Bomber is right back on track!

Byline: BOB DOWNING

FOR eagle-eyed Baggies fans who like a flutter, scanning the racecards recently has evoked memories of great days gone by - and of an Albion legend.

It is some years now since Tony "Bomber" Brown hit the back of the net for Albion - but his equine namesake has scored this year, with victory at Yarmouth in July.

But the Albion connection does not end there. The horse runs in the blue-andwhite striped colours of Baggies Racing, a syndicate of which there are, at the moment, just two members. They are David Allan, the man behind the successful bloodstock agency Allan Bloodlines and Derby-winning trainer Peter Chapple-Hyam - both self-confessed Baggies fans.

If they have their way - and get the necessary support - they want to add to their team of Albion legends in the sport of Kings.

Allan was at the sales this week when he spoke about the start of the partnership - and it was a remarkable start to his love affair with Albion.

He explained: " I have been an Albion supporter since 1955 after I received a Charles Buchan Soccer Gift Book one Christmas, when I was six years of age.

"Inside that annual was a full-length picture of Ronnie Allen - and although his name had an "e" and mine had an "a", I sort of adopted him as a hero and I have been an Albion man since then.

"It was probably the silliest of reasons to start supporting a club but I have followed the Albion ever since - even when I lived abroad for 20 years. I have been committed through all the thin and bits of thick - boy, is it committed!" And he then rattled off his dream forward line without pause.

"Alec Jackson, David Burnside, Allen, Derek Kevan, Derek Hogg."

It is Allan's business to convene partnerships in the ownership of horses, something he has been doing for over 20 years. He said: " Most of our partnerships go with the Hintlesham prefix, which is the hotel business I used to own.

''But Peter Chapple-Hyam has been a Baggies supporter from birth and his affection for the club is well-documented, We thought that what we would like to do is buy a horse and see if we could attract into it people closely associated with West Brom.

"Because he is a much more high-pro-file figure than I am, he approached people and there was encouragement from some of them that they would come into a low-cost horse.

"I went off and bought the horse - Bomber Brown - but the prospect of a partnership fizzled out as no one came into it."

That could have been the end of Baggies Racing before it had even been named but Allan and Chapple-Hyam pressed on and set up the partnership anyway, in the hope that it would generate interest among some Baggies people.

Useful Although he is no Classic hope, Bomber Brown is clearly useful, having won at Yarmouth as a wellbacked 11-4 favourite, and he has also been placed twice, at Yarmouth and Sandown.

Allan said: "We have been trying to attract more interest in Bomber Brown and to have more partners in HONOURED: Albion legend Tony Brown Baggies Racing. If we are to expand the team, then we need interest to be shown and we would like to have another big name in our particular team."

'Bomber' is keeping to himself whether he had a few pennies on his namesake at Yarmouth but he said this week: "It is a great honour to be remembered in this way.

"I can guarantee that the horse Bomber Brown walks better than me and certainly runs faster than I ever did.

"I have known that Peter Chapple-Hyam has been a big Baggies fan and to see those blue-and-white stripes on a winning horse will be great for every Albion fan.

The Allan Bloodlines website at www.allanbloodlines.com has all the information needed to get involved in Baggies racing - and hopefully have a horse good enough to compete in the Premier League of horse racing.

n THE best news of the week came when John Oxx announced that Sea the Stars had been retired.

It was believed that the horse, who had cemented his place among racing's greats when winning the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in Paris a fortnight ago, would head to Santa Anita for one last hurrah in the Breeders Cup.

Some wanted Oxx to take up the challenge but Sea the Stars had been at peak fitness five times in five months and a sixth effort might have been one too many. Much better to remember that magical day at Longchamp than reflect on a defeat in America.

Oxx said: "We never had a horse like him and very few people have. Very few trainers get the opportunity to train a horse as spectacular as him and we were very grateful that he walked though our gate.

"His durability, his toughness and his constitution were all a large part of his talent but he also had the temperament and engine to deliver repeatedly on the big day.

CAPTION(S):

Tel: [phone] www.reliant-windows.co.uk HONOURED: Albion legend Tony Brown FRONT RUNNER: Bomber Brown winning at Yarmouth in July with Jack Mitchell