05 January 2009 Gentleman Anshan has already made a huge impression
Ask any racegoer who has attended both Cottenham meetings this season which horse would top the list of ones to follow, and the answer is likely to be Gentleman Anshan.
Now officially five, but in actual fact only four-and-a-half, with a birthday at the end of June, Rosemary Gasson's youngster already has two victories under his girth, both achieved with seemingly the minimum of effort.
"I thought he'd run well first time so I wasn't really surprised that he won, but what did surprise me was that he won by so much," said Rosemary. "Then we ran him again just to see how good he was."
Rosemary and her partner Roger Burnell own a property in Ireland, and it was on a trip to the Point-to-Point at Ballindenisk in May that they spotted Gentleman Anshan, who reminded Rosemary of one of her former Pointers, Romany Chat.
"I never bet but I do like to pick out horses," Rosemary explained, "and the ones I chose in the four-year-old Maiden finished first and second. I thought there was no point in going after the winner, so we went to the runner-up's horsebox and asked Sean Doyle (the trainer) what he was going to do with him. "Sell him," was the answer, so by the end of the week we'd bought him."
Rosemary is not prepared to divulge his purchase price, but admits that it was on a par with the most she'd previously paid for a horse.
Leo (Gentleman Anshan's stable name, originally given him by his breeders Richard and Marie Hennessy) arrived at Rosemary's Oxfordshire yard in company with another of the couple's Irish purchases, and because the two were still race fit, she asked Hannah Watson and Annabel Hamilton to sit on them. "They were really civil," she recalled, "so we just turned them out and then started with them at the end of July."
Hannah, who has partnered him in both victories, considers him to be the nicest youngster she's ever sat on, while Rosemary says "He's as good as gold. He loves life, and hoovers up his food, although he's getting like Viscount Bankes in that he thinks he knows it all. He led off down to the start at Cottenham with no problem, although it was only his third ever race - he just wants to get out there and do everything. He's well built, with really sturdy limbs, and the only thing I could crab him on would be that he's got curby old hocks."
Rosemary is undecided as to what to do next. "He could run again tomorrow - he's bouncing," she says, "but I don't want to overdo it. Someone asked me if I was going to Hunter Chase him, and I said yes. We possibly do sometimes run our horses in too high a grade, but if we've got the chance then we go for it, and enjoy the day out."
Leo apart, the last month has had its share of "downs" for Rosemary, who recently spent some time up to her waist in water after one of her horses, Love In The Air, fell off a concrete bridge into a stream and became wedged by branches before having to be extricated from under the bridge itself. The mare escaped with hardly a scratch, but Rosemary's thorough chilling has left her with the current legacy of a very croaky voice.
Add to that the plight of Rosemary's 14-year-old granddaughter, who had her leg broken in two places when kicked out hunting, and it has not all been plain sailing for the family.
Surprisingly, nobody has yet made an offer for Leo, although any prospective purchaser would be wasting his or her time. "He's not for sale at any price," stresses Rosemary. "Nothing would buy him. We might have got it wrong, and he might not go on. I hope he does, but time will tell."
