Hitchens

Hitchens was the other horse to take out of the Coral Sprint Trophy at York on Saturday for me. Nothing travelled better than David Barron’s gelding down to the two-furlong pole, but he didn’t find as much as it looked like he would inside the final furlong, and he ultimately had to settle for third place behind Kaldoun Kingdom and Cheveton. However, this run was probably a lot better than it looked, as it is probable that Hitchens raced on the softest of the ground towards the stands side. All day the jockeys shunned the stands side – Eddie Ahern went so far as to miss the break on Layla’s Hero from stall 12 in the Rockingham and tack all the way over to the far side behind runners – and the way they finished in a diagonal line from the centre of the track to the stands rail backs up this hypothesis. Not disgraced in the Ayr Gold Cup when he was drawn on the wrong side, the Acclamation gelding kept on well to land a decent handicap at Haydock on his last run before Saturday. He was raised 3lb for that, but he can win again off his new mark of 98. He is only four, he will be of interest if he runs again before the end of the season, and he will be a candidate for all the top sprint handicaps at least next term.

10th October 2009