Don't worry about Harry
Robin Oakley After Denman, the deluge. The downpour which followed the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury reduced my notes to soggy pulp, but no matter. Twill remember almost every stride. Denman's victory, carrying list 121b on sodden ground and beating a field of the best handicappers in the country out of sight, was one which will be imprinted on the inner eyeballs of everybody who witnessed it.
Leg-weary horses with lesser burdens in earlier races climbed over the last few fences like slow-motion clockwork creatures. Denman, already clear of his field, soared majestically over the last two as if on springs, leaping in the process into co-favouritism with his stable companion (last year's winner Kauto Star) for jump racing's supreme crown, the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Awesome,' said trainer Paul Nicholls. Awesome,' said jockey Sam Thomas, who had won another top chase the previous Saturday on Kauto Star. Everybody who loves racing basked in the glow of a stunning performance. From the runner-up's berth in the unsaddling enclosure, trainer Philip Hobbs smiled his appreciation of the quality we had just witnessed. Alan King, another with top-class horses in his yard, declared, 'This might be one of those days when you can say, "I was there." 'And then it was over to Harry.
Heaven help us if professional gambler Harry Findlay's horse, which he refers to as 'The Tank', ever wins the Big One. He knew from the moment the huge 17-hands Denman soared over the water jump in front of the stands, sharing the lead, that he was going to win, declaring at that moment in a phrase which may have lacked poetry but certainly had emphasis, 'The Tank's shit it.' That was with another circuit to go but few would have queried the verdict.
After Denman's Hennessy victory, Harry was roaring like a laryngitic bull, jigging about like the Funky Monkey on speed, conducting the crowd as an orchestra of appreciation. Like the impressed deli witness to Meg Ryan's faked orgasm in When Harry Met Sally we all felt like saying, 'I'll have one of whatever he's had.' Only there was nothing faked about Harry's delight.
Amid the emotion Harry's gambler's brain was already ticking. Last year's Gold Cup, he noted, had been run at an unusually steady pace. Gold Cups run at the normal testing pace, he reckons, require not just the class of Kauto Star, who had been winning over the minimum two miles as well as Cheltenham's three miles plus, but a real stayer's strength and courage. 'As a betting medium,' he said, 'it's all about the ground. I think we're favourite. If it's soft or horrible we're a certainty.'
Either way we now have the contest we had craved — Denman, last season's top novice, against Kauto Star, the established champion, for Cheltenham next spring. As the well-endowed actress declared, all the best things come in pairs and sport comes alive with genuine rivalry at the top — Alain Prost against Ayrton Senna in Formula One, Coe against Ovett on the athletics track, Nicklaus and Player on the golf course. Again the contrast is there, the bruiser against the ballet dancer, the Irishbred against the sleeker product of French pastures. But what is extraordinary this time is that the two rivals can eyeball each other every day through the grille of adjoining boxes in Paul Nicholls's Ditcheat yard.
Harry Findlay, of course, is not Denman's only owner. He is just one half of the Odd Couple who have formed their own remarkable chemistry. His fellow owner is Paul Nicholls's landlord Paul Barber, a dairy farmer of deep country roots, the sort of figure you can imagine having been born in a mini-Barbour and whose house overlooks the yard where Denman and Kauto Star strut their stuff.
He had been down in the yard the previous day petting Denman in his box and it was Paul Barber who went to Ireland originally to buy the horse after he had won a point-to-point for Adrian Maguire (a man of sainted memory for me, ever since he won the 1992 Hennessy aboard Sibton Abbey at 40-1 with more than a few Oakley shekels on him).
'Paul Nicholls looked at the horse and said, "I'll have him," and I looked at the horse and said, "No, you won't, I'll have him," ' said Paul Barber, who subsequently offered a half-share to Findlay. Luckily for both, a previous intending buyer had pulled out because Denman had undergone a wind operation. Somebody somewhere must be kicking themselves viciously.
Paul Barber is more cautious than the ebullient Findlay. He told me after the Hennessy, 'I wouldn't dream of thinking we are as good as Kauto Star.' But his partner is going to take some persuading.
'What on earth are you going to do with Harry between now and Cheltenham?' I asked him 'If he goes on like this he'll simply go pop.' Don't worry about Harry,' said Paul, as the rain cascaded down. 'I can control him Just.'
In the meantime, we should all be copperplating our tickets for Cheltenham. Sparing a thought perhaps for stable jockey Ruby Walsh, whose dislocated shoulder should be mended in time for him to partner Kauto Star in the King George at Kempton on Boxing Day.
So long as Ruby is his stable jockey, said Paul Nicholls, it will be up to him to decide which one he partners when Denman and Kauto Star clash: 'He's going to have to be man enough to choose between the two of them.' That's some choice. But super-sub Sam Thomas isn't going to be complaining on Ruby's reject. If he never rides another winner he'll be able to say, 'I was on Denman that day in the Hennessy.'
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