Trainer Caspar Fownes, the man known as the “King of the Valley”, could play a key part in determining which jockey claims Wednesday night’s (5 December) rich prize for the LONGINES International Jockeys’ Championship at Happy Valley.
Fownes, who has likely fancied runners in each of the four legs of the series, was horrified by how his horses fared at this morning’s barrier draw but much happier after the random allocation of jockeys proved more fortuitous for the man who has trained more than 400 Happy Valley winners and landed doubles at the past two meetings at the city track.
“I wasn’t too happy this morning, I can tell you, when I came up with three from barrier nine and two from 10 on Wednesday night but the jockeys worked out better,” Fownes said. The wide drawn quintet includes three of his IJC runners.
“Ooh, that’ll do. This horse can win,” Fownes said, in his inimitable style, after the 2016 IJC winner Hugh Bowman was drawn to ride Marvel Joy in the series second leg (race five). Marvel Joy, who finished second at his last start at the course and distance (1650m), is drawn barrier nine as is Fownes’ first leg runner Royal Racer to be ridden by Javier Castellano. “He’ll go back in any case,” Fownes said of Royal Racer.
His remaining runners are Formula Galore (barrier 10, race seven) and The Judge (barrier five, race eight). “Formula Galore’s down in the weights so I’m pretty happy to have Karis (Teetan) on board and certainly no issue with Christophe (Lemaire), who’s been dominating in Japan, jumping on The Judge,” Fownes said. Lemaire tied with Ryan Moore and Johnny Murtagh for first place in the 2009 IJC.
