He’s progressing all the time and he hasn’t shown yet what he is going to do
“He’s progressing all the time and he hasn’t shown yet what he is going to do.”Now he has opened this single door, trainer Michael Bell has another three before him and he can choose to progress either through the portal to the Phoenix Stakes, the Gimcrack or the Prix Morny. Problems, problems.There was disciplinary work to undertake also after the three-year-old handicap won by Leporello. The miscreants were Robert Havlin and Tiber, who squeezed through on the stands rail and then embarked on a Saturday night watlz across the front of the field and into the centre of the course. This maneouvre had Fallon almost dislodged from Tug Of Love’s saddle. Havlin’s penalty was a four-day suspension for this conspicuous piece of careless riding.The 1m 7f Bahrain Trophy was no event for the callow and Gold Medallist did not do it the easy way either, leading for every step under the gradually more frenzied attentions of Kevin Darley.
He was a big horse when he started, but not so imposing by the time his sopping chestnut body returned to the winners’ enclosure. Gold Medallist’s is a trademark physique and this was a trademark performance of a David Elsworth horse. It was the third time that his owner, Jeff Smith, had won the race, following the exploits of Persian Punch and Grey Shot.Elsworth ensured that Darley was not the only member of the winning team to get the timing spot on. “The St Leger closed two hours ago,” the trainer said just before marching off with the water bucket, “and he’s in it.” York’s Great Voltigeur is the natural stepping stone.The meeting reaches its zenith this afternoon with the July Cup, Europe’s premier sprint. Twenty of the last 26 winners have gone on to be identified as Europe’s champion sprinter in the International Classifications and another is promised today in the shape of Choisir.The Australian horse has already won the King’s Stand Stakes and the Golden Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot, and his advantage in the form book has been augmented by drawing the No1 box.He will be enormously difficult to beat as his main rivals, led by the filly Airwave from stall nine, are drawn wide and likely to get in each others’ way during the chase. That could provide for a big price horse in the frame and one who should get snugly into Choisir’s slipstream is Brian Meehan’s TWILIGHT BLUES (nap).. Kirkland Laing, the former British and European welterweight champion, is in a critical but stable condition in a hospital near his home in Hackney after falling from a fourth-floor balcony late on Tuesday night.
In 1990 he won the European welterweight title at Wembley live on television but lost it the same year in Italy.Laing’s greatest night was in 1982 in Detroit when he beat Roberto Duran over 10 rounds. It looked as if Laing would fulfil his potential and boost his earnings but he vanished for over a year, during which Duran made more than £3m when he won the world light-middleweight title and then fought 15 rounds with Marvin Hagler.”I think too many people take kindness for weakness and I never really made that much money, and what I did make I spent,” Laing told the BBC two months ago. The interview is part of a forthcoming film about the boxer’s life.Since his last fight in 1994, Laing has lived in the Hackney council flat that was his home for most of his career, and he became a local character. Last year he was taken into custody but not charged after a police raid on a crack house, and he is known for drinking. “Perhaps I just like to party too much,” Laing told the BBC..
