Stocktaking
My daughters’ kids paper First News plopped onto the mat this
week and proclaimed in banner headlines, “2011. The Year When A Lot Happened”.
What this rather unspecific statement lacks in journalistic sharpness, it
adequately compensates for in catch-all accuracy. A lot did happen: The Arab
Spring and North African civil wars; assassinations of Bin Laden and Gaddafi; deaths
of Steve Jobs, Kim Jong-Il and Cheetah; a Japanese earthquake; enduring economic
misery; newspaper phone hacking; a royal wedding; domestic riots; and the speed
of light got faster.
Horseracing usually beats to
its own drum and rarely troubles the consciousness of the wider world. Outside
the red-letter days of the Grand National and Royal Ascot, the sport rumbles
along in a parallel universe. But this year, I observed about half a dozen stories
that spilled over into the mainstream, to one degree or another. Inevitably, some
were negative, others bitter-sweet, and best of all a couple of shiny positive
nuggets to warm the cockles.
Kauto Star has to top the
bill. His upwardly mobile profile this year is more akin to the breakthrough of
a six-year-old novice, not a battle-hardened chaser who turns 12 on Sunday. Despite
the age burden, this wonderful son of little-known sire Village Star, ends the
year with an enhanced reputation amongst a swirl of glittering accolades that
an average Oscars’ night would die for. After mustering third in a memorable Gold
Cup back in March and then pulling up in the equivalent in Ireland, many expected
to be penning his racing obituary this season. I was amongst them. I
respectfully wrote him off at Cheltenham, hailing the new Long Run guard. I
shook my head and called for well-deserved retirement after Punchestown. Kept
in training, and the subject of incredibly upbeat reports from Team Ditcheat,
he reappeared in the Betfair Chase at Haydock in November. Once again I argued
(alongside many others) that it was a race too far. I didn’t want to see an
ignominious end to a great career.
That was the start of the
renaissance. After his thrilling victory – and I mean thrilling: jumping as an
art form, front-running as breathtaking spectacle – connections revealed that
they had considered retirement and that this race had been his Gold Cup.
Nicholls had no option, swept on a tide of emotion, to take the King George
route on Boxing Day. Like a killjoy naysayer, high on pooping parties, I again
felt he couldn’t win. He needed longer between his races…..Long Run and other
pretenders would be fitter….. I was wrong. The betting public was right. My
mate Colin, a true believer, was right. Again Kauto put them to the sword. Long
Run got much closer this time. But the result was the same. The outpouring of
emotion was the same.
He’s proved he is the best
over different distances, tracks and underfoot conditions. And, time after
time, he proves people wrong. This horse is a sensation. The best I’ve seen in
my life.
The other headline-grabbing horse
was Frankel. A superstar of a different ilk, he proved simply unbeatable over a
mile this Summer when he racked up four Group 1s and a Group 3. His trainer,
Henry Cecil was knighted in the Queen’s birthday honours. He is fast becoming a
national institution.
The manner of Frankel’s destruction
of the 2,000 guineas field in May caused a collective sharp intake of breath. At
Goodwood, the boys and I were lucky enough to see him take Canford Cliffs apart
in the Sussex Stakes. The latter was then found to be injured and was retired.
But that took nothing away from the manner of the victory. It was a privilege
to see him. The good ladies of Berkhamsted are not so charitable with their
memories about that day, however. I was entrusted with the task of maximising
the balance of their pub kitty on a couple of sure-fire Glorious Goodwood
winners. I failed. The ladies have been much more careful since. They stay in
the pub long enough to drink up the kitty now….
 |
| Illustration by Paul Hardman |
And staying on the
sentimental front, we wished Denman a long and safe retirement in November. The
achievements of stable-mate Kauto Star since then have thrown into sharp focus their
earlier epic duels. Also, handlers of the ultra-tough Lough Derg finally called
it a day after his 55th hurdles outing. In a nice touch, Ascot named December’s Long
Distance Hurdle named after him, a race he won in 2007. His regular jockey Tom
Scudamore may have mixed emotions about the retirement. Lough Derg’s wins
frequently came at the price of near exhaustion for his jockey who could be
seen rowing away on the gelding from shortly after the tapes had gone up. But
the horse never knew when he was beaten. And I enjoyed seeing sprinter The
Tatling win his final race at 14 years of age, the veteran of 176 races under
rules which yielded over 600 grand in prize money. Only 18 of them were wins.
Of those negative stories to
have breached the mainstream media, one has rumbled on throughout the year and
concerns alleged cruelty within the sport. This peaked with the Grand National
coverage of the tragic deaths of Dooneys Gate and Ornais in the full glare of the
public spotlight. Ballabriggs, the brave winner of this race had to be
dismounted after the finish line and his jockey received a lengthy ban for whip
abuse. The debate about racing’s track record of duty of care was not well
handled. This is where racing’s separateness from the wider world can cause
mistrust and suspicion. On one hand the ‘ignorant and uninformed general
public’ were berated for jumping to conclusions about how racehorses are
treated. On the other hand, ‘aloof and unsympathetic toffs’ were vilified for
closing ranks.
The Grand National will have altered, safer fences next year. However, other issues were not so easily resolved. The hastily convened whip
review and swiftly implemented reforms did not lift the game out of the hole it
had dug itself. Initially welcomed by all as valuable clarification, jockeys
were soon protesting, handing in their licenses and threatening strikes. The word
‘draconian’ had not been bandied about as much since Slade guitarist Dave
Hill’s fringe was last spotted. Successive revisions eventually took some heat
out of the debate, but as the year draws to a close it still remains an open
wound. Amongst the vitriol and opprobrium, I did spot an amusing tweet which
suggested that Paul Carberry would be unlikely to ever pick up a whip ban on
the basis that the tweeter had “…never seen him smack a horse seven times in a
whole meeting, let alone one race”. Backers of Harchibald in the 2005 Champion
Hurdle will chuckle, no doubt.
Another sour subject to
break into the mainstream was the perennial Achilles heel of race fixing. In
the year that three Pakistani international cricketers received prison
sentences for spot-fixing bribes, British
racing undertook the largest investigation of its type into suspicious betting
patterns on a series of races in the Summer of 2009. Four jockeys, including
girlfriend of Keiron Fallon, Kirsty Milczarek, received bans ranging
from 6 months to 12 years. Trainers
Maurice ‘Fred’ Sines and James Crickmore, the central characters in the scam,
received 14-year bans. Five others – Nick Gold, Peter Gold, Shaun
Harris, David Kendrick and Liam Vasey – were also found guilty of ‘corrupt or
fraudulent practice’. What’s interesting is the nature of the reporting by the
tabloids which focused on Milczarek’s relationship with Fallon and her ‘racy’
publicity photos, rather than the complexity of the case or the scale of the
investigation.
The terrible electrocutions
of two horses at Newbury’s subsequently abandoned Totesport Trophy fixture also
created some unwanted headline publicity. Though in this case, the
blame is attached to a freak occurrence linked to a previously inert
electricity cable under the parade ring and not to human intervention, malicious
or otherwise. If anything is to be taken from the grisly scenes that followed,
it is that all those involved reacted with dignity and sense. Newbury’s
officials, together with reporters, commentators, owners, trainers and jockeys
took the right decisions about animal and human welfare, did a pretty good job
of keeping people informed, and got the site cleared and checked. The fixture was
restaged a few days later. On this occasion, a drama was not made out of a crisis.
One last widely reported and
sad story to touch upon is the death of Ginger McCain. Ginger is a legend of
the game, having won the Grand National four times with two different horses,
including three-time winner Red Rum. He subsequently become the sort of
character that everyone says we don’t get anymore. That healthy dose of
character in-your-face was a handful for many TV presenters with
his course language, unpredictable behaviour and controversial statements. He
once said on air “If
Carrie Ford (female jockey) wins the National I'll bare my backside to the
wind, and let everyone kick it!”
But it was still great to
see his achievements given proper recognition. Fitting too, that he should be
present at Aintree in April, only a few months before his demise, to see son Donald
McCain Jr train Ballabriggs to win the National. A family affair.
Well-respected Arc and
multiple Group 1 winning trainer Michael Jarvis and long time jumps trainer
Roger Fisher both died this year too. I was lucky enough to stay in the
latter’s cottage a couple of years ago when we holidayed near Ulverston in
Cumbria. The family made us feel incredibly welcome. We saw their horse
Mystified win at Cartmel during our stay.
My local trainer, Walter
Swinburn quit the training ranks as well. Though in this case it is for a break,
with the prospect of a future return. This has been on the cards for some time.
There had been much local talk of disaffection and disharmony at Church Farm stables. This culminated in landlord Peter Harris dispering his racing stock last year and
now divesting himself of his remaining assets. So here we have a fully
functioning state-of-the-art training establishment with no trainer and a bunch
of talented and dedicated staff with no jobs. The finances of horse racing
still do not stack up for many.
But I don’t intend to end on
a negative note. This has been a belter of a year with some wonderful moments. First News is right, A lot did happen. The game faces its share of financial, public perception and governance challenges,
certainly. The sustainability of the sport is not guaranteed. But at its core,
there is enough talent, excitement, passion, inspiration and widespread support
to convince me that there’s life in the old dog for a few more years yet.
Comments