It’s not being alarmist to suggest that we are approaching a new year that holds more uncertainties and fears for horse racing than any other year in the memory of those still on this earth. For while other industries may carry treatable wounds, racing was already beginning to wobble long before the Covid crisis struck.
The certainty of a prolonged financial crisis that threatened to bring the sport to its knees and will still leave behind lasting damage as it deals blows to all areas of the game has been tirelessly discussed, but there is also an undercurrent of a different sort of negativity that is filling the sport - at least in the UK.
Something is being sapped away from the game. Call it an energy, a buzz, or the increasing lack of anticipation as we look ahead in the programme. What has happened to the progressive, potential top class chasers that go on a roll in November and December, keeping all in suspense of how far up the ladder they will climb?
Why does Bachelor’s Hall spring to mind four decades on from when, under Martin O’Halloran, he showed a rare turn foot for a staying chaser to take the Mackeson, followed by the Hennessy then on to the King George, carrying the Harris colours that recently won a Breeders Cup event.
Timeform described the Peter Cundell trained gelding as possessing ,“ a rare and highly desirable combination of speed, staying power and surefootedness.” Weights and measures ratings may sometimes look more kindly on many one sided conditions events but these type of visually pleasing, on a roll animals, draw far more new fans to the game - well, at least they did when the sport was still capable of attracting new fans.
They came along regularly, probably one every two seasons, and while not many had the Bachelor’s Hall’s burst of speed or bagged what is a rare same season treble, never repeated since, there were many of similar ilk that have altogether become rarer in recent years.
In more recent times, Diamond Harry was a buzz horse that added something to the game right from winning the Fixed Brush Final at Haydock, until he took the Hennessy, looking a potential Gold Cup winner but alas his ceiling had been reached. Since then we’ve had two subsequent Cheltenham Gold Cup winners and an above average Grand National winner take the Newbury race, though we are on a consecutive four of Total Recall, Sizing Tennesse, De Rasher Counter and Cloth Clap, who you would all safely rule out at the time of developing into genuine Cheltenham Gold Cup contenders.
It is rare for something to stir up the excitement as much as a second season chaser that has ‘arrived’ in the first few months of the season proper. Those that travel comfortably all the way, particularly at Newbury, the fairest track in the country.
Like Bachelor’s Hall, Bright Heighway added a Hennessy on the back of his Mackeson, creating such a favourable impression that he went to the head of the Gold Cup market, but his career was then cut short when he sustained a tendon injury a month before Cheltenham.
Brown Chamberlin looked the part when given a made to look simple ride by Francome in his Hennessy, and during the following decade we can never forget the impressions created by three greys who took the Newbury event to announce themselves on the scene; future King George winners in One Man and Teeton Mill, and Sunny Bay who needed a flat left handed track and would go on to produce one of the best weight carrying performances since WW2 in the Grand National on the second occasion he was runner up.
It’s not just the Hennessy that you’d find something scything up through the ranks - Burrough Hill Lad must in hindsight have been the biggest handicap certainty the day he won the Welsh National with just 10 st 9 lb on his back, no one knowing that he would soon be one of the best post war Gold Cup winners. Master Oats too ran away with the same event, rescheduled at Newbury, and he’d soon trounce his Gold Cup field.
The Chepstow race has consistently been a fruitful source of future Grand National and Gold Cup winners but it’s now becoming concerning that like the Newbury race, it may be losing it’s mojo. In the nine runnings since Synchronised won, Gold Cup winner Native River and the classy Elegant Escape stand out amongst some ordinary renewals with this season’s delayed running already looking as though it will be decidedly downbeat.
The there are those who use these handicaps to consolidate what they’ve achieved in championship races, to show they can achieve the same level of merit when the traditional handicap system penalises their merit. These events match no other - Burrough Hill Lad was the handicap snip whose true merit we could only guess at when winning at Chepstow, but when he won his Hennessy he was the reigning champion producing a weight carrying performance that had him being mooted as the best since Arkle.
Denman was the exciting second season chaser confirming the impression he’d created as a novice when winning his first Hennessy, then in the same season winning the most anticipated renewal of the Cheltenham Gold Cup in recent history - then returned to Newbury two seasons later, putting up a similar level of performance to Burrough Hill Lad when winning one of the most enjoyable and memorable races in history - he did one hell of a lot for the winter game but unfortunately new fans to the sport had already dropped to a trickle - how much more a horse like him would have been appreciated two or three decades earlier.
Cyfor Malta was rapidly in the ascendancy when winning his first Mackeson as a five year old, after winning the John Hughes over the National fences earlier in the year. He had a rare wow factor and was promising to become that elusive Gold Cup winner for Martin Pipe when after beating the subsequent first and second in his trial race, sustained an injury that kept him off the track for two years. Still, he destroyed the myth of being just a precocious French bred and reared chaser who wouldn’t last when at the age of nine he won his second Mackeson.
The winter sport has taken a turn for the worse and at least it is now widely recognised that we have a fixture list top heavy with soft conditions races, along with an underlying feel that races are created to come out to a narrower, specific groups of animals from mares only novice events to veteran only races, rather than horses having to be honed to suit the programme.
Furthermore, with Ireland holding the edge at the quality end of the spectrum allied to their fixture list now jam packed with valuable graded races it has become an owner’s dream for those operating at the top end of the scale, while at the same time sapping the enthusiasm of racing fans - not least those in Ireland itself.
Added to this, there is the now almost across the board ability of the modern racehorse trainer to produce horses in tip top condition after long absences. Long gone are the days when punters would cross out horses without a recent run and when you could count the trainers on the fingers on one hand who could turn out animals fully tuned up after a long absence.
We are told about horses only having a certain amount of mileage in them. Henrietta Knight use to hammer this in to anyone criticising the light schedules for Best Mate. Maybe there would not have been three Gold Cups if he’d been campaigned vigorously but despite the gelding performing a fine service to the sport, his input and popularity was a shadow of what Desert Orchid did for jump racing, seeming to turn out every few weeks for many years, over wide variations of distances and courses, and running his heart out each time, often enduring some gruelling looking experiences.
One regret about this legend was that he was a grey, as it riles when those with just a passing interest in the sport say, “ Ahh, people got too carried away how good he was because of his colour” - no they never! Anyone in doubt just needs to spend some time thumbing through form books from the beginning to the end of his career. And he still is very much in the mix in arguments over who is the best since Arkle.
Sadly, the sport has lost so much of its fizz that for many long term fans, thumbing through old form books, watching old races on You Tube and Twitter, and building up collections of old, out of print books have now become their main areas of endearment with the game.
image from scrapbook
This song, a stirring anthem still celebrated by Anarchists, was from an album released a few weeks before Charlie Potheen won the Hennessy, and would who go on and finish third in a vintage renewal of the Gold Cup. Lead singer Ralph Mobius rests in the same Berlin graveyard as the Brother’s Grim that curiously has a quaint little coffee shop inside the entry gate.
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