August 10, 2013
Dear Readers,
Back to the
races, and today I watched a video of Novellist win the GI Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud, run on
the turf course at the Hippodrome de Saint-Cloud on June 23rd. Built
by Edmond Blanc and opened in 1901, the facility is located on the far side of
the Pont de Suresnes bridge from Paris France. Spread over a luxurious grass covered hillside, the
Saint-Cloud Racecourse offers an extraordinary and panoramic view of western
Paris.
Novellist a four year old Irish-bred, German-trained son of Monsun and out of the stakes winning mare Night Lagoon, won under heavy urging by Ryan Moore, his jockey.
After one of Novellist’s three year old losses, his trainer was reported to have said the colt was a bit phlegmatic that day. Phlegmatic? I consider myself to have a fairly good vocabulary, and frankly it seemed rather strange for a trainer to use such a word to describe his horse. So I went to my online dictionary and looked up the word, and I would say without reservation that Andreas Wohler, Novellist’s trainer, used the perfect word to describe his horse.
In fact I think the word describes the style and persona of this horse in both of the races I have watched him win. The other being the July 27thKing George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, an extremely prestigious GI, held over a mile and half at Royal Ascot Racecourse in the United Kingdom. Novellist won this race by five lengths, and in course record time. This gave him a second guaranteed "Win and You’re In" designation for the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita.
Watching Novellist running in a race is not going to take your breath away, well unless you’re one of his connections. He breaks well from the gate, and then he runs along, unhurried and unflappable. He doesn’t look like he’s just galloping along and much the best, although he looks good, and that is all I can say. It’s almost like he’s just thundering along in the traces, a member of the team. The jockey isn’t wearing himself out, or his mount, trying to rate him, because Novellist doesn’t appear to need rating.
When the rider deems the time is right to ask Novellist to run, he un-cocks his whip, waves it at his mount a couple of times, and commences bootin and scootin. This horse seems to like enthusiastic encouragment, though I only saw the whip connect one out of every four swings in the Saint-Cloud race, the rider was very busy. I can almost imagine a Comanche yell coming from the jockey to further motivate Novellist.
Wohler has stated the main goal for this colt is the Qatar Prix d’Arc de Triomphe, which runs on October 6th this year. And I suppose hoping he would then fly to Los Angeles, and run less than four weeks later, would be out of the question. But I would so love to see this happen. I wouldn’t hesitate to travel to Los Angeles to see this horse run.
Now that I think about it, I have a lot of air miles; maybe I should go to Paris for the Arc. And boy do I love Paris, almond croissants, espresso with a small dark chocolate, and then a stroll down the Avenue Victor-Hugo headed for the shop with the best goat cheese I've ever found. Weekends in Paris at the drop of the hat, are what I miss most about no longer living in England.
I love the way this horse runs, he is so impressive to me and in such an understated way, that I think, barring injury, we are going to be seeing a lot more from Novellist.Take care,
Shelley Riley
www.shelleyriley.com
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