A horse to remember
John Oaksey
MAKING THE RUNNING: A RACING MEMOIR by Ian Balding Headline, £18.99, pp. 278, ISBN 0755312783 Having just, laboriously, finished a book of my own (with a subtitle remarkably similar to Ian's), it was with a sinking heart that I opened Making the Running. All too often in the past, the name I. Balding on the same race card, playing field, cricket pitch, or other competitive sporting arena has been, unless of course we were on the same side, an ominous sign for Oaksey, Lawrence, Marlborough, Audax, or whatever flimsy alias I happened to be using.
Apart possibly from J. Francome, Ian is the closest to a genuine 'all-rounder' it has ever been my pleasure to encounter. I am told that if you put a pair of skis on him in deep powder snow, the occasional weakness may appear, but equipped with any other sporting implement he becomes, immediately, before your eyes, a graceful, supremely efficient expert.
And now, blast him, it appears that a typewriter has much the same effect. Ian may plead, modestly, that his wife, Emma, corrects his prose. Having had my own grammar (and facts) corrected, repeatedly, down the years by Emma's mother (whose wonderful horse, Taxidermist, I was once privileged to ride), I certainly would not argue with that. But the fact is that I. Balding seems to have done it again, because this is a splendid, beautifully written account of a triumphant episode in his active, exciting and eventful life. From the shock and horror of Mill Reefs accident, it soars back to the glory of his triumph in the Arc de Triomphe — the high point of the little horse's wonderful racecourse career. Mill Reef, of course, never ran against Brigadier Gerard after that first spreadeagling defeat in the 2000 Guineas. But at stud Paul Mellon's champion was so much more successful than the Brigadier that it is tempting to forget the one defeat. Twice leading stallion in Europe, Mill Reef sired the winners of many Pattern races, including the Derby, and many other Group 1 prizes all over the world.
This book, of course, is not just the story
of one horse, or even of one man. Like all books about racing, it is a story of luck. Mill Reef was extremely lucky to be bred by a rich man who would never have dreamed of selling him.
In the sense that he was much the best horse Balding had ever trained, you could, I suppose, say that he had an 'inexperienced' trainer. But Ian knew that as well as anyone. It was, as he wrote, 'a privileged experience that very few people can have had; obviously something I will never forget'.
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