If you made money from the narrow 8-1 success of Apparate at Ascot on Saturday, you should be giving thanks to the dedication of jockey Rossa Ryan, whose entire intake of food in the previous two days amounted to a boiled egg. The 19-year-old told me about the deprivation he put himself through, having learned days before that he was to ride the Roger Varian-trained horse in the Lavazza Stakes, worth £62,000 to the winner.
“My agent, Steve Croft, rang me during the week and he said, I think I’ve got you on this,” Ryan recalls. “This is one you have to go out on a limb for.”
Ryan can happily do 8st 10lb but for Apparate he had to get himself down an extra 2lbs below that. “I just thought, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I was in Chelmsford on Thursday night, I think I had six bottles of water on the way home. I woke up Friday, went for a jog in the morning and a sweat in the bath, got to Ascot, rode there, went to Kempton, had a cup of coffee on the way, finished there, had a bottle of water and a boiled egg and went home.
“I woke up Saturday morning with a bit of weight still to do, so I went out for a jog, got in the bath, got in the sauna.” Did that lack of solid food not take a toll on his strength?
“I actually felt fine. It was more that I had to wait until I could have a drink. But I felt strong, I wasn’t weak.” And that showed as Ryan drove Apparate out to hold on by a diminishing short-head. “I had a chicken wrap afterwards and I made sure I put plenty of water back inside me again. It was very good.”
As Ryan pointed out, lots of jockeys go through similar hungry spells, but at least on this occasion he was rewarded with a big win. “I think the secret to wasting is organisation. You need to know what you have to be at what time of the day, and know your body. This is my third season and I’ve had long enough to figure out what I can do and what I can’t do.”
Ryan remembers being out of form last month until he picked up a spare ride on Duke Of Hazzard and won the Celebration Mile. He’s been flying along since then, with 10 winners in the past fortnight and an increasing number of admirers. Good luck to him.
Monday’s best bets
There’s plenty of rain around but I’m hoping most of it will miss Brighton, where Knockabout Queen (1.45) aims to follow up her fast-ground success of last week. From the in-form Tony Carroll’s yard, she finished strongly to record her best effort in more than a year and it seems she gets on well with Kieren Fox.
She’s still not harshly treated on her revised mark but I’m not sure the same is true for Foxy Femme, who went up half a stone for her Leicester success, when she was wearing a hood that has since gone missing. Knockabout Queen is fairly priced at 5-1.
Carroll could get a double, as he also has Thunderoad (4.20) in an uncompetitive-seeming handicap a bit later. This three-year-old could be going the right way, judged on a close second at Chelmsford, and is 11-4.
Sizing Granite (3.30) hasn’t been a regular hurdles winner over the past five years but he made all at Newton Abbot last month and again looks the one to be with there today, with the extra half-mile to help. I like Colin Tizzard’s veteran at 4-1 to repel The Sweeney, who scrambled home at Market Rasen last time and is less certain to appreciate the extra distance.
Earlier, look out for Rebel Leader (2.25), a winning pointer making his hurdles debut. He’s down to 7-2 from the opening 6s in a winnable contest.
In Perth’s opener, I’m tempted to take on the Gordon Elliott-trained favourite, on the basis that the market always reacts strongly to his name on a racecard there but his ordinary horses have been in modest form lately. Brian Hughes returns to the saddle on Beast Of Belstane (2.05), who may have needed the run when flopping on a much softer surface there three weeks ago. He’s 5-1 in a three-horse race.
Brighton
1.45 Knockabout Queen (nap) 2.15 Dontaskmeagain 2.45 Joyful Dream
3.20 Atalanta Breeze 3.50 Freckles 4.20 Thunderoad 4.50 Harlequin Rose (nb)
Perth
2.05 Beast Of Belstane 2.35 Ballycrystal Court 3.10 Green Zone 3.40 Indian Temple 4.10 Lake Baikal 4.40 Mustmeetalady 5.15 Doyen Breed
Newton Abbot
2.25 Rebel Leader 3.00 Black Anthem 3.30 Sizing Granite 4.00 Capitoul
4.30 Midnight Magic 5.05 Guardia Top
Wolverhampton
5.30 My Motivate Girl 6.00 Say It Simple 6.30 Um Aljadeela 7.00 Havana Jane 7.30 Charlie D 8.00 Vampish 8.30 Court Order