Why did he keep this apparently moderate horse in his yard if he didn't think it could win?
Racing Post
25 April 2005
Touches come in many different guises. There are, quite evidently, still plenty of old-fashioned coups when a horse's price contracts sharply in response to substantial on-course support.
Then there are off-course gambles - what some people refer to as SP jobs' - where money is placed rather more discreetly in the hope that it won't find its way back to the track.
I have a friend who used to call them bicycle jobs'. He would arrange for members of his family to hire mopeds and other modes of transport to help them negotiate the back streets of London and seek out the smaller independent betting shops, whereupon relatively small bets would be placed in the hope that the alarm bells would remain mute.
These days large volumes are placed on the exchanges, with both on-track and off-track bookmakers using the facility for hedging purposes.
Yet while the majority of trainers will claim they don't bet, it is reasonable to assume that a significant proportion of them are well aware of the benefits that accrue from the successful execution of a coup.
The most obvious one is that they will have a happy owner, and a happy owner may lead to the arrival of another horse to train.
Another benefit is that the owner may have something on' for the yard. Anyone who has owned horses will tell you it's important to keep the grooms happy. They are the people, after all, who spend most of their time with the horses.
After a good winner, most owners of my acquaintance will give a present either to the trainer or the staff. This tends to apply even more if a touch has been landed.
Some trainers will tell you that they neither have, nor welcome, gambling owners. Others, as we know all too well from recent televised documentary coverage, may entice a prospective punting owner into thinking they have both the right horse for the job and the ability to execute it.
Whatever the case, there is still something that sets the pulse racing when the odds on a relatively unexposed horse come tumbling down.
It seems to happen less these days, perhaps because early interest is reflected on the exchanges (where markets generally open at about 8pm the previous evening) or in the morning if the race is priced up.
One of last summer's most sensational on-course plunges took place at an evening meeting at Thirsk in June.
The horse was Top Dirham, who hadn't won since landing a seven-furlong 0-100 handicap at Epsom off a mark of 82 two years earlier for Sir Michael Stoute.
On his next outing he started 7-2 favourite to overcome a 6lb rise in the Britannia Stakes, finishing a creditable fifth. He didn't reappear until the following spring, when he came home last in the Jubilee Stakes and then 15th of 27 in the Buckingham Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot, both times racing
off 91.
The next time Top Dirham appeared was in September where, running for the first time from Mick Easterby's yard, he finished a distance tailed off in a claimer over an extended mile at York. Just under a fortnight later he was again well in arrears in a similar race at Ayr.
When Top Dirham reappeared at Thirsk the following April, having been gelded over the winter, it was from a mark of 70 - 21lb lower than his rating just three outings earlier at Ascot. Looking backward and finishing tenth, he then filled the same slot a month later in a similar race at Hamilton.
Then came the big day at Thirsk.
Rated on 65 - now 26lb below his highest mark and 17lb lower than his previous best winning mark - Top Dirham was backed in the ring at all rates from 12-1 to 4-1. Taking the lead just over two furlongs from home, the five-year-old came away to land the spoils comfortably by a couple of lengths.
Easterby appeared to land an even bigger gamble with Hills Of Gold at Beverley last August. The former Barry Hills-trained
four-year-old had won as a juvenile, but disappointed in three outings in 2002. Rated 98 for the third of those outings, six runs down the field for Easterby in 2003 saw him drop 40lb, from 95 to a plater's mark of 55.
The big day for Hills Of Gold came at Beverley when, in the experienced hands of George Duffield, he won a 0-70 handicap over the extended seven furlongs, having been heavily supported from 16-1 down to 5s.
Although both the aforementioned horses were reported to have problems which were subsequently rectified upon their arrival at the Easterby yard, the message is still clear.
However badly a horse runs - and, in the case of Top Dirham, he ran very badly indeed on his first two starts for the yard - if a canny trainer is prepared to keep running the horse, then there is a good chance that it will, at some stage, win a race.
Obviously, this doesn't apply to every trainer or every horse. In the case of Top Dirham and Hills Of Gold, both had shown they were capable of producing a decent level of form. It was simply going to be a matter of trying to rekindle it.
However, the principle that states that a reputable trainer will not keep a horse in his yard if he doesn't believe it capable of winning a race has served me very well over the years.
Taking this a stage further, anyone who knows William Haggas, for example, will tell you that he is not the type of trainer who would encourage an owner to meet the high costs of keeping a horse in training if it were only capable of, say, producing form to a mark in the low 40s. If the horse were that poor, it would probably have been chucked out in the autumn of its two-year-old season.
One of the first times I profited from this theory was in July 2000, when Haggas ran a gelding named Chaka Zulu in a modest
0-60 handicap over a mile and a quarter at Bath.
The previous season he had run three times, finishing 17th of 18, 9th of 11 and last of 17. Yet why, I asked myself, was Haggas prepared to keep this apparently moderate 40-rated gelding in his yard if he didn't believe it capable of better?
Chaka Zulu won that particular Bath race, having been quietly supported down to 8-1, and went on to win another three times, ending his season on turf finishing second off 76 - 36lb higher than his opening mark.
An inquisitive mind can serve you well in this game and anyone interested in trying to unearth the next touch from Mick Easterby's yard - a horse with a similar profile to Top Dirham and Hills Of Gold - should refer to my article in the Racing Post's Horses to Follow or my Dark Horses Annual, which has just been published (see below). Alternatively, as an exercise, log on to www.racingpost.co.uk, bring up all Easterby's runners from last year, and see if you can spot the horse in question.
Next week, I'll identify the trainers who have displayed a special deftness of touch in their preparation and placing of horses, together with further examples that illustrate why they warrant our specific attention.
