Tales from the Turf Read online

  Printed edition published in the UK in 2013 by

  Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,

  39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP

  email: [email protected]

  www.iconbooks.net

  This electronic edition published in 2013

  by Icon Books Ltd

  ISBN: 978-190685-067-8 (ePub format)

  Text copyright © 2013 Robin Oakley

  The author has asserted his moral rights.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  Typeset by Marie Doherty

  To Carolyn, who has always indulged my passion for racing despite not sharing it – the greatest gift a lifelong lover can give.

  CONTENTS

  Title page

  Copyright information

  Dedication

  List of illustrations

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  A Zambian beginning

  Hurst Park memories

  Liverpool days

  Grand National

  Epsom days

  The Derby

  Cheltenham

  Martin Pipe

  Nicky Henderson

  Races and courses

  Kempton Park on Boxing Day – King George Day

  Glorious Goodwood

  Monday nights at Windsor

  Ascot and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes

  Doncaster and the St Leger

  Sandown’s Coral-Eclipse

  Newmarket

  Brighton

  Jockeyship

  Are jockeys masochists?

  Don’t marry a jockey

  Dean Gallagher

  Kieren Fallon

  Trainers

  Lambourn

  Clive Brittain

  Barry Hills

  Paul Nicholls

  Horses

  Mandarin

  Russian Rhythm

  Frankel

  Rainbow View

  Denman

  Singspiel

  Betting

  Ownership

  Racing abroad

  New Zealand

  France

  Hong Kong

  Cyprus

  Dubai

  Mauritius

  Racing issues

  The all-weather

  The whip controversy

  Women jockeys

  Too much racing?

  Index

  First plate section

  Second plate section

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  Images courtesy of the Press Association unless otherwise stated.

  First plate section

  Hurst Park when it was still a racecourse.

  ‘Prince Monolulu’.

  Sea The Stars and Michael Kinane triumph in the Derby.

  Marcus Tregoning’s Sir Percy taking the Derby from Dragon Dancer and Dylan Thomas.

  Galileo: a top-class Derby winner.

  Persian War winning his third Champion Hurdle in 1970.

  Henrietta Knight with Best Mate.

  The fairytale turrets of Goodwood.

  Racegoers arriving at Windsor by boat. (racingpost.com/photos)

  Ladies Day at Aintree.

  Kempton, 1996: One Man heads for victory in the King George VI Chase.

  Ouija Board takes the Nassau at Goodwood from Alexander Goldrun.

  Giant’s Causeway beats Kalanisi in the Coral-Eclipse.

  Sir Michael Stoute on the receiving end of a smacker from Frankie Dettori following their St Leger win in 2008.

  Second plate section

  Richard Hughes.

  Kieren Fallon.

  Frankie Dettori.

  Bookmaker Gary Wiltshire.

  Tony McCoy.

  Nicky Henderson’s horses on the gallops at Seven Barrows.

  Nicky Henderson at Seven Barrows with Gold Cup winner Long Run.

  Trainer Barry Hills with 2,000 Guineas winner Haafhd, led up by Snowy Outen.

  Henry Cecil supervising the morning routine. (racingpost.com/photos)

  Paul Nicholls with Kauto Star and Denman.

  Russian Rhythm winning the Lockinge Stakes with Kieren Fallon.

  Mandarin poised in second to overtake Fortria and win his Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1962.

  Singspiel at the Breeders’ Cup: a tragic end to an illustrious globe-trotting career. (Getty images)

  Sha Tin, Hong Kong. (Getty images)

  Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.

  World Cup day in Dubai.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My thanks to all the trainers and their wives, husbands, partners and staff who have allowed me into their yards over the years to share the magical world that training racehorses can be. Thanks too to the jockeys who have nipped out of the weighing room on busy afternoons to spare me a few minutes giving me their version of special moments on the track.

  Thanks especially to the late and much-missed Frank Johnson who as editor of the Spectator brought me back into writing about racing when I had for too long been spending all my time with politicians, the people who tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read. Thanks also to all those Spectator readers who wrote in to protest after editor Boris Johnson dropped my Turf column to create more room for politics – and to Boris for then having the grace to reinstate me. Thanks to the Spectator’s understanding Arts Editor Liz Anderson and to the Financial Times for allowing me to recycle some of the material which has previously appeared in their publications, and to Racing Post Books for allowing me to reuse material first acquired in writing for them my biographies of Barry Hills and Clive Brittain. A very big thank you also to Peter Pugh and Duncan Heath of Icon Books for conceiving this volume of racing experiences and encouraging me to write it. I am grateful also to my friend Derek Sinclair for his good fellowship on the racecourse, even if he does have an irritating habit of backing far more winners than I do. And as always the deepest thanks of all to my long-suffering wife Carolyn who has spent a lifetime putting up with me and the havoc caused in our social life by my deadlines.

  INTRODUCTION

  You have to be there. With the BBC having chickened out of racing, Channel Four’s team deliver well-informed and colourful coverage. But horseracing needs a broader canvas than the 28in screen. Even with a plate of tongue sandwiches, a ready supply of Budweisers from the fridge and the form book and telephone to hand, racing on TV can never quite compensate for not being present. You miss the buzz around the betting ring, the soft thud of hooves on wet turf, the instinctive intake of breath as a champion surges away from his field, the exhilaration of an air-punching jockey and his mount swaggering into the winner’s enclosure. Racing has to be heard, smelled and absorbed as well as watched. And with a fiver on the nose you can even, for a moment, feel a sense of temporary ownership as your selection flashes first by the post.

  That fine Australian writer Les Carlyon put it best in True Grit. Scoffing at the description of racing as an ‘industry’ he declared, ‘So is packaging and tens of thousands don’t stand around cheering a cardboard box that happens to be rather better than the other cardboard boxes.’ Racing, he said, is ‘an addiction, a romantic quest, a culture and a certain sense of humour. It is loaded with dangers, physical and financial and comes with a hint of conspiracy. In other words, racing is interesting.’

  Buying a boat has been descri
bed as like standing under a shower and shredding £10 notes. Pessimists would tell you that racehorse ownership is like standing in a heap of stable manure burning twenties. The trainer of a horse in which I had a share told our jockey one day in the parade ring to ‘Let him find himself’. ‘Oh please,’ I implored, ‘Couldn’t he just for once find the other horses in the race?’

  But, win or lose, there is for me no sport with the same appeal. Jockey Mick Fitzgerald famously responded to interviewer Desmond Lynam’s ‘How did it feel?’ inquiry after he had ridden Rough Quest to win the Grand National that it was ‘better than sex’, getting himself in trouble with his lady at the time, who apparently complained that he had rarely given her enjoyment for more than the nine minutes 45 seconds an Aintree winner can be expected to take to complete the race.

  If Mick was overdoing it just a tad I would still go along with his fellow jockey who described going racing as ‘the best fun you can have with your clothes on’. Racing is about speed, spectacle and athleticism. It is about colour, courage and character, about passion and the pursuit of perfection. For spectators it is simple: who passes the post first. To enjoy it you don’t have to master the intricacies of rucks and mauls, the offside trap or when to take the new ball. It is the most instantly sociable sport of all. Your companion or client doesn’t have to shut up for 90 minutes while the game is played; instead it is ‘How did yours do in the last? What do you fancy for the next?’

  Racing changes people’s character: the tightest of bank managers splashes out on champagne after a win, the most decorous of ladies raises her hemline six inches or risks a crazy hat. No sport’s appeal spans the classes better. Duchess and dustman unite in cheering home a winner.

  The sheer beauty of the participants is enthralling. Watch the early summer sun glinting off the flanks of a perfectly toned Sea The Stars or the grace and power of Kauto Star taking a Gold Cup fence in his prime and you have no need of a picture gallery. As Clive Brittain’s owner Lady Beaverbrook once said, ‘I have all the art I need but nothing makes my heart beat like a horse.’

  Racing also appeals to that other basic instinct, the human love of a flutter. It carries a beguiling whiff of risk and uncertainty.

  There was the famous story of the Dubliner at the Cheltenham Festival who won enough on Ireland’s champion hurdler Istabraq to redeem his mortgage. He then lost the lot on Ireland’s failing hope for the Gold Cup, only to retort, ‘To be sure, it was only a small house anyway.’

  Racing people are good to be with because they are optimists. The veteran US trainer Jim Ryan once declared that no man ever committed suicide or thought of retiring while he had a good two-year-old in his barn for the season ahead. The sport is full of character. Compare today’s monosyllabic footballers with jockey Jack Leach, author of the marvellously titled autobiography Sods I Have Cut on the Turf. He spent his nights in the Turkish baths in Jermyn Street to keep to his riding weight: ‘I used to take off ¾lb extra so that at the racecourse I could have a small sandwich and a glass of champagne before racing started. It made me feel a new man. If I had a few ounces to spare the new man got a glass too.’

  Jack Leach was a Flat jockey. To me the jumping riders have an extra dimension: it is hard to underestimate the sheer courage it takes to drive half a ton of horse across a series of obstacles in cold, wet and biting wind for no more than £158 a time when they know that statistically they can expect a fall from every thirteen rides. When he quit the saddle to train, Brendan Powell reflected, ‘Over the years I’ve been pretty lucky with injury.’ There’s lucky and lucky: he had endured two broken legs, two broken wrists, both collarbones shattered by repeated breaks and a ruptured stomach.

  To me racing’s appeal has much to do also with the bond between the rider in the saddle and the animal beneath. Jockeys need a clock in their head, sensitive hands and physical strength. But horses are individuals. Some like to force the pace in front, others are happier coming from behind. Some shrink from contact or stop the moment they have their head in front. Yet jockeys must divine their partner’s character within minutes of meeting. Some have met their mounts on the gallops; often they have only the time from mounting in the parade ring to when the stalls open to get to know each other. The horse does not know how far away the winning post is and in that time a bond of trust must be established.

  Frankie Dettori claims that within seconds of sitting on a horse he can divine its character, even its best distance. If ever I envied someone a gift that is it.

  I was useless in the saddle, worse than a sack of potatoes, but that has never curbed my enjoyment from being with racing people. It is a little like the experience of the Parachute Regiment commander who was asked at his retirement party what it was that he enjoyed about jumping out of aeroplanes. ‘I hate jumping out of aeroplanes,’ he said. ‘It makes me sick to the stomach every time I do it. But I just love being with the kind of people who do like jumping out of aeroplanes.’

  For me too there is no place like the racecourse. I love being with racing people, who embrace all types, from royalty to the clergy. Though I have to admit there are some who don’t share my pleasure. I was once at a Gimcrack racing dinner in York where a distinguished clergyman was invited to say grace. ‘I won’t, if you don’t mind,’ he replied. ‘I would rather not draw the Almighty’s attention to my presence here.’ I’ve always been ready to take that risk.

  A Zambian beginning

  An early humiliation might have put me off horses for good. My father was a civil engineer and we lived from 1948 to 1951 in what was then Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) while he was engaged in projects like Livingstone Airport and the Kafue Bridge. We almost led the colonial-style life and my mother had a horse, Pedro, a rangy chestnut with a white blaze. Although he was compliant with those of the female gender, the bad-tempered Pedro’s main pleasure in life seemed to be attempting to maim with hooves or teeth any male human who came in contact with him. He was stabled close to what passed for the local racecourse in Lusaka, which is where, after a few lessons, I used to try to ride him.

  Facing away from the stables, Pedro would not go a yard without maximum human effort. Turn his face for home, however, and he would become a tearaway enthusiast determined each time to break any Lusaka record for five furlongs. Naturally the first time he did it to me I came off. As I slowly sat up counting my bruises, an assured young lady of eleven or twelve rode up, leading another horse alongside hers. In total control she collected a self-satisfied looking Pedro (I swear he was as close to smirking as a horse can get) and inquired solicitously, ‘Are you all right? Can I help you?’ She was kindness personified but for a self-conscious ten-year-old boy there could be no greater humiliation.

  Hurst Park memories

  We returned from Africa to live in East Molesey, Surrey, a stone’s throw away from the old Hurst Park racecourse – well, if you had a smallish stone and a particularly good throwing arm. Sadly back in 1962 Hurst Park became a Wates housing estate but before then it had hooked me finally and irrevocably into racing. I used to ride my bike down the road, prop it against the fence and stand on the saddle or climb a tree as the jockeys rode by. There would first be the thunder of approaching hooves, then the blaze of multi-coloured silks as the riders flashed past: the likes of Gordon Richards, Eph Smith, Scobie Breasley, Charlie Smirke and Manny Mercer shouting at each other for room or cursing whoever was holding them in on the rail. They would disappear in a creak of leather and smacking of whips, the lighter divots they had kicked up floating back to earth behind them, to be greeted half a minute later by the roar of sound from the crowds in the stands as they fought out the finish.

  Sometimes I would walk round to the entrance before racing, to watch the ‘Find the Lady’ three-card tricksters plying their trade on upturned orange boxes, one man warily on the watch for approaching constabulary as the other made his pitch. Equally cautious was a character they called the ‘Watchm
an’ who would open his coat to reveal 20 or 30 dangling timepieces available at bargain prices. Sometimes tipster Prince Monolulu would be there in his fake African Ostrich-feather plumes rasping out his familiar cry of ‘I gotta horse’, encouraging punters to part with a few shillings for a little slip of paper. The tips were mostly rubbish, I heard punters grumble, but he deserved the cash for his entertainment value as he told the crowds:

  God made the bees

  The bees make the honey

  You make a bet

  And the bookies take your money.

  Peter Carl Mackay, Monolulu’s real name, wasn’t any kind of prince in fact, although it didn’t stop him from strolling nonchalantly among the royals at King George VI’s funeral. Apparently Jeffrey Bernard, a fellow Spectator columnist, claimed that he was personally responsible for Monolulu’s demise. He visited the ailing tipster in hospital and gave him a box of chocolates. Monolulu chose a strawberry cream and promptly choked to death. There have to be better ways to go.

  Once or twice at Hurst Park, after three or four races had gone, a friendly gateman would let me slip in for nothing, and from the start the subtle chemistry of the racing scene had me entranced. It was that extraordinary blend of the upright and the raffish, the social mix of shirts-off punters in the jellied eels inner ring peeling fivers off back-pocket wads, raucous bookies shouting the odds and elegant owners’ wives in parade-ring silk dresses.

  Hurst Park being a jumping course as well as a Flat racing venue, you would see both the emaciated white-faced pros from top yards and the pink-cheeked farmers’ sons hoping to steal a novice chase on the family’s pride and joy. Curly-haired young trainers in cavalry twills and velvet-collared coats blowing Aunt Honoria’s patrimony in a couple of experimental seasons would mingle with weary-eyed ex-jockeys trying to make a go of it with a handful of cast-offs in a dilapidated yard.

  Sometimes I would get a different view of the racing. Down by the seven-furlong start at the end of the straight, between the racecourse and the river Thames, was the ‘Upper Deck’ swimming pool. On the raised section which gave the venue its name you had the perfect view of the riders jostling at the tapes before the off, and more than once a jockey with a roving eye for the bikini-clad lovelies calling down to him would miss the break.