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Eating horse
Jeffrey Bernard
Goodbye Red Rum, hallo Flat season. I'm afraid that, as far as I'm concerned, it's good riddance Red Rum. An almost unbelievably good horse at Aintree, recent publicity accorded the animal — including my own in the Sunday Times — got me into the state where I was yawning at the very mention of his name. Not since the days of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton have I dreaded opening a newspaper quite so much. I'm afraid we haven't heard the last of him yet since he's now embarked on a career opening supermarkets and the like. It will be as interesting to see what happens to his trainer 'Ginger' McCain as it was, during Red Rum's career, to note that in, spite of the great horse not one other owner sent him a horse of real quality. Usually, one cracker in the yard prompts owners from everywhere to try and send horses to the place.
Meanwhile, the opening of the flat at Kempton Park at Easter and other japes in the Lambourn area last week came just in time after months of watching them jumping round and round. Not that I don't love the sticks, but it was marvellous to see some speed after all this time. On the first day Barry Hills drove me to the races accompanied by Paul D'Arcy, his apprentice, who was riding St Joles in the very first race of the season. When we arrived, bang in the middle of the course, Barry walked the course with D'Arcy, telling him how to ride the tricky place for the first time and also working out where the best ground lay. It was a hint in itself. They don't usually take that'much trouble with an apprentice race so I took the 14-1 they were offering about St Joles. I hope to God it augurs well for the rest of the season.
Back in Lambourn that night I heard strange stories that I intend to investigate.
A vet in one of the pubs started talking about the 'Eating Horse'. It was purely by his tone of voice that I realised that the horse in question wasn't just fond of eating oats and I asked him about the animal. Well, it appears that there's this stud called the Fawley Stud where Supreme Sovereign stands and both the stud and the horse are a little odd. In the first place the stud is in a remote, windswept village where the inh abitants have their own exclusive religion and are almost self-supporting. Secondly the horse is mad.
It's Wuthering Heights mixed up with Jaws with a dash of Silver Blaze thrown in. It seems that when the horse first went to stud in Ireland a stable boy unhinged him after being given a nip by dousing and terrifying the animal with a high pressure water hose.
By the time Supreme Sovereign got to Faw ley he actually had to be kept in a steel horsebox where he is to this day. The sides of the box are dented where he's lashed out and you can't get near him to feed him unless you carry a bucket of water and make splashing noises since he still doesn't like the sound of the stuff. When he serves a mare he goes through to the serving shed down a special chute-like affair for safety's sake. He's not vicious with mares, but he once tore a stable girl's arm off and he's done more damage to the bars on his box door than he's done to his teeth. What else? Well, these self-contained people on the stud who have what sound rather bizarre prayer meetings sit down to their entirely homemade breakfasts seventeen handed.
On Tuesday morning, I was privileged to be invited by Peter Walwyn to watch two of his best horses, Camden Town and Formidable, do a gallop in the most appalling conditions. There was an added bonus. Just before the off, Mark Smyly phoned up and asked if his Lincoln hope, Blustery, could join in the gallop. Walwyn's jockey, the champion Pat Eddery, rides the horse in the Lincoln and he rode him in the gallop instead of Formidable. The weather was as bad as you could imagine and the other hundred odd horses were kept at home trotting around the covered gallop. There were just the three I've mentioned and Bolak who unfortunately got beaten last Saturday. They came at us up the hill through the driving rain and it was one hell of a sight. Two potential classic horses with an older handicapper who won the Lincoln last year and who is second favourite for the race this Saturday. After they'd gone past and pulled up, Peter Walwyn turned round and said, 'I think we might have seen the winner of the Lincoln today.' I pass the message on to you.
As enjoyable as watching gallops, though probably not quite as enjoyable as watching them' on a lovely summer's morning, is the enormous, old-fashioned breakfast around the dining room table after with the jockeys —Pat Eddery and Frank Morby in this case — the trainer, his wife and whatever entourage happens to be there. The noise of quiet, friendly banter between the jockeys and the placing of yet more silver dishes on the hot plate is interrupted by the secretary walking
in to announce that Ascot has been transferred to Newmarket owing to the water
logged state of the course. Walwyn looks up to the ceiling and groans, 'Why did that, bloody stupid woman Queen Anne have to build a racecourse there?'
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