Like most of those who will turn up on the Co Kildare plain tomorrow, Oxx is full of admiration for the four-time hero. This time round, one of his perceived chief rivals is John Oxx-trained Shalapour, who ducked the clash with Scorpion on Town Moor in favour of tomorrow’s task.Shalapour, the only three-year-old in the field, finished three-quarters of a length in front of Vinnie when they met at Leopardstown last month, but is 8lb worse off. “It’s a difficult race to win once,” he said, “so to keep doing it is amazing. Vinnie likes the track, it’s his distance and its the time of year when there is often ease in the ground. He would not be risked otherwise.” Weld will be keeping a weather eye on the skies in the hope that rain arrives to ease the ground.Vinnie Roe first won the 14-furlong marathon when he was of Classic age, beating another splendid evergreen veteran, the Doncaster victor Millenary, in the process.

“I am happy with him in every way,” he said, “and he is in great order. In Ireland, Vinnie Roe will face eight rivals as he tries for a fifth consecutive success in the Irish St Leger, a feat unparalleled in a Group One race and in any feature contest in the modern era. Though the Flat record record holder Doctor Syntax, who won the Preston Gold Cup seven times in a row from 1815 to 1821, will hardly be spinning in his grave, victory for Vinnie Roe will put the Group-race sequences of Further Flight (four Jockey Club Cups) and Cricket Ball (four Prix de Meautry) in the shade.
The seven-year-old takes on the Curragh test after having recovered from a slight setback last week, but Dermot Weld is satisfied with the pride of Rosewell House. The North Sea is usually teeming with sand eels, which feed on cold-water plankton.

But as warmer currents push the plankton north the sand eels have been forced to follow, leaving seabirds which depend on them for food to starve.The migration of the sharks has provided a economic boon for “environmental tourism”, currently worth £57m a year to Scotland.The number of boat operators taking visitors to see marine wildlife has risen by more than 80 per cent in the past eight years.. Quantity and quality combine tomorrow as an extraordinary horse and a remarkable trainer each eye up a piece of history. “It has been a difficult year for seabirds particularly and we have seen far fewer cetaceans, such as minke whales and harbour porpoises, than we would normally expect to see. In the past couple of years we had the best part of 50 minke whales in Scottish waters but this year we will be lucky to record about 20. Like the seabird populations the whales are looking for sand eels.”According to Laura Bateson, joint marine programme officer for the Wildlife Trust, the lack of sand eels has had a massively destructive effect on the dependent food chain which means that while basking shark sightings may be increasing other species are struggling.

“This year it has been obvious that something is happening to change the usual cycle,” added Mr Speedie. The warmer currents south of the border are pushing the plankton northwards.”Basking sharks, which can weigh more than seven tons, are harmless plankton feeders which tend to prefer the warmer waters of the Gulf Stream. But as rising sea temperatures push the plankton further north, the sharks are following. “Although there are a number of reasons that could have caused this change in pattern, climate change does seem to be a factor. “In 2002 we only had one shark sighted in Scotland compared to more than 100 in Cornwall but now the position has been completely reversed.

In 2003 we had a pretty even 50-50 split in sightings but in 2004 the vast majority were in Scotland. This year it is even more extreme.”In previous years the waters off the Isle of Man and south-west England were the best places to see sharks but increasingly the Hebrides, the Minches, Shetland and the Clyde coast have taken over.”Despite a devastating year for seabirds and other marine creatures in Scotland, basking sharks seem to have benefited from the abundance and quality of their main food source, plankton, and are following that food supply,” said Mr Speedie. It has all been in vain! I now have a trilingual cat – at least in matters of feline gastronomy!SIMON DALGLEISHLONDON W6. Britain’s biggest fish, the basking shark, is deserting the waters off southern England and heading to Scotland as global warming pushes its favourite food source northwards. In the past three years sightings of basking sharks have greatly increased in Scottish waters and have fallen in south-west England.
The latest survey from the Wildlife Trust’s basking shark project shows that 172 out of 180 sightings this year of the fish, which can grow to 11 metres in length, were in Scottish waters.The annual survey, which is conducted over 10 weeks each summer, shows a dramatic shift in the pattern of sightings.”We have seen a major swing towards Scotland over the last few years,” said Colin Speedie, skipper of the survey boat. I am a professional translator working in a variety of mainstream European languages.My cat has long since understood the word “fish”, irksome when I mention it in connection with my own dinner rather than hers! I then began to refer to it in French, then Italian and, finally, Spanish I decided against German – too similar to the English.