It was dark enough for the start of racing at Beverley on Monday evening. By the time the stewards had expressed their view on the outcome of the final race, it was almost pitch black.
The third day of the Go Racing In Yorkshire Summer Festival may have been blighted by unseasonal weather, but it featured fun, plenty of locally-trained winners and unexpected drama in the (lucky) last when Druid's Diamond was thrown out of first place having hung across the course and into closest pursuers Bollin Ted and John Caesar throughout the final stages.
While plenty expected the winner to keep the race, credit from those who backed the winner - including trainer Richard Fahey, who made Bollin Ted his selection in the Sky Bet Charity Tipping Challenge - should go to Duran Fentiman, who probably realised he would have had a decent squeak in the enquiry and managed to get the winning distance down to a neck at the winning post, having been a good three-quarters of a length behind 100 yards out. It can't have done any harm to his chances.
Druid's Diamond's jockey Nathan Evans did pull his whip through to try and stop him from drifting left, but he probably could and should have done it earlier.
It was Carnival Night at Beverley, and samba dancers mixed happily with the crowd, along with a jazz band and South American drummers, but there was also a poignant feel to the evening, with Declan Carroll expressing pride after he had saddled Musharrif to victory in the Jaimie Kerr Memorial Handicap.
Carroll had been good friends with Kerr, the partner of fellow Malton trainer Tony Coyle, who died two years ago.
Sent off a 12/1 chance from stall 13, the five-year-old gelding came fast and late to account for Astrophysics by two and a quarter lengths.
Carroll said: “This means a lot. Jaimie was a very good friend of mine and this is a really nice way to remember her. We miss her every day and I’m sure she won’t begrudge us winning her race.”
Special Purpose proved the class act on the card as she preserved her unbeaten record in the Carnival Night Fillies' Novice Stakes.
William Haggas’s youngster, who holds an entry in the Sky Bet Lowther Stakes at York next month, won on her debut at Lingfield and made short shrift of a penalty to strike by three and a quarter lengths from Gold Stone.
Representing winning connections was shivering former champion jockey Kevin Darley, who said: “There’s not a lot of her, but she’s all there and she had to show her true mettle.
“It looked like the further she went, the better she was, so that might open up a few more options later in the year.
“We’ll have to see what William says but she wouldn’t look out of place (in the Lowther).”
It was a good-humoured evening, but had there been any trouble on the Westwood it was good to know that justice would have been served quickly.
Presenting the prize was former MP Virginia Bottomley, who these days goes by the name of Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone and also - we found out during the presentation - serves as the High Sheriff of Hull. Unusually on a racecourse, nobody asked to see her badge.
