Just the one bet for me today – Weather Front in the 4:00 at Carlisle, a horse I tried to buy back in February and regretted not having bid more as I drove home.
I met up with Henry Cecil at the February sale at Tattersalls this year. Henry had looked at a lot of horses, and Weather Front was the only one he was interested in. I liked it as the Juddmonte consignment in this sale has thrown up a lot of decent horses in recent times, not least in bumper winners. The horse looked good and walked well – we had a positive review from our man at Juddmonte.
Henry said we shouldn’t go over 30k guineas as he wasn’t worth it – we bid up but the horse was eventually knocked down to Gerry Griffin for 32k guineas. I felt later that I should have insisted on bidding on – we had a good read on the horse, he was a decent looker, and though backward he looked as if he would come to himself towards the end of the year.
Weather Front was bought by Duncan Davidson, who has bought a number of Juddmonte horses in this sale over the years. He is trained by Nicky Richards, who is reasonable form. He will be ridden by Duncan’s daughter, Rose – she’s done ok over the years (you’d have made a profit backing all of her NH runs) and she may be worth a point or two on the price.