True champions
Robin Oakley
Can there ever have been in the mere .....fortnight between Turf columns so much wailing and gnashing of teeth, so many tears and, in the end, thanks to those with four legs rather than two, so much joy in true character and quality? The greed and stupidity of champion jockey and News of the World dupe Kieren Fallon and his sidekick John Egan, together with the betting manipulation charges against trainer Alan Berry, his blacksmith and two riders and the mysterious tumble from a nonfalling mount of jump jockey Sean Fox, combined to put an extra curl into the lip of those who delight in sneering at us enthusiasts that torseracing is all bent'.
Mercifully, as British racing slithered into the slough of despond I was in Melbourne for the million-dollar Australian Cup, a race which was to pro
vide the perfect antidote. Lonhro, already the winner of nine Group Ones, was running his final race at rose-bedecked Flemington and, perhaps because he is a Sydney horse, was still regarded somewhat surprisingly as having something to prove, having twice been defeated at Melbourne's very different Moonee Valley track.
His likeliest rival, the mare Sound Action from a three-horse yard, fretted away her chance in the parade ring despite the efforts of her unfashionable jockey, 'picnics' rider Wayne Hokai, to gentle her by ruffling her mane and whispering sweet nothings in her ear, while the jet-black Lonhro strode impassively around, the perfect gentleman. But then in the race it all began to go wrong.
Two furlongs out, as Sound Action and Mummify dropped back, Lonhro was pocketed, baulked and all but brought down. And while jockey Darren Beadman had to ease his mount back and then come round the outside the fleet-footed Delzao was wet-sailing it for the line. Virtually to a man, the crowd felt that Beadman had left his mount with an appointment he could not keep. But with every eye on the cerise silks of chicken king Bob Ingham and with the jockey riding only hands and heels, Lonhro pulled the turf away beneath him, closing the gap inch by painful inch. Just in time he thrust his great ebony head forward to snatch victory at the jamstick. There could be no doubt about it, Lonhro had wanted to be first every bit as much as his jockey. After that, misty-eyed Melburnians agreed, nobody could ever again deny that he was a true champion. Never again, I suspect, will I see so many Australians simultaneously in tears.
In the end it is all about the horse, a thought fortified the next day when I went with former amateur rider Andrew Rule and the incomparable Les Carlyon to visit the stallions at the Collingrove Stud, owned by Robert Sangster and David Hayes. The coats of Perugino, Bianconi and Dash for Cash gleamed in the sun as sulphur-crested cockatoos squawked overhead and the gum trees stretched down to the river. But it was the wise old head of the chestnut Rory's Jester, the sire of 540 winners of 1,500 races, which riveted me. 'Just look at those forearms,' said Les, and he was right. They were massive. Rory's Jester, a one-time Golden Slipper winner, is getting on now. At 22, his back legs are swollen with arthritis. But what pride there was still in his carriage, what a wisdom there was in his big eye. 'Been there, done it, got the travelling rug,' he seemed to be saying. Horses have memories rather than minds but, given the paper, he looked bright enough to write a symphony.
Australia has had its racing integrity problems too. One jockey was said to have found God after being suspended by his ankles by mobsters high up in a Hong Kong tower block. Well, I suppose it had brought him 24 floors closer to the Almighty than most. But true lovers of racing are not there just for the betting. You can do that on baize tables, without the drama. As Les says, in his collection True Grit, horses can change lives and leave you with something special in your heart. 'In the age of technology, the racehorse is proof two plus two can come up nine.' Great horses are not just about long-striding legs and a doughty engine, they are about character, too. And I was home in time for Cheltenham to provide final proof.
The three other defending champions at the Festival, Rooster Booster, Moscow Flyer (you had been told!) and Baracouda, had already been defeated when Best Mate came out on the track to seek to emulate Arkle by winning his third successive Gold Cup.
British racing desperately needed him to win to restore morale, to gild Henrietta Knight, Terry Biddlecombe and Jim Lewis as popular heroes and to put our sport on the front pages for the right reasons. Best Mate and Jim Culloty, so cool he should seek sponsorship from a freezer company, did just what was required. It was not, on going softer than he likes, another imperious win. Like Lonhro's it was a scrapper's victory, a victory which showed Best Mate can fight as well as impose. Terry Biddlecombe had decided the best going was on the inside, so Jim scraped the paint all the way. That, of course, carried a risk, and when it came to the final turn and he was looking for a way through he was hemmed in, quite legitimately, by Paul Carberry, who was not employed by Harbour Pilot's connections for any sentimental tendency to help old punters across the road or fellow jockeys up the inside.
Like Lonhro, Best Mate had to check, come round and do it the hard way, leaving him with fewer resources for the strideshortening struggle to the line with Sir Rembrandt. He did the business, bravely. And this time it was English eyes, mine included, which were glistening. He has enriched all our lives. And he may just have saved racing.
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