Turfed out
Jeffrey Bernard
The Guv'nor: A Biography of Sir Noel Murless Tim Fitzgeorge-Parker (Collins £8.95) The Barry Brogan Story: In His Own Words (Arthur Barker £5.95) Chalk and cheese these two. Sir Noel Murless, the austere, seemingly cold, shy, aloof and hard-to-know man who was probably the best trainer of flat racehorses this country has ever seen, and Barry Brogan, handsome, charming, the harum scarum Irishman — a brilliant jump jockey in his day—who became a compulsive gambler and the type of alcoholic that makes social workers refer to boozing as the 'Celtic Disease'.
Murless trained the winners of no less than 11 classic races and was the leading British trainer eight times before he retired at the end of the 1976 season. The achievement is remarkable. Take his best year, 1967. In one season he won £279,775 for his patrons which was, as they now irritatingly say, a lot of money in those days. That year he won the 2000 Guineas and Derby with Royal Palace, the 1000 Guineas with Fleet, the Eclipse Stakes and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes with Busted. In fact, you name it, he's done it.
These are just the facts and statistics which are in any record book. The man himself remains something of a mystery. Perhaps his handling of Crepello, one of the greatest ever Derby winners, gives a clue. In 1955, one of the yearlings broken in at Murless's yard was a big, handsome, quality chestnut colt by the Italian champion Donatello 11. Murless said, 'From the moment we started breaking him I knew he would be a champion. He had such tremendous size and presence,' Over the winter the colt grew into a very impressive individual standing 16 hands 2 inches and was probably then just about the best looking horse in the country.
He first ran at Royal Ascot in the Windsor Castle Stakes piloted by Lester Piggott and was beaten a short head Murless had told Lester, 'Don't touch him with the whip, don't even show it to him,' After being given a long rest, Crepello was brought out to win the Dewhurst Stakes which he did with some ease. Then, at the beginning of 1957, Martin Benson, the bookmaker, came up to the yard for a drink. Murless says, 'Although I never had a bet, I would on this occasion have a £100 double on Crepello for the Two Thousand Guineas and Derby and Benson gave me 66-1.'
The rest is history but it's not so well known how hard Murless trained a horse. As he says, he didn't spare him. He worked Crepello over the full Derby distance just before that victory. He was an ace at producing a horse at its peak on the day. And the horse came first in his mind and not just past the post. Crepello had been jarred up — he had always had a 'bit of a leg' and immediately prior to running in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth there was a downpour that, he says, 'produced false ground that would have been fatal to him.' Murless rightly withdrew the colt and there was an uproar from the betting public who do the roaring through their pockets. The Point is, the interests of the horse and the interests of his owners always came first With Murless. The leg didn't improve and Crepello was retired to stud. Murless remains something of an enigma even at the end of 200 odd pages of a book I'd only recommend to a compulsive racegoer.
There is nothing enigmatic about Barry Brogan. He wears his heart on his sleeve like Most members of Alcoholics Anonymous and he's been wearing it there for some time. This is a rake's progress of a hook that I can't take too seriously because of the way it's written. The sub-title. 'In His Own Words', by the way. I know should be taken with a. large pinch of salt. The story of riches to rags. prison and misery via hospitals is told in the language of blarney. Reading the book is like being tapped for 50p by a tramp who tells you he wants the money for food not drink. I first met Brogan in 1970 at Huntingdon. I was writing for the Sporting Life. he was riding there, After the races we retired to a local hotel for drinks. I don't think either of us can now remember much about the ensuing night. but we awoke in one of the roonns the next morning with an ancient hotel charwoman between us. A small delegation from the town council later asked us to avoid Huntingdon in future since it was a nice, quiet town. I do remember he was utterly charming arid it's A certainty he still is. He simply didn't have the stamina of Crepello or Murless's head for heights.
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