Barney's Blog

Heading into a golden sunset

MORNING all, Barney McGrew here again – a horse who’s outstanding in his field.

I wasn’t going to bother with a blog this week because it’s been too bloody hot and I’m knackered shooing off all the horse flies.

However, I had to pay tribute to my old mucker, Dakota Gold – or Goldy as I like to call him – whose retirement was announced by The Gaffer on Thursday.

You know when the time is right to jack it in – I certainly did – and Goldy was telling me at the start of the week that he didn’t feel the same fire in his belly.

He’s done everyone proud – The Gaffer, the Connor Beasley human, all the stable staff and his owners, the Doug Graham, Ian Davison and Alan Drysdale humans.

Seventeen wins in 79 runs, winning nearly half a million quid in prize money. That’s some going.

The great news is that he’s going to have a retirement home for life at Denton Hall. He’ll be sharing my field and we’ll be able to reminisce to our hearts’ content. We can slag off the dumb humans together and help each other keep the flies off.

I’m 10 years older than Goldy and, when the time comes for me to pop my clogs, I’ve talked to him about taking over the blog. I’m going to train him up, put him through journalism college, and we’ve already got a name for it: GOLDY’S GOSSIP. What do you reckon?

In paying tribute to Goldy, I also want to put in a special word for my Carole – The Gaffer’s wife. Everyone knows that Goldy got a bit quirky at the start of his races but Carole has mastered a way of getting him into the stalls.

She goes down to the start, walks (or trots) him round to relax him, then leads him up to the stalls. At the last minute, she lets him go and he jogs in on his own. I’ve never seen anything like it but it worked a treat.

So, well done, Carole – you played a huge part in the Dakota Gold story. You can have a rest now.

As for Goldy, well done old lad. You deserve a long and happy retirement, alongside another legend – ME!

ISN’T it perfect timing that one of Dakota Gold’s owners, the Doug Graham human, has found himself such a nice horse to replace Goldy.

Arapaho Gold has come along at just the right time and looks a very promising young ‘un.

I notice The Gaffer has him entered in the Group 2 Gimcrack at York later this month. It’s aiming high but why not?

Me and Goldy will be cheering him on as loudly as anyone.

THE Gimcrack Stakes goes all the way back to 1846, and is named after a legendary racehorse Gimcrack, who won 27 of his 36 races.

Famous winners of the race named after him include Mill Reef in 1970, Rock of Gibraltar in 2001 and Blue Point in 2016.

However, despite the Gimcrack Stakes becoming such a high-profile race at York, isn’t it odd that Gimcrack never won on The Knavesmire?

There you go – you learn something new every time you ready my blog.

DAKOTA Gold is, of course, going to be a huge miss but we still have plenty of stable stars.

It was great to see Northern Express win at York during the week under a cracking ride by the Paul Mulrennan human.

Northy, as I like to call him, was out in Bahrain with Commanche Falls at the start of the year and got caught up in the Middle East war for a while.

It’s great to see him win his seventh race for those nice humans at The Sekura Group. He’s only an eight-year-old, so there's plenty more to come from him.

FINALLY, I hear that our Travelling Head Lad, the Kenny Williams human, has finally found a new job – circumcising elephants.

“The pay’s terrible but the tips are massive,” he told me.

That's all from me for now, folks. Lots of love, bring carrots.