Australia after morning work at Ballydoyle May 12th© Photo Healy Racing
As they say in exams, compare and contrast: on the eve of the Preakness Stakes the favourite, California Chrome, had a single blister in his throat described by his trainer as ‘no big deal’ but it was widely reported he coughed four times. Six weeks before the 2,000 Guineas, the then favourite, Australia, had a cough, reportedly for up to a fortnight, and there wasn’t a peep.
There are obvious differences of course. One was days before a classic, the other was weeks. One horse is trained on racecourse backstretches, the other in private. And there’s the fact that rare is the animal that enjoys an entirely trouble-free preparation for any race. Coughs, funny steps and less than pristine blood-counts are an everyday reality when it comes to racehorses.
But still, in this information age, which theoretically is supposed to increase our access to knowledge but which mostly just exposes us to blizzards of self-serving rubbish, is it not astonishing that the high-profile favourite for one of the world’s most coveted classics, the colt described by Aidan O’Brien as the best he’s ever trained, could be on the easy-list six weeks before the big race and nothing is said?
It must be stressed it isn’t incumbent on O’Brien to reveal anything. His primary responsibility is to his owners. He has no duty to keep the public informed with medical updates on Ballydoyle inmates. Anyone believing he does is living in cloud-cuckoo-land. He who pays the piper calls the tune, whatever the circumstances, and no matter what yard it is the owner is entitled to know before the betting shop mug.
However no matter what the jurisdiction, those same owners compete for prizemoney that is at least partly the result of betting shop mug turnover. This doesn’t gain entitlement to what’s going on in any yard but neither does it make punters totally irrelevant, especially in high-profile races that are high profile precisely because they attract widespread interest from the racing public.
There’s a bigger picture here. The Guineas is a shop-window event for a global industry worth billions. It isn’t some ten grand handicap hurdle in Ballinrobe. It might not have been incumbent on Coolmore to highlight that Australia had been coughing, and indeed passed on that cough to much of the yard, but to not mention it all, at any stage, on the run up to Newmarket was a glaring omission.
This is not an organisation ignorant of Public Relations. In fact when it comes to publicising what it wants publicised, it is famously slick, using all sorts of social media to get across what it wants to. Admittedly PR has become mostly synonymous with bullshit, but relating to the public doesn’t automatically preclude the dispersal of information that might be concrete and useful.
It is an episode that has hardly been an advertisement for supposed media sleuths either, even allowing for the fact that accessing information from the Lubyanka can seem easier than deciphering some of the local stenography down Tipperary way.
It’s a reality, and one in contrast to the levels of readily-available information for punters in America, that it usually comes down to individual trainers and owners how much they want to volunteer to the media which, which like it or not, still remains the route through which the public here gets most of its information. Some are extremely straight-forward, some aren’t, and some view it all as a game of expediency.
But by not mentioning Australia’s hold-up prior to the Guineas – and there were any number of occasions when O’Brien could have – the Coolmore team are wide open to the accusation that they are now using it as an excuse for the colt getting beaten at Newmarket.
Never before has the racing world seen such a resolutely commercial organisation and in such an environment no horse is likely to be talked down. Consequently there often seems to be a reason for a Coolmore horse getting beaten other than the most obvious one which is that the other horse was better. Maybe that’s taking scepticism too far but there is a perception out there that connections can be very quick on the excuse-gun.
By pointing to an interrupted preparation now, after the event, Coolmore are open to the inevitable suggestion that they are reaching for excuses for Australia: if the cough wasn’t worth mentioning beforehand, why is it worth mentioning now?
Even putting it out there a couple of days before the Guineas would have equipped the public with a valuable piece of information ahead of one of the most important races of the year. It might have been irrelevant: maybe that’s as good as Australia is at a mile. But for a high-profile classic, keeping ‘schtum’ before the race makes reaching for excuses afterwards look an awful lot like trying to have your cake and eat it too.
Kingman has been installed a strong ante-post favourite for the Irish 2,000 Guineas but those reading the Newmarket Guineas form could be in danger of overlooking a bigger picture that could see Aidan O’Brien secure a tenth win in Ireland’s first classic with War Command.
The War Front colt never looked remotely like landing a blow at Newmarket but the same could be said for Power (2012), Roderic O’Connor (2011) and Mastercraftsman to a lesser extent in 2009. The improvement they all showed between the two races varied from significant to astonishing and it is logical to presume War Command will up his game on the back of a first run of the season.
