stakes.
The doubt over Lemon Souffle's future underlines a final fact of the 1993 Flat season. When the official ratings are published early next year, they will show that this season's juveniles are the worst since the International Classifications began in 1978, which means that next's year's three-year-olds could well be even shorter on ability than those we have just had.
It is a thought to test anyone's ability to laugh in the face of adversity. But if you don't laugh, you'll cry.
(Photograph omitted)
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