Horse racing: Tim Easterby enjoys fine festival

Tim Easterby, who made a lightning-fast start to become the leading trainer at the nine-day festival, with doubles on the opening two legs at Ripon and Redcar, looks likely to make further inroads at the weekend.

The Great Habton trainer, whose horses are in tremendous form, is set to saddle the talented if highly-strung Off Chance in the Lyric Stakes, Friday evening’s Listed feature on Knavesmire, and he has no fewer than six entries in the Sky Bet Dash the following day, a squad spearheaded by the likes of Medic Time, Mister Hughie and Lost In Paris.

And on Sunday, Easterby could send Mariachi Man to Pontefract.

One of the Gazette & Herald’s ‘Ten to Follow’ this season, Mariachi Man is a horse much admired by his trainer, perhaps even more so following a clear-cut win at Ayr on his latest start. He has a Listed-race target at Pontefract in the shape of the Pomfret Stakes, sponsored by Skybet, and also an option for stablemate Off Chance if she fails to turn out at York on Friday evening.

While Easterby, whose Little Jimmy Odsox made it two-from-two at Redcar last Sunday, looking very much a horse on the upgrade, will doubtless saddle a host of other runners in the supporting races at the Yorkshire Festival, his uncle, Mick Easterby, is also fancied to make his presence felt if Hoof It – another of our ‘Ten to Follow’ – faces the starter in the Sky Bet Handicap on Saturday.

Already a winner at York this season, Hoof It, part-owned by top golfer Lee Westwood, came up short in the Wokingham Handicap at Royal Ascot last month. But he remains very much a horse of interest and would not be one to underestimate.

Brian Ellison is worth following at the weekend. He is set to saddle the high-class Saptapadi, one of the hard-luck stories in the John Smith’s Cup on his latest visit to York, in the Sky Bet York Stakes, Saturday’s Group 2 showpiece, while he also has good prospects of landing valuable ladies’ races at Ascot with Kingswinford and Carlisle with Fujin Dancer, both to be ridden by Harriet Bethell.

Brae Hill, recent winner of the Bunbury Cup at Newmarket, is set to be on his travels again this weekend.

Ascot beckons for the Richard Fahey-trained gelding, who holds an entry in the first leg of the Summer Double, which has a £100,000 bonus should the winner have more success in the second leg at Goodwood.

There can’t be many trainers in the country who have already passed their total scores for the whole of last year, but Paul Midgley is one of the exceptions.

The Westow handler moved on to 28 for the season when Dazeen came late and fast under Tony Culhane to steal the spoils at Ripon on Saturday.

“That’s one more winner than last year,” confirmed Midgley, who has extra reason to be satisfied. “Last year we had about 10 winners on the all-weather before the turf season got going, whereas this year, we never had those, so it’s great to be this far forward before the end of August.”

Dazeen, who was winning for the third time this year, is finally beginning to fulfill the potential Midgley has always predicted.

“He’s become what he’s always promised to become – a decent horse – but he’s taken time to mature mentally. As a two-year-old, he finished second to Rose Blossom at Hamilton over five furlongs in record time, but it’s only this season that he’s fully matured,” said Midgley.

So close yet so far – that was Lily’s Angel at Newbury last Saturday when she failed by a mere whisker to win the Weatherbys Super Sprint and a first prize of £98,360.

Her compensation package was not to be sneezed at – she picked up £41,820 for finishing second to Charles The Great, denied by a fast-dminishing short head which, jockey Paul Hanagan believes, would have been erased a second or two later.

The Richard Fahey-trained juvenile is already a three-times winner this season and successful at Listed level on her previous start at Newmarket.

“Another couple of strides and she would have won,” said the jockey, proud of his mount but frustrated she’d been so narrowly denied.

The previous evening at Hamilton, little could deny Hanagan.

He rode a stupendous four-timer which could hardly have come at a more timely moment.

Earlier in the evening, Thirsk-based Brazilian Silvestre de Sousa, enjoying his best-ever campaign in Britiain, had gone one ahead of Hanagan in the jockeys’ title race – the first time the Malton jockey had been headed for 18 months, bearing in mind that last year when he won the championship he led from start to finish.

Hanagan’s quartet of winners came on Tahitian Princess for Ann Duffield, French Hollow for Tim FitzGerald and Quest For Success and Abdicate for Fahey.

Quest For Success was completing a remarkable run of success in the valuable Scottish Stewards’ Cup for Fahey, who has now won the race five times in 11 years, a sequence started by Pandjojoe in 2001 and embracing back-to-back wins by stable stalwart Knot In Wood in 2007 and ’08 before Quest For Success won it in 2009.

“For ‘Questy’ to win it again was fantastic. He’s so reliable and just so professional that you can count on him every time,” said Hanagan.

FitzGerald was paying his first visit to Hamilton, near Glasgow, for many a year, but the success of French Hollow, by a hard-earned half-length, put a wide smile on the face of the Norton trainer, who had placed the gelding to post a 66-1 win at York the previous week.

“The handicapper put him up 12lb, so he had to go to Hamilton under a 6lb penalty,” explained FitzGerald. “He had to battle and he needed every yard of the one mile and five furlongs, and Paul gave him a great ride.”

It never rains in racing but it pours. Ask John Wainwright. After going more than a year without a Flat winner, the Kennythorpe trainer ended his barren spell with a Beverley double, courtesy of Port Ronan and Media Jury, who won both divisions of the five-furlong handicap.

Port Ronan gained a convincing pillar-to-post victory under Barry McHugh at 9-2, while Media Jury, who likewise made all, benefited from a positive ride from David Nolan to notch a 33-1 success by half a length.

“I’ve only got half a dozen Flat horses and four jumpers, and to be fair to the horses, they’ve been running well without winning for quite a few weeks,” said Wainwright.

“Port Ronan had a bad experience in the stalls one day and lost his confidence, so I always go down to the start with him now, so I didn’t actually see him win,” added the trainer, who had double reason to celebrate Media Jury’s triumph. He also bred the horse.

David O’Meara, with a Group 2 Flat win to his credit this summer courtesy of Blue Bajan, added a Listed hurdle race victory to his growing portfolio at Market Rasen last Saturday when Viva Colonia came up trumps under the peerless Denis O’Regan at 14-1.

The Nawton trainer had pinpointed the Summer Hurdle as a target some time ago for Viva Colonia, who hit the bullseye with a stylish length and a half success.

“Denis gave him a great ride,” said O’Meara, who was notching his biggest jumps success and who now anticipates sending Viva Colonia over fences.

O’Meara underlined his versatility the following day at Redcar when he won the five-furlong handicap with Pepper Lane, who gained a comfortable two-and-a-half-lengths success under Silvestre de Sousa, much to the delight of Ryedale owners Dave and Lynne Lumley, who share the four-year-old with Keith Nicholson.

Lee Topliss is the latest young rider to reach a career milestone.

The Malton apprentice chalked up his 50th winner at Ripon last Saturday when scoring on Hot Rod Mamma to reduce his riding allowance to a minimum 3lb.

Topliss, who is attached to Richard Fahey’s Malton yard, and who rode his first winner just over two years ago on Joe Jo Star at Ayr, has made tremendous strides since.

His major successes this season have come in the Musselburgh Gold Cup on High Office and the Thirsk Hunt Cup on Justonefortheroad, a horse part-owned by former top footballer Alan Shearer.

Dougie Costello is back. Sidelined with a badly broken leg following a crashing fall at Stratford in early March, the Malton jockey gained a comeback winner at Market Rasen last Saturday aboard Countrywide Flame, trained by John Quinn.

Costello’s accident came on the eve of the Cheltenham Festival and cost him a host of fancied rides at the biggest jumps meeting of the season, and also caused him to miss Aintree’s Grand National fixture.

Congratulations to Paul Lodge, who, in the company of the Princess Royal, has received a prestigious Pride Of Racing award for his work as a Racing Welfare officer in Ryedale, following the Norton fire in September 2009, which tragically claimed the lives of teenage apprentice jockeys Jamie Kyne and Jan Wilson.

Lodge was one of eight winners, selected from 114 nominees, at the awards ceremony, organized by Racing Welfare and attended by 230 guests last week at Epsom racecourse.

Lodge was acknowledged for the work he did in providing clothes, food and support to survivors and families following the fire, which had a devastating effect on Ryedale’s racing community.