Deirdre, Mark and all at Kingsley House and the Klarion wish to take this opportunity of extending Season’s Greetings to all our owners, readers, suppliers and supporters. May you all enjoy a very Happy New Year and an exciting and prosperous 2010!

2009 – The Highlights, Month by Month

As we enter the New Year after a record-breaking campaign in 2009, we thought it would be a useful exercise to chart the progress of the 2009 campaign on a month-by-month basis to remind us of the main events as they unfolded.
January – Takeover Bid scores at Southwell on New Year’s Day to give us a great start to the campaign. Lady Jane Digby scores an early handicap success at Lingfield to confirm her well-being. Eleven wins are chalked up in a great opening month .
February – Ten February wins include Eastern Aria’s first success of the season, as the Halling filly scores at Southwell. Jeremy Gough’s Kochanski lands an emotional win at Wolverhampton. Wins to date- 21.
March – Seventeen wins see the score for the first quarter rise to 38, as Boscage chalks up wins at Lingfield and Southwell. The Flat season starts and Mark actually has a runner in the Brocklesby!
April – Al Mugtareb scores the yard’s first win of the turf campaign at Catterick. Green Agenda wins two races, at Musselburgh and Thirsk. Tally moves on to 56.
May – Nineteen wins are topped by Parthenon’s Listed win at Hamilton; King of Axum is the first juvenile winner of the year, while useful juveniles Capercaillie and Shakespearean score their first wins at Musselburgh and Haydock respectively. The clock ticks on to 76 by the end of the month.
June – A stunning tally of 38 winners for the month. Holberg lands the Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot to give the yard its first Group win of the year, and to complete its century of domestic wins for yet another year. Drill Sergeant makes it two at the Royal Meeting, while Lady Jane Digby scores at Listed level at Newcastle. 114 and counting.
July – 27 winners this month, taking us to 141 for the year. Glorious Goodwood a great success for the yard with Lowdown, Roman Republic and Laa Rayb all on the mark. Urban Poet makes a huge impression at Hamilton Park, before being transferred to Godolphin. Alanbrooke and Mister Angry both score twice.
August – Another bumper month with twenty seven wins. Pick of the bunch is Jukebox Jury, who returned  to the winners’ enclosure in the Rose of Lancaster Stakes (Group 3) at Haydock on the eighth before winning in Group 2 company at Deauville at the end of the month, while Lady Jane Digby progressed to a win at Group 3 level in Bremen on the 23rd. Shakespearean also landed a Group 3 win at Sandown to announce his arrival on the top juvenile scene. At the end of the month, the winners’ tally stood at 169, already ahead of our previous best of 166, achieved both in 2007 and 2008.
September – The former MJR horse Mastery lands the St Leger for Godolphin! However, our own cup runneth over as the month sees Awzaan land the Group 2 Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury and Eastern Aria win in Listed company at Saint-Cloud. On a memorable day for the yard, Jukebox Jury wins the Group 1 Preis von Europa while Shakespearean lands the Goffs Million at The Curragh five minutes later. 192 and countin down to 200 now!
October – Awzaan wins the Shadwell Middle Park Stakes (G1) at Newmarket; Jukebox Jury narrowly fails to land the Canadian International, finishing second at Woodbine. Corsica’s win at Ayr brings up the domestic double century of wins, while the month-end total moves on to 206.
November – Quieter now perhaps, but Mark still manages to chalk up nine winners, five of them with juveniles. 215 as we enter December.
December – Elation heads the four winners, all juveniles, as she opens her account at Lingfield. A star is born? As at 21st December, the tally stands at a magnificent 219.
A fantastic year, and a great training performance. It will be a tough act to follow, but we look forward to charting progress in these pages in the year to come.

Elation Opens Account

The yard may have sent out two hundred and nineteen winners in 2009 (to date), but we suspect that one of the most popular and keenly appreciated successes took place on 16th December, when Elation ran out the comfortable winner of a seven furlong maiden fillies’ stakes at Lingfield.
The reason is simple to explain. Elation is the first foal of the great Attraction, winner of the 1000 Guineas, Irish 1000 Guineas, Coronation Stakes, Matron Stakes and Sun Chariot Stakes for the yard and her owner, the Duke of Roxburghe, in 2004. Having earned a place in the nation’s affections, Attraction retired to the paddocks and, in view of the season Cape Cross has just enjoyed with runners such as Sea The Stars, an inspired decision was taken to send her to the Kildangan Stud stallion. Hopes are naturally high that Elation might show herself to have inherited some of her mother’s brilliance.
Injury delayed the racecourse debut of the filly until late November, when she took her place in the field of eleven for a six furlong maiden fillies race at Kempton. She was supported in the market, starting second favourite behind Richard Hannon’s Zubowa. Things didn’t go to plan, however, for Elation and her jockey Greg Fairley. Slowly away from the stalls, the filly ran green while racing in rear. With a bend to negotiate, Greg took her wide on the outside. Straightening for home she showed good pace and, momentarily, looked as if she might yet prevail; however, the adventures of the early part of the race took their toll and she eventually finished a close up fourth, beaten two and a half lengths by the winner Key Light.
And so to Lingfield. Stepped up to seven furlongs, and with Joe Fanning now in the saddle, Elation was sent off the odds-on favourite, preferred in the market to Richard Hannon’s Leaving Alone, rated 72. This time, things went much more smoothly for Elation. Asked to make all by Joe Fanning, Elation was ridden clear by Joe with more than a furlong to run. Pulling comfortably ahead of her rivals, she ran on to score by four and a half lengths from Freddie’s Girl with Luca Cumani’s Rahy filly Mnasikia staying on to finish third, a further length away.
Mark wasn’t on hand to greet the winner as he was engaged at a board meeting at Hamilton Park. However, as Mark recounted in his ‘bletherings’ on the website, the chairman allowed a time-out from the meeting so that Mark could watch the race, and he was suitably impressed by the filly’s performance. It may only have been a fillies’ maiden, but this success perpetuates the hope that Elation may yet prove a worthy successor to her mother. And hope, as everyone in racing knows, is a precious commodity.

Licence To ‘Thrill?’

Back in August 2008, at the Saratoga Autumn sale, Mark splashed out $130,000 for a February colt by the Breeders’ Cup Mile winner War Chant for owners, The Vine Accord. The bay colt was out of the Clever Trick mare, With a Wink, herself the winner of six races in the States, including the Grade 2 Delaware Handicap, and a half-sister to the Grade 1 placed Raja’s Shark.
The colt, named Licence To Till, made a quiet debut at an evening meeting at Musselburgh at the end of last June. Set to contest a five furlong maiden the colt was slowly away and finished seventh of the eight runners. There then followed three placed efforts, at Catterick, Pontefract and Beverley in July and August, which saw Licence To Till allotted a rating of 72.
The Alfie Jeeves 70th Birthday Maiden Stakes at Lingfield on 16th December saw the colt step up to seven furlongs and make his all-weather debut. Installed as 7/4 favourite in a field of eleven, Mark appeared to have found a good winning opportunity for the colt, but his absence from the track for more than three months meant there was no room for complacency.  Jeremy Noseda’s Calculus Affair and David Elsworth’s Cape Cross colt, Christmas Coming, looked to be the main dangers.  Joe Fanning took the ride on Licence To Till and, as he has done with distinction so often in the past, set out to make every post a winning one.
Things went very much to plan for Licence To Till and his partner, and, with over a furlong to travel, they began to draw clear of the field, despite edging a little to the right. It was a facile success. The winning margin of eight lengths over Christmas Coming underlines the Johnston colt’s superiority and there was a further length and a half back to the third-placed Gold Party.
This was a performance of great promise and authority, and it will be interesting to see if Licence To Till emulates his sire by proving best over a mile in due course. He certainly looks set to provide his owners with more thrills as a three-year-old!

Kingsley Kickback

By John Scanlon


Go Figure!

So Ryan Giggs is the BBC TV Sports Personality of the Year for 2009. Well done to him; he does seem a genuinely nice man, and in these latter stages of his career he is obviously looking after himself and his fitness in a very professional manner. Beyond that, can anyone explain to me why he should have figured in the top 25 candidates for the award?  
Is it really the case that team games in general, and football in particular, so dominate the national psyche that we can’t properly recognise the achievement of British individuals at the highest echelons of world sport? And if so, what message does that send to the British racing industry?
Although perhaps not a vintage year for British sport, there were plenty of meritorious performances which one would have imagined might have scooped the award – Jensen Button’s Formula 1 Championship, Jennifer Ennis’ heptathlon World Championship and Andy Murray’s inexorable rise to the elite of world tennis are just some that come to mind. All three demonstrate these individuals’ ability to perform at the very highest level, where technical ability and skill is a given and mental toughness is all-important. Can we really say that playing football as one member of a talented squad compares with winning multiple stages of the Tour de France, or to defeating Nadal and Federer at tennis?
Racing, despite what Racing for Change may say, can never be organised as a team sport; but perhaps the message of Giggs’ success is that we would do well to publicise the ‘team’ aspects of the industry. In fairness, the Racing Post has had much more emphasis on this in recent times; the owner, the breeder, the trainer, the jockey and the stable staff behind each runner all have tales to tell, tales which will popularise the sport and entertain the public far more than the current focus on betting ever will.


Fallon Fudge

Whilst on the subject of the BBC, it was good to see Gabby Logan’s Inside Sport devote an edition to an interview with former champion jockey, Kieren Fallon, conducted by Clare Balding. I watched the programme with great interest, and before commenting I feel I should say I have read no press comment about the interview whatsoever. I would also reiterate that everything which appears in this column is entirely an expression of my own opinion.
That said, I was hugely disappointed by the interview. To be fair, the various incidents and episodes which have caused controversy in Fallon’s career were given an airing and questions were put to him by Balding. The problem was that Fallon either gave an unsatisfactory answer or no answer at all. Asked how his problems with cocaine had arisen, Fallon stated that that was something he’d prefer not to talk about; amazingly, that seemed to be good enough for the interviewer.
An opportunity missed, methinks. And, for those of you who know me well, no, Balding didn’t ask him what he thought of the BHA’s refusal to grant Darren Williams a licence! Shame!


Help!

Sad to say, my title as Scottish Racing’s Media Tipster of the Year looks like it will have to be relinquished, as we go to press. Joe Rowntree of the Edinburgh Evening News currently has a healthy £26.25 profit to a level £1 stakes, just a tad ahead of yours truly. Put it this way, I’ll be scrutinising the card for Musselburgh’s finale on 29th December with a view to picking out something around the 50/1 mark to give me a chance of retaining my crown, and of having another chat with Thommo on receiving my prize. You never know!

John Scanlon

Yard Supports BEVA Trust Silent Auction

We thought our readers might like to know about a silent auction which has been organised by the British Equine Veterinary Association Trust and which runs until the end of February.
Sandy Love, Chairman of the Trust, wrote to Mark recently seeking support for this venture which seeks to expand the scope of the Trust’s educational work, especially in relation to the education of those responsible for the estimated 100 million plus working equidae in the developing world.
The Trust has recently undertaken the challenging commitment of funding a three-year Senior Research Fellowship at Selwyn College, the University of Cambridge. The Fellow will undertake a programme of clinical research but will also have a broader educative role in relation to working equidae. This is the Trust’s biggest project to date, and in an effort to support it financially it was decided to raise funds by having a silent auction of ‘things that money can’t buy.’
Mark was only too happy to support this venture and he has offered as a ‘lot’ a tour of the yard and its veterinary facilities, with an opportunity to see the overground endoscope in action. The lot will also include dinner, bed and breakfast for two in a Middleham hotel.
Readers wishing to participate in the auction or simply to find out more about the work of the Trust can do so by accessing the BEVA website at www.beva.org.uk. Among the lots already being advertised is the opportunity to visit Ballydoyle and Coolmore, a day’s Salmon fishing on the Tweed, a visit to the Macallan distillery with luxurious accommodation thrown in and a helicopter ride on the East Coast of the United States. More lots are expected to be added, so the site seems well worth a look.
All at Kingsley House wish the Trust well in their efforts to fund such a worthy project and hopefully we’ll bring you news of the successful bidder for the tour of Kingsley House in a future edition.