• Footballer's venture into ownership off to slow start
• Manchester United player has three horses in training
Wayne Rooney is used to being one of life's winners, but the England striker's first shot at racehorse ownership here on Wednesday was more Wolverhampton Wanderers than Manchester United.
Pippy, the first of three horses that will carry the colours of Rooney and his wife Coleen during the Flat season, made an inauspicious debut in the opening race of the day, the Lily Agnes Stakes, as he started slowly and was then steadily outpaced before finishing last of the eight runners, nearly 10 lengths behind the winner, All Fur Coat.
Tom Dascombe, the trainer of Pippy, had three runners in the race, which was sponsored by his yard, Manor House stables, the training complex owned and built by Michael Owen, Rooney's Manchester United team-mate. The attention of a big crowd was focused on Rooney, though, as he made his way into the paddock with Owen and Dascombe in the middle of a downpour.
Rooney, who admitted to having "a small bet" on Pippy, said before the race that he decided to buy a horse after visiting the yard. "I just went down to have a look, because [Michael] had been saying that he'd had a lot of work done at the stables," Rooney said, "and you could see all the work that's being put into it."
Pippy opened at 11-1 in the betting ring but was backed in to 9-1 at the off, a relatively short price for a debutant in a Class 2 conditions event, but he was in the stalls for a long time as several of his opponents proved difficult at the gate. Rooney and the rest of Pippy's backers could tear up their slips before halfway in the five-furlong race.
"I hope he [Rooney] enjoyed the experience," Dascombe said afterwards. "[Pippy] ran a first-time-out sort of a race, he was stood in the stalls for 10 minutes and he missed the break, and he never got it. Richard [Kingscote, his jockey] did the sensible thing and looked after him. There'll be another day.
"I'm sure there's plenty of people in the world that would love to buy a horse to win, and it doesn't always happen. You never realise how lucky you are until it does. Luckily we've been able to buy Wayne two horses to run at Chester, so let's hope he's had a good day out."
Tomway, the second of Rooney's runners at the meeting, will contest the maiden race at 3.40pm on Thursday. A son of the top sprinter Sakhee's Secret, he is likely to be among the market leaders, but has enjoyed no luck with the draw and will start from stall 11 of 13. "It's a bad draw," Dascombe said. "We'll hope for the best and expect the worst."
The draw had been expected to play a significant role in the day's feature race, the Chester Cup, but the official starting positions proved redundant following a decision to switch to a flag start, as the soft ground would make it difficult to move the stalls off the track before the field returned from its first trip around one of the smallest courses in the country.
Overturn, last year's winner and one of the country's leading hurdlers, is a front-runner over jumps as well as on the Flat and quickly seized the initiative from the off. He prefers a sound surface, however, and his brave run finally faltered in the closing stages as he was overhauled by his stablemate at Donald McCain's yard, Ile De Re.
"I thought Overturn was going to win two out, but the weight on that ground took its toll," McCain said. "Overturn is in the Ascot Gold Cup as well as the Queen Alexandra [at the same meeting] and that race would suit him."
Mark Johnston's Good Morning Star created a 50-1 stir in the Cheshire Oaks by beating Aidan O'Brien's Betterbetterbetter. Dr Marwan Koukash, the owner, admitted the filly had been viewed as a "social" runner. "We'll probably take her to Royal Ascot now over a mile and a half [for the Ribblesdale Stakes]," he said. Read More
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