2005

IT was a 3am fear made real in mid-afternoon. Sometimes it was all Henrietta Knight could do to watch Best Mate in action. Like a parent waving goodbye at the school gates for the first time, she hoped, rather than believed, that everything would be alright. For a time it was, until finally, at Exeter on Wednesday, it wasn’t. Her champion, a triple Gold Cup winner and unquestionably the most popular horse to have raced in this country since Desert Orchid, collapsed and died.

A romantic might say that, having finished in the first two in all 21 races since he joined her, Best Mate was not about to settle for anything less this time. He was well beaten in the William Hill Haldon Gold Cup when the drama unfolded. Having lost his action, the 10-year-old was pulled up by Paul Carberry and was dead within seconds.

“I was actually on the track when he came down and I was the first one there,” said Henrietta Knight. “I knew immediately that he’d died. When the back legs go like that, it often means the same thing. I’ve ridden a horse before that suffered a heart attack and I have to say this looked reminiscent of that, but he didn’t fall, or break a leg, and he felt no pain.”

So there will be no return to Cheltenham at the age of 11, no assault on Kicking King’s crown, no endless pondering whether Best Mate might overtake Arkle and leave himself just one behind Golden Miller on the grandest stage of all. A stage he graced with style, elegance and sheer, rugged determination as anyone who saw his final Gold Cup triumph will agree.

“He was never beaten in one, was he?” Henrietta Knight smiled. Like Desert Orchid, Best Mate took the sport off the back pages and on to the 10 o’clock news. He gave people a reason to care what happened next, and on Tuesday just how much they cared was etched on every face. In this instance we are in no hurry to hail a new hero.

There is a sad irony in the fact that Knight and Terry Biddlecombe probably needed him to get round safely – he was never going to win over two miles plus – before going home to consider their options. When he dropped back through the field so rapidly, Henrietta Knight must have only been moments away from recommending early retirement, and there is little doubt owner Jim Lewis would have agreed. Sadly they were not given the choice.

No one at Exeter this week will ever forget the calm dignity shown by connections in the full glare of the media spotlight. The final word should come from Lewis himself. “There can have been very few in the world like him and he made a lot of difference to many people’s lives,” he said. Amen

Tattersalls event gets the green light

2005

CONFIRMATION this week that the board of directors at Tattersalls Ireland have given the go-ahead to run an international three-day event at the Co Meath venue in 2006 will see Ireland hosting six international competitions at six different venues for the first time.

The introduction of an international event at Tattersalls to the Irish eventing calendar has been very well received, and chairman Edmond Mahony is 100% behind the project.

“We are pleased to continue our support for all equestrian events and sports at Tattersalls Ireland,” he said this week. “We see the holding of point-to-points, events and horse shows as complementing our sales, and an opportunity for the thoroughbred graduates from these sales, who enter this sphere, a chance to compete at the highest level.”

Tattersalls Ireland director, and keen eventing and showing enthusiast, George Mernagh, who has been pushing for months to run an international event at the venue, said the support shown by Eventing Ireland led to the decision to go ahead.

“It is a natural progression for the company to take and an opportunity for Irish riders and horses to compete against international riders on home soil,” he said.

“It is also a shop window for the Irish horse which we at Tattersalls Ireland are committed to providing.”

Joy as Pebbles wins Breeders’ Cup

1980

NOTHING that happened on the British racing front last week remotely compared with the excitement and splendour of Pebbles’s heart-warming victory in the Breeders’ Cup over one and a half miles on turf at Aqueduct last Saturday. Those of us lucky enough to be invited by the International Racing Bureau to see the entire afternoon’s card live by satellite at the Channel 4 studio were treated to a rare and unforgettable moment of racing history.

The first prize of $900,000 scooped by Pebbles, with that breath-taking run through on the inside, was the highest amount of money won by a British runner in a single race.

A plaque on the wall of her trainer Clive Brittain’s Newmarket home commemorates five of the best horses he worked with in 21 years as a stable lad for Noel Murless. The memory of that brilliant quintet, all household names – Aurelius, Petite Etoile, St Paddy, Crepello and Twilight Alley – has long served both as a reminder of Clive’s past and as a constant spur for the future. Now, without question, Clive knows better than anyone that he has a filly to match those great racehorses of earlier days.

When he first took out a licence in 1972 Clive had but a handful of horses in training and did well to win 15 races in that initial season.

Soon after the 1000 Guineas Pebbles was bought for more than a million pounds by Sheikh Mohammed. Clive wanted to run Pebbles in the Oaks, and was already convinced that she would stay one and a half miles. However, her new owner and his brothers were already strongly represented and she was forced to miss the race. She has to wait until Saturday before running over one and a half miles.

Phar Lap defies would-be killers

1930

MELBOURNE: Phar Lap, Australia’s wonder horse, made an effective reply to his would-be killers at the Flemington racecourse by winning the Melbourne Cup in easy fashion. While being led in from a gallop last Saturday Phar Lap was suddenly fired on by the occupants of a nearby motor car. None of the shots however too effect.

This is Phar Lap’s fourth big win this season, his other victories being the King’s Plate, the Victoria Racing Club’s St Leger and the Australian Jockey Club’s St Leger. He is a chesnut gelding of four years by Night Raid out of Entreaty. Phat Lap has now won £44,367 in stake money, and seems certain to become the record stake winner in Australia.