Just Glamorous can turn heads for trainer Harris in showpiece
THE national football team may be the pride of Wales at present but Ron Harris could claim a share of the limelight.
Chris Coleman’s side reached the semi-finals of Euro 2016 but Harris went one further when he brought a trophy back from France as Just Glamorous won at Chantilly last month. He could do so again tomorrow when he runs in the Group One Prix de l’Abbaye.
It is only a five-mile trip from his yard down to Chepstow racecourse but yesterday Harris was on the 400-mile journey to Chantilly just as he had been when Just Glamorous won the Group Three Prix du Petit Couvert, having already won three smart handicaps during the summer.
This was a step up in class but Harris had won the Group Three Sapphire Stakes with half-sister Glamorous Spirit in 2010 and felt it worth a chance.
“The theory behind all that was that I knew there was a race on at the Curragh and I thought that all the English horses would probably go there,” he said. “The French horses don’t run similar races to our horse – who goes from the front – because they tend to be hold-up horses. I knew how quick he was and thought if they think they can give us a little bit of a shot it could be worth a go. As it turned out a few of the English horses didn’t want the soft ground in Ireland and they turned up in France.”
The horses had turned up but not Harris’s jockey as Ted Durcan was stuck in Newmarket due to mechanical failure with the aircraft due to take him to Chantilly. A desperate call to Max Pimlott at the International Racing Bureau booked top French rider PierreCharles Boudot and there followed a somewhat comic three-way pre-race tactics plans between Harris, Boudot and the jockey’s agent which boiled down to all-out attack, which is just what happened as Just Glamorous made all to win by three lengths in record time.
“Even I couldn’t believe how easy he made it look. PC did a great job but I was getting the instructions through with hand signals,” Harris said with a laugh. “He was trying to explain the race to me afterwards and said ‘this horse goes fast – but can go faster’.”
Meanwhile, Boudot’s agent was eloquence itself talking to the owners to keep the ride for the Abbaye, France’s premier sprint race.
There has never been a Group One winner trained in Wales but Harris has not driven the horsebox 400 miles simply for a good lunch. “He’s a threeyear-old, he’s maturing all the time and next season nothing would surprise me. Mecca’s Angel is the favourite but he’s coming here with as good a chance as anything in the race,” he said. “He’s got blitzing speed over the first three furlongs, he travels well and he could take some catching.”
If Just Glamorous scores again for Harris, Gareth Bale and the others will have to share that limelight.