Candy to confess to sprinting mastery

By Rory King

The racing world is as prone to prejudice as Elizabeth Bennet. Opinions circulated in the media can spread like wildfire amongst the racing public and can fully affect the betting market accordingly. Trainers are often pigeonholed as having a certain type of horse in their yard and as soon as a young animal seems to fit that trend they are over-rated and over-bet. Mark Johnston is the perfect example of this with horses who step up to middle distances or further. Another example is Henry Candy with sprinters.

Make no mistake, Henry Candy is a very good trainer of sprinters. When I was first getting into horseracing, I remember being mightily taken by Air Wave, especially when she won the Temple Stakes at Sandown. Although he trained one of the best middle-distance race mares of the last half-century in Time Charter, he is most thought of as a trainer of sprinters having won the Nunthorpe with Kyllachy, the Cheveley Park and Temple Stakes with Air Wave, two winners of the St Leger Yearling Stakes and on Saturday the Sprint Cup with Markab.

I believe Candy has two more up-and-coming sprinting stars due to run at Doncaster this week. Dinkum Diamond is entered in the Flying Childers and will take all the beating on his run in the Ninthorpe last month. Rose Blossom contrived to make that race an incredibly messy one by going off just about as fast as I’ve ever seen any horse do and in reality there were only ever about three or four horses in the race. That being so, Dimkum Diamond put in a highly credible effort to finish a staying-on sixth having been hampered and forced to switch round horses, way ahead of the other, more fancied two-year-old Stone Of Folca. The very fact Candy ran him in the race as a two-year-old is testament to how highly he is regarded at Kingston Warren and for me he will be tough to beat on Friday.

The other Candy horse at Doncaster I am very much looking forward to running is three-year-old The Confessor. A poor debut running last year was followed by a three month break before two much more promising maiden runs right at the back-end of the year. He returned to the track early this year to break his maiden over six furlongs before being stepped up to seven for his next start where he and the runner-up had a battle for the last half mile or so, with The Confessor just prevailing having been headed a furlong and a half out. He was raised four pounds for that win but that was to prove the springboard for him to go onto greater things as next time out in a 0-90 handicap on the fibresand at Southwell he absolutely routed a field featuring some progressive horses. Kicked into an early lead from the one box, he made all at a fast pace and destroyed the field by over four lengths.

Sure to be raised more than six pounds for that demolition job, Candy decided to run him back under a penalty just a week later in a competitive three-year-old handicap at Kempton again over seven furlongs. Despite not having the best of runs from a wide draw and not being able to dominate, the Southwell win had clearly taken more out of him than perhaps thought and he ran well enough to finish fifth. That run does mean the handicapper has not been able to put him up further for his Southwell win and off a mark of 87 I am convinced there is a lot more to come from this horse. Remember Markab has graduated from handicap company to be a Group 1 winner and, although I am not saying The Confessor is a Group winner waiting to happen, I firmly believe he will be in that echelon next year.

By Rory King