Richard Dunwoody's Blog by Richard_Dunwoody

It was good to be at the Coral Welsh National meeting at Chepstow on Saturday. It was terrific that the meeting was saved and rescheduled after it’s abandonment due to snow and frost over Christmas. Having said that, I got the main race massively wrong. I really didn’t fancy Synchronised, the mount of AP McCoy, as I thought he had too much weight and he is not a very big individual. Neither did most pundits – not one tipster in the national press went for the ante-post favourite, which was surprising. It was a very good performance, and victory gave AP his full set of Grand Nationals, adding to his Scottish, Irish, and English versions. AP now has the choice of partnering Synchronised or last season’s Aintree hero Don’t Push It in the Grand National. Both horses are trained by Jonjo O’Neill and owned by JP McManus.

I’d be inclined to stick with Don’t Push It and I think AP is of the same mind at the moment. Fortunately, I managed to tip an 8-1 winner in my Daily Mirror column; Marsh Warbler, who was bought out of a Leicester seller for £12,000, was an all-the-way winner of the Grade 1 Finale Juvenile Hurdle for trainer Brian Ellison. Given a smart ride by Fearghal Davis, he relished the soft ground and stayed on well. But while he is now near the forefront of the betting for Cheltenham’s Triumph Hurdle, I’m not sure I’d be backing him for that race. He also holds an entry in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

I have also been in Dresden for the last couple of days. It’s a cool place. August the Strong (1670–1733) was the Elector of Saxony, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, and is the guy who made the old city look the way it looks. Without him, Dresden would still be a village. He is the guy who single-handedly built most of the Baroque monuments in the Altstadt (with the help of a few thousand workers) and filled the Alter Meister Galerie with world-famous oil paintings. The most famous building that was started during his reign was the Zwinger, a palace in Dresden. He established the Saxon capital of Dresden as a major cultural centre, attracting artists and musicians from across Europe to his court.

Augustus also amassed an impressive art collection and built fantastic baroque palaces at Dresden and Warsaw. There is a wealth of Baroque architecture, some superb churches and plenty for the culture vultures to enjoy. Since Augustus was such a driving force, it is odd that his statue in Dresden is quite an ugly thing. The fat horse of the 'Goldener Rieter' has legs that are too short and the sculptor has done a pretty average job on Augustus’s face as well. Dresden, of course, is more widely known for the Allied Forces’ bombardment of the city during February 1945, when around 25,000 people died, most of them civilians. Around 160,000 households out of a total of 222,000 were totally destroyed or damaged. Because most men were dead or still fighting, it was the women, the ‘Trummer frauen’, who then had to clear the ruins.

After the war, Dresden became part of East Germany (GDR or German Democratic Republic). The communist government kept some of the ruins, as a memory of the terrible war. As a result, the city is now an eclectic mix of the old and new; Baroque, modern, and some of the Soviet bloc’s finest creations, the Kulturpalast being a good example. One of the places I’d highly recommend visiting is the popular Cafe Scheune. There is a great Indian pub restaurant downstairs, while upstairs you can see a band perform most evenings. The nightlife in Dresden definitely rivals Berlin with a lot of very atmospheric bars and cafes.

Looking ahead to this weekend, it will be interesting to see if AP McCoy can be part of another slice of history. He rides Kauto Star in the King George VI Chase at Kempton and if he wins, he will be the first horse to win the race five times. As you may be aware, I rode Desert Orchid in two of his four King George victories (see picture). He unfortunately was a beaten faller when going for his fifth victory in the race. Whatever the outcome, it is a monumental achievement from all the team at champion trainer Paul Nicholls’ yard, to get the horse there five years in a row.