Bangor – 4th June 2019 - R D Owen Equine Clinic Handicap Hurdle

Bangor – 4th June 2019 – R D Owen Equine Clinic Handicap Hurdle

Only three BG Racing shareholders made the trip to Bangor, Phil, Lawrence and Rainer being treated to an excellent lunch in the owners and trainers restaurant where we were seated with Philip Kirby with whom we enjoyed a good chat about racing. It was nice to have the table in owners and trainers as the weather outside was heavy rain and the ground softened considerably as the afternoon progressed.

Billy and Anna were up at Bangor with the horses and in the pre-parade ring before the race, The Way You Dance seemed a little anxious but he was much calmer than he had been at Goodwood and he did not sweat up. It was then over to the paddock to meet Tom Scudamore who was riding for us. There was initially due to be plenty of pace in the race, but the softening ground caused Philip Kirby to withdraw his runner which was one of the pace-setters and as the race got underway it seemed as though those that were likely to go forward thought better of it given the more testing conditions. Tom wanted to settle The Way You Dance somewhere with plenty of room so he could try to give him confidence and to keep him close to the pace and this was fairly easy to do.

He jumped off on the outside in a close-up 5th and settled and jumped well. Unfortunately, The Way You Dance needed chasing into the hurdle heading into the back straight for the final time and Tom was pushing harder in the next furlong or two when he was slow at a hurdle and started to drop back. He jumped four out well but slowly and was back to last as they came away from it and as he dropped away, Tom eased off and popped the last three hurdles to finish a long last which was 8th of the 9 runners, as Johnny Farrelly’s runner Winter Spice was pulled up after the jockey’s saddle slipped badly.

Post-race, Tom reported that he had not pulled The Way You Dance up because, he did not seem tired, was breathing fine and his stride had never really shortened. He felt that The Way You Dance had just not seemed to want to go with the others once it would have required effort which was obviously disappointing and hardly sent the three BG Racing shareholders back down the motorway in high spirits.

It was good news that The Way You Dance was absolutely fine the following morning, although somewhat understandable given that he did not have a very hard race and some discussions about the future were clearly required.