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- Herausgeber: The O'Brien Press
- Kategorie: Lebensstil
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
In 1964, Arkle's first-place finish in the Cheltenham Gold Cup was the first big win by Ireland's most celebrated racehorse: the horse by which all others are measured. Fifty years on from the start of his incredible career - which included wins in the Cheltenham Gold Cup (three times), Irish Grand National, Hennessy Gold Cup, King George VI Chase and Punchestown Gold Cup - Anne Holland looks at Arkle's life and legend through the eyes of those who knew him best . She describes Arkle's career, his incredible wins, and the people involved with him , interviewing many of his connections, including Jim Dreaper, Paddy Woods, Tom Taaffe, sculptor Emma McDermott, the Baker family and others . Arkle was a star - the story goes that he received items of fan mail addressed to 'Himself, Ireland' - and th is is a well-researched and intimate portrait of a legendary horse. Shortlisted for Horse Racing Book of the Year 2014, British Sports Book Awards
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‘Everyone remembers Arkle,’ Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland.
‘… the greatest racehorse of all time – and that’s including Mill Reef and Frankel,’ Ian Balding, Flat trainer to HM The Queen, and trainer of Mill Reef.
‘About time we were reading about him again,’ Nicky Henderson, champion NH trainer in England, five times winner of the Arkle Chase.
‘Arkle was a colossus, he was out on his own and comparisons of him with Best Mate are ludicrous,’ Jim Lewis, owner of Best Mate, triple winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
‘The best chaser ever’, Frank Ward, sponsor of the Arkle Chase, Leopardstown.
‘Arkle was a wonder horse,’ Stan Mellor, retired champion jockey.
‘One of the greatest of our equine stars’, Paul Greeves, Executive Director & Keeper of the General Stud Book, Weatherbys Ltd.
‘I used to idolise Arkle … it is an honour to train a horse with a few of Arkle’s characteristics,’ Henrietta Knight writing in Best Mate: Chasing Gold.
‘Arkle was an exceptional horse,’ T.P. Burns, winning rider of Arkle’s only flat race.
‘Arkle was second only to the Pope in Ireland – nowadays he would probably be well ahead of the Pope!’ Emma Mac Dermott, sculptress of the new Arkle statue in Ashbourne, Co Meath.
‘At no time since Arkle have I ever come across the same magnetism or seen so much commerciality spawned as there was for Arkle,’ Peter McNeile, Director of Sponsorship, Cheltenham Racecourse.
‘I was nick-named Arkle at school,’ Kevin Coleman, manager, Bellewstown and Laytown races.
‘He would have won the Aintree Grand National standing on his head,’ Lord Patrick Beresford.
‘I was a nipper but I knew he was something special,’ Bob Champion.
‘I remember Arkle jumping it [the last fence] like a wild stag,’ Joe Jones, a fan.
‘We can over do the superlatives but we can’t overdo them for Arkle, he was absolutely exceptional,’ Sir Peter O’Sullevan, ‘the voice of racing.’
‘He out-stepped the Duchess,’ Maureen Mullins.
‘Not even Arkle could have outjumped Tarka that day!’ was how the author as a young rider in a point to point captioned this photo in March 1968.
CONTENTS:
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Writing about Arkle today, half a century after his heyday, has been an immensely rewarding journey, full of surprises and new stories that are pure pleasure to share here, tempered only by the knowledge that for every new anecdote, there are doubtless dozens more still ‘out there’ waiting to be unearthed.
The whole Arkle story is one of those rare treats where never a bad word is heard about the main protagonists; without their guidance his journey may have taken a different path and therefore I am also including the people who were around him, from the principal players to his ardent fans.
Arkle retains his fan base fifty years on, much as his contemporaries The Beatles also continue to gain new young fans no matter how much fad or fashion may have changed. Arkle was separated from the rest of his peers, reigning in a higher stratosphere, by his incredible race record against other good horses who, without Arkle would have been stars themselves. But it was more than that. There was an aura about him. That is not imagination. ‘To grow in stature like Arkle’ means when a horse rises above his usual self – a bit like a bride walking down the aisle, head held high. Swagger, in either case, would be wrong. It is radiance.
To see him in the flesh was one of life’s honours. Those of a certain age wallow in memories, while younger fans allow themselves to be enveloped in admiration and awe. Walk into virtually any country pub or home in Ireland, and a good few in England, and it seems there is bound to be at least one picture of Arkle. In Arkle’s day, it was ‘JFK (John F. Kennedy), Jesus Christ (or the Pope) and ‘Himself.’
I saw him twice, both times armed with my little Kodak ‘Brownie’ camera: at Sandown when he put up what some aficionados consider his career best in the Gallaher Gold Cup, and at home in Box Number 7 when my sister Patsy and I had been invited over to Eva Dreaper’s coming out party – a never to be forgotten trip not only for that splendid occasion in the Shelbourne Hotel, but also seeing and photographing ‘Himself’, and for my first visit to Dublin Horse Show (and for England winning the World Cup.)
My own family’s link with Arkle came through the Dreapers – Tom Dreaper was his trainer. As a family, we first got to know the Dreapers on holiday in Kerry when Jim was ten (as he doesn’t like to be reminded) and the connection continued over the years with my parents, Rex and Margaret Holland and Jim’s parents, Tom and Betty Dreaper becoming firm friends for the rest of their lives. During school years, both Dreaper daughters, Eva and Valerie, at school in Kent, visited our home not far away in Sussex for roast Sunday lunches and sometimes some hunting.
Eva tells me that of the hundreds of letters to ‘Himself’ as Arkle became universally known, many addressed simply ‘Arkle, Ireland’ one came from Lithuania, revealing that the Lithuanian word for horse is ‘arklys’.
Freak, phenomenon, magnificent, simply the greatest – Arkle was a superstar that makes it impossible to imagine another of his like again. He carried himself – strutted –with pride and confidence, with an imperious, majestic air. He adored the adulation he received and loved to play to the gallery; he knew he was kingpin.
His jumping could be exuberant and extravagant especially in the early stages of a race, but usually he was professional and foot perfect; very occasionally he made a mistake, but only two errors – just two in his whole career of clearing more than four hundred steeplechase fences and flights of hurdles spread over six seasons of racing – are worthy of mention: the slip on landing as a young horse in his first Hennessy at Newbury, and the wholesale monumental blunder in his final Gold Cup. The first cost him his initial duel with Mill House, the second did not so much as stall him in his tracks. He had the speed to win a flat race, a two-mile chase carrying 12 stone 11lbs, and the build and stamina to carry top weight to win the Irish Grand National, giving between two and two-and-a-half stone to his rivals.
The esteem, love and admiration with which Arkle is still held remains widespread across the whole of Irish (and English) society: a revered legend in National Hunt racing, on the Flat and among the general populace from all walks of life, from ‘Joe Bloggs’ to the President of Ireland.
Stories also come from unlikely sources. I was sitting in the hairdressers in Mullingar one day when another customer, hearing I was writing about Arkle, said, ‘Oh, my uncle in Yorkshire named his house Arkle.’
One of my privileges has been to chat with Arkle’s original ‘lads’, now senior citizens, his work rider Paddy Woods and his groom Johnny Lumley as well as many of the jockeys who rode against him. Jim Dreaper, son of Arkle’s trainer, Tom, and his two sisters Eva and Valerie, Tom Taaffe, son of Arkle’s principal rider, Pat, and ninety-three-year-old Alison Baker, daughter of Arkle’s breeder, Mrs Mary Baker, have all been invaluable and I am indebted to them for their assistance, and to Jim for writing the Foreword.
In December 2012 the Irish Writers’ Union held a twenty-fifth birthday party in the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin, attended by the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins. During his ‘walkabout’ after his speech, I mentioned my new project.
His response was immediate: ‘Everyone remembers Arkle.’
Anne Holland 2013
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing about Arkle has truly been a labour of love, but it would not have been possible to gain such a full account with so many anecdotes about him and those around him without help from a wide range of people, to whom I am indebted and I acknowledge their contributions with grateful thanks. The people closest to ‘Himself’, the Dreaper children, Eva, Jim (who both painstakingly read the script) and Valerie, the breeder’s daughter Alison Baker, the jockey’s son Tom Taaffe, work rider Paddy Woods and stable lad Johnny Lumley have been generous with their time, and I thank them wholeheartedly, as I also do the following, and everyone who has chatted to me about ‘Himself’:
Adam’s (auction house, Dublin)
David Adamson
Ian Balding
Ronnie Bartlett
Sean Bell
Lord Patrick Beresford
Brenda Boyne
Susan Bradburne
Graham Budd, Graham Budd Auctions
James Burns
TP Burns
Pat Byrne
Helen Carr, The O’Brien Press
Sally Carroll, Irish National Stud
Bob Champion
Andrew B. Chesser
Kevin Coleman, Manager Bellewstown and Laytown races
Lord Patrick Connolly Carew
Valerie Cooper
Seamus Donnolly
Lynsey Dreaper
Hellen Egan
Mick Foster
Paul Greeves, Executive Director & Keeper of the General Stud Book, Weatherbys Ltd
Robert Hall
Lisa Harrison
Ronald Harrison
Eddie Harty
The Hon. Mark Hely-Hutchinson
Nicky Henderson
Theresa Hodges
Michael Hourigan
Timmy Hyde
Sinead Hyland, Irish National Stud
The Irish Field
Ruth Illingworth
Joe Jones
Michael Kauntze
Pat Keogh
Peadar Kelly
Ted Kelly
Kelly’s Pub, Ashbourne
Tommy Kinane
John Kirwan
Tom Lacy
Jim Lewis
Alan Lillingston
Emma Mac Dermott
Michael McCann
Mary McGrath
Peter McNeile, Commercial Manager, Cheltenham racecourse
Cyril Maguire
Noel Meade
Meath Chronicle
Stan Mellor
Christina Mercer
Maureen Mullins
Willie Mullins
Michael Murray
Michael O’Brien, The O’Brien Press
Noel O’Brien, Senior Irish handicapper
Lissa Oliver
Jonjo O’Neill
Sir Peter O’Sullevan
Nick O’Toole
Paul Palmer, Assistant Director and General Manager, Horse Registry, Director, Weatherbys
Leo Powell
Richard Pitman
Kevin Prendergast
Penny Prendergast
GSB Ltd
Niall Reilly
Will Reilly
Peter Reynolds
Willie Robinson
Mark Roper
Jane Sandars
Jim Sheridan
Aidan Shiels
Patsy Smiles
Andrew Speedy, Racetrack
Olive Taaffe
Tom Taaffe
David Tatlow
Lord Vestey
Ted Walsh
Tom Walshe
Frank Ward
Dermot Weld
Ronnie White
John Wilson
FOREWORD
BY JIM DREAPER
You may think ‘Oh, another Arkle book!’ Yes indeed, and be prepared to be surprised by this one. Anne Holland, herself a very accomplished and knowledgeable horsewoman, has discovered so many stories and opinions about Arkle that even I had not known. For instance, that there had been a previous Arkle in the ownership of the Westminster family all of sixty years before THE Arkle was born. Interestingly the first Arkle was almost useless. The other one wasn’t, as we know.
In spite of my family connection with Arkle and with most of the main players in his career, I am left wondering ‘How had I not known this or heard that?’ Anne has produced a book of so many truly interesting quotes and facts which mean a great deal to me having known the places and faces involved, all of which are part of the legend surrounding Arkle.
Anne’s understanding of horses enables her to describe the good days and the not-so-good days with equal clarity, such as the puzzling work days when Arkle was unable to keep up with Flyingbolt, his younger stable mate, in a gallop on a neighbour’s farm. In those days, before all-weather gallops, my father was allowed by local farmers to use many suitable fields to work the horses. However, in this case, after much wondering and head-scratching it was decided that Arkle simply did not work well in that particular field because on the few occasions that he and Flyingbolt worked there again, after that initial surprising day, the result was always the same. Flyingbolt was better there, but in light of what he was able to do on the racecourse, he may simply have been putting Arkle to the test. Many owners and trainers have had similar experiences trying to work out why horses performed differently at home than they did in race situations. They are horses, not machines – it happens.
Whatever you may know of the Arkle story, whether a little or a lot, I feel you will enjoy this account of the life and times of one of the all-time greats.
CHAPTER 1
‘HE DOESN’T LOOK LIKE A RACEHORSE’
It was the Duchess’s first visit to see her new horse at Greenogue in County Meath and the yard was even more spotless than usual. The lads were well turned out and ready, holding polished headcollars; they were waiting in the feed room on the corner of the stable block, closest to the house.
Greenogue was a happy stable, but a serious one: church on Sundays and no swearing within earshot of Tom and Betty Dreaper any time. ‘The weather will be just as bad without you swearing about it,’ trainer Tom Dreaper would admonish. Good manners and deference were the norm in such establishments in the early 1960s.
The lads, wondering how much longer they would be waiting for Her Grace to arrive, set one of their number, one Clem Spratt, to spy through the keyhole.
‘They’re coming!’ he said suddenly. Then he turned and asked the others, ‘Which one is the Duchess, the tall dark fella with the cap?’
The lads rolled over doubled with laughter – which is exactly how Anne, Duchess of Westminster found them the first time she came to see the young Arkle in training.
The ‘tall, dark fella with the cap’, for the record, was Glen Brown, originally from the Borders and married to a great Cork friend of the Duchess, Dorothy, known as Dobbs.
Young police officer, Garda Cyril Maguire, one of three Guards and a sergeant based in Slane, was seconded in to help at Navan races on Saturday 20 January 1962. Further officers from Duleek and Ashbourne swelled the local Navan force. On this occasion Cyril, who was sometimes posted on traffic duty, was on guard outside the first aid room, ready to move racegoers back and clear the way for an ambulance if or when one should be needed. It was his preferred duty, for it gave him a clear view of the racing.
Little did he, or any of the other spectators that winter’s day, guess that they were to witness the start of a legend.
Tom Dreaper’s useful mare Kerforo was favourite for the three-mile Bective Maiden Hurdle, the value of which was £133, in ground that was officially described as heavy – for which read ‘bottomless’ – and stable jockey Pat Taaffe unsurprisingly chose to ride her over the stable’s outsider, Arkle. She had won her last three steeplechases, but was eligible for this race because she had never won a hurdle.
As Arkle’s work rider, Paddy Woods, with a licence to ride and a number of winners under his belt, hoped he would be given the ride on his charge; he knew better than anyone that the youngster had blossomed and improved since his two bumpers the previous month, and had started to ‘show something’ for all that his gawky frame had not yet filled out or ‘furnished’.
Paddy Woods today admits to feeling disappointed at the time when Liam McLoughlin, who was Kerforo’s usual rider at home, was given the nod to ride Arkle instead of him; but Liam was second jockey to the stable and as such he was entitled to be booked.
There are not many maiden hurdles over three miles, and it was felt Arkle was likely to be more suited to the slower pace that the longer race distance would produce. More importantly, it would give him time to see the flights clearly without being run off his immature legs. In other words, it would be an ideal lesson for him.
Trainer’s son Jim Dreaper says, ‘Even in those days there would have been an assumption that in a race where a trainer had an established odds-on favourite and a youngster running, perhaps the youngster would not be given a hard race.’
A little wintry sun added a touch of warmth, and Paddy Woods himself began this particular January day at Navan by steering Last Link to victory in the three mile chase; Liam McLoughlin was unplaced on Little Horse, and in the day’s main handicap hurdle Pat Taaffe was fourth on top-weight Fortria. Fortria had won the previous year’s Irish Grand National and fourteen other National Hunt races including Cheltenham’s Cotswold Chase (now the ‘Arkle’), and Two-Mile Champion Chase (now the ‘Queen Mother’), and the inaugural Mackeson Gold Cup at Cheltenham’s November meeting (now known as The Open), which he was to win again later that year of 1962.
The Dreaper stable that day in Navan also had high hopes of winning the last race on the card, the Bumper, with Anne, Duchess of Westminster’s Ben Stack, who at that stage was considered emphatically superior to Arkle. He was favourite, but finished fourth.
Before that race was off, though, the Duchess’s ugly duckling had astounded everyone. Earlier that afternoon, the Duchess asked Pat Taaffe whether she could expect anything from Ben Stack and Arkle.
‘Well, Ben Stack might win something pretty soon,’ said Pat as revealed in My Life and Arkle’s, ‘but Arkle is still terribly green. At this moment, he just doesn’t look like a racehorse to me.’
It was a big field of twenty-seven novice runners and Liam McLoughlin allowed Arkle to run within himself, getting a clear view of the flights on the outside (and therefore actually covering a further distance than other runners) and staying out of trouble. The runners rounded the last bend nearing the end of a stamina-sapping three-mile slog through heavy ground with two uphill flights left. Liam McLoughlin felt ‘plenty of horse’ under him, gave Arkle a kick and the future wonder horse sliced through the pack; soon only Kerforo and Blunts Cross were ahead of him.
Kerforo, the even money favourite, was at the head of affairs followed by Blunts Cross. Kerforo lost the battle with her rival, ridden by amateur Lord Patrick Beresford, between the last two flights, and Blunts Cross looked ‘home and hosed’ to the viewers in the stands, to Pat Taaffe now beaten off by him, and to Patrick Beresford himself.
Pat Taaffe was resigned to second place; imagine his surprise, then, when suddenly Arkle swooped by him on a tight rein, to score a sensational first success at odds of 20-1.
‘I was astonished. I had seen it happen and I still couldn’t believe it.’
As they rode back he chatted with Liam McLoughlin who told him with surprise in his voice that he had been ‘just cantering’ … ‘I just gave him a kick two flights out, that was all, and he began to fly.’
Pat Taaffe recalled in his memoir, ‘[Arkle] didn’t look like a good horse and he didn’t move like one either. When I first rode work on him, his action was so bad behind that I thought he would be a slow-coach.’
Lord Patrick Beresford’s riding career was limited due to his military commitments; he served with the Royal Horse Guards, the No 1 (Guards) Independent Parachute Company, and R Squadron, 22 the Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment. The son of the Marquess of Waterford, he also made his name as a distinguished polo player. Aged seventy-eight in 2013, he recalls, ‘I remember that race very clearly. It was a big field of twenty-seven runners with very heavy ground. Between the last two flights I moved up beside Pat Taaffe, he looked across at me but was beaten, so that left me in front earlier than I would have liked. Blunts Cross started to idle and I was hard at work on him but he wasn’t responding; we had almost reached the line when Arkle came whizzing by and won by one and a half lengths.
‘At the time I thought I had been unlucky but the form was franked in Fairyhouse at Easter when Kerforo won the Irish Grand National and Blunts Cross won a very competitive handicap chase the next day.’
In amongst the plethora of other riders behind Arkle that day were T.P. Burns, of whom more later (unplaced on Moment’s Thoughts), Pat Taaffe’s brother Tos (pulled up on Hal Baythorn), and Timmy Hyde on Bidale. Champion NH jockey Richard Dunwoody’s amateur father, George, was another who pulled up, on Snow Finch.
A number of years later, Betty Dreaper told me about the race, ‘It was over three miles in the mud and we did not then know whether Arkle would get that distance … From the stands we could see one horse on the wide outside passing everything else. It was Arkle and he won as he liked. Tom said, “I think we have got something there.”’
Jim says, ‘It was the first glimpse of Arkle’s real ability.’
Before that surprising first win of Arkle’s, Liam McLoughlin had already won the Conyngham Cup at Punchestown in 1961 on Little Horse, owned by Colonel Newell of Dunshaughlin, and the Prince of Wales Hurdle, also over banks at Punchestown. Three months after Navan he was to win the Irish Grand National on Kerforo, by which time any thoughts of her having lost her ability were well and truly debunked.
Liam was aboard her that same year, 1962, when she also won the Thyestes Chase in Gowran Park, the Dan Moore Chase at Thurles and the Leopardstown Chase.
Liam was born and bred in Lagore, Ratoath, close to Kilsallaghan, and after starting his career with Charlie Rogers in County Kildare, he spent fifteen years at Dreapers’ before a racing fall at Baldoyle curtailed his riding career in 1967. He was one of the special guests at the opening of the Arkle Pavilion at Navan Racecourse in 2007, and he died in August 2010 at the age of seventy-five.
There was plenty of craic in Kelly’s Bar in Ashbourne the night of Arkle’s first win; now with swish, airy bars, there is one snug bar that has barely altered since that time. The chat in the smoke-filled bar wasn’t only about Arkle and the failure of Kerforo; there was also Last Link to celebrate, and Ben Stack to ponder. And, of course, they looked forward to Fortria going chasing again soon.
