Pallasator’s pranks testing Sir Mark
The plan behind getting Pallasator down to the start at Ascot for the Gold Cup is something which has been giving Prescott nightmares!
PALLASATOR could give Sir Mark Prescott a dream win in the Ascot Gold Cup next week.
But just getting him there is giving the aristocratic Newmarket trainer nightmares.
The giant stayer won the Group 3 Henry II Stakes at Sandown.
But when I congratulated HQ's longest-serving trainer, the old Harrovian groaned: "The horrible beast — that's what I call him!
"For six years this grumpy blighter has ruled my life. Everything has to revolve around him. He's always been hyperactive.
"In his box he bites and kicks and he is his own man. He's often dripping with sweat.
"But when he gets to the start of races he is okay. What goes on in his head between the paddock and the start I will never know.
"He has never been any trouble at the stalls — but at home he has often ditched jockeys.
"Andrea Atzeni used to ride him but he said if he had to ride him every morning he would never get out of bed.
"He must have routine. I recently had my yard repainted but he broke out in a muck sweat because of the change. He hates the slightest disruption.
"He has behaved so badly before almost all his races."
Prescott prides himself on being an ace horse-analyst but even his patience has been tested by Pallasator's pranks.
He admitted: "The problem at Ascot, apart from the huge crowds, will be getting him under the tunnel from the paddock to the racecourse. It fills me with terror.
"I've tried all the tricks with him.
"He won the Doncaster Cup last season and now the Group 3 at Sandown. I think the last three runs have been the best of his life. He won from behind at Sandown, despite a 4lb penalty.
"I'm a firm believer that you always do what the enemy don't want you to do. Willie Mullins and the Max Dynamite team would have expected us to go on but Oisin Murphy sat last and then quickened.
"It was one of the rare days when the plan worked!"
Pallasator has the physical frame to match his larger-than-life personality.
Prescott, 68, told me: "I got him for 31,000 guineas, which was cheap. But that was only because he was so big. When he ran seventh in the 2014 Irish St Leger Aidan O'Brien told me he had never seen a bigger horse in a Group 1."
Surely Prescott, famed for his fearsome temper, should be more than a match for the hot-headed Pallasator.
But Prescott said: "I've mellowed over the years and I don't lose my temper as often as I used to.
"I used to be horrible. There are now 81 trainers in Newmarket and 11 of my ex-pupils are now, very unfortunately, training in their own right.
"Mine are the only Newmarket stables where stable staff never carry a whip. If a horse has been schooled properly they are not necessary.
"You'll never see my riders smoking — they are more likely to be on their mobile phones if they think I'm not watching."
He may expect his riders to avoid smoking, but rarely is Prescott seen without one of his beloved cigars.
He makes no secret that his three great loves in life are bull-fighting, hare-coursing and his Heath House stables, which he took over from his late guv'nor Jack Waugh in 1970.
He said: "I fell in love with the stables and I've been a slave to them ever since. I've got jagged glass on top of the outer walls and nobody has ever broken in."
In his home he has the skin of the 1884 Gold Cup winner St Simon, who was trained at Heath House and one of the greatest champions of the 19th century. He won by 20 lengths and his jockey needed another circuit to pull him up.
From his yard steeped in history Prescott does not have a bright outlook for racing's future.
He said: "In 50 years' time virtually all racing will be on the all-weather because it's cheaper to run."
He was once destined for the church but in his lengthy career with horses has put the fear of God into bookies.
He always seems one step ahead of the handicapper and has his horses trained to the minute.
Coups were landed with Spindrifter, who won 13 races as a two-year-old — including ten in succession and Masafi won seven races in 17 days.
Prescott also landed monster gambles in three Cambridgeshire's.
The Cesarewitch remains the one big staying handicap to have eluded him.
There is still time for him to break his duck in the Newmarket marathon.
Despite a recent health scare he insisted: "All the time I am fit I will continue to train. Trainers get better and better as they get older.
"In my case it is inevitable that I will run out of owners as they want trainers younger than themselves.
"Sheikh Mohammed once approached me but it would have meant that I had to build more than the 50 boxes I have always filled.
"It would have meant putting all my eggs in one basket. I even planted trees in my stables so that I would resist building more boxes."
At Royal Ascot, where he has had two previous winners, Prescott also runs MOSCATO in Tuesday's Ascot Stakes and AMOUR DE NUIT is entered in the Gold Cup as well.
Prescott himself was a budding amateur jump jockey until an accident at now disused Wye in 1965, aged 17, which resulted in a broken back. He was hospitalised for 18 months.
A marvellous raconteur with a stock of tales to tell, he recalls a day when he was Jack Waugh's assistant and trainer Sam Armstrong approached him on the gallops.
Armstrong asked: "I see you have a runner in the first at Leicester, would you give my apprentice Harry Ballantine a lift?" Unfortunately, Harry was violently sick in Prescott's car and the trainer had to stop at a pub and ask for a mop and bucket. They struggled on with all windows wide open to lessen the stench. Armstrong later met Prescott and confided: "One thing I forgot to tell you — Ballantine, bad traveller."
He has famously booked THREE places in Newmarket's cemetery and grinned: "I don't want any bloody animal rights activists buried next to me."
Perhaps Pallasator can notch a few more landmarks before Prescott calls it a day.
He laughed: "Pallasator will have too much weight so I will not be breaking my duck in the Cesarewitch. "The Melbourne Cup would be on Sheikh Fahad's radar.
"One thing is for sure, they wouldn't have to prune the roses on the way from the paddock at Flemington ... he'll try to eat the lot!"