SIR Michael Stoute will retire from training at the end of the season and his departure from the ranks marks the end of over half a century of excellence, and the list of his great horses – or rather horses made great by him – would make quite the coffee-table book.

I don’t want this to be a comprehensive review of his career, or a paean to his craft (Henry Cecil trained Paean in any case), but as his training career has encompassed the full span of my life to date, I’d like to indulge myself by remembering the horses who found their way into my affections, or otherwise, when I ought to have been paying attention at school, or in the office.

I make no apologies for the fact that this account focuses heavily on my schooldays, because racing is always a wonderful distraction, and what better to be distracted from than your own betterment at the hands of others.

I realised a few years ago that my love affair with horseracing was all about the winter game for some years before I really grew to appreciate the flat, and while I used to explain that was because it was hard to follow the likes of Red Rum, Night Nurse, Sea Pigeon et al, there was a simpler explanation.

When the weather was dreadful, I sat inside on my days off school, whereas when it was sunny, I was outside playing in the fields or working on the farm. As such, it was 1981 before a flat horse impressed himself on me. And what a horse Shergar was. After routing his rivals in the 1981 Derby (on a Wednesday, so I was at school), he was box-office news, to the extent that even my mother asked me about him.

Sport of Kings

Figuring I couldn’t let mammy know more than me, a 10-year-old devotee of the Sport of Kings, I devoured the newspaper articles about him, and although we didn’t get TV pictures for his Irish Derby win at the Curragh, I was able to sit next to a radio with cousin John (also mad on the horses) as substitute jockey Lester Piggott steered him to an easy win.

There was no need for the radio when Walter Swinburn resumed riding in the King George at Ascot and he and Shergar strolled to victory after briefly looking like they might get boxed in on the rails. It was the only time I watched Shergar win live, but I remember the disappointment of his final outing when struggling to cope with a slog in the St Leger behind Cut Above.

Given the state of the bloodstock market at the time, Shergar was too valuable a commodity to risk running again. That’s a terrible shame given his trainer’s record with older horses, and a terrible irony when you consider his fate after covering just one book of 40 mares.

If Shergar was too valuable to race after meeting defeat at Doncaster, the apotheosis of this attitude came along in the shape of Shareef Dancer, a horse I loathed intensely. In the 1983 Irish Derby, I was torn between Caerleon, representing the great Vincent O’Brien, who my late father taught me to revere, and Geoff Wragg’s Epsom hero Teenoso, a horse who wore his heart on his sleeve, and remains one of the most underrated Derby winners of the last century.

The pair looked set to fight it out early in the straight and I comforted myself with the prospect of splitting my loyalties, but Shareef Dancer appeared full of running between the pair before skipping clear, tossing his head in the air in a most disrespectful manner, to my eye. The cheek!

No chance

There was no chance of a rematch to prove this upstart had fluked his win as Shareef Dancer was retired without setting foot on a racecourse again, and I wondered whether this Stoute fella was the sort to win a battle before dodging the war. How wrong I was.

I was 15 in the summer of 1986 and had learned the best way to keep sixth-formers on side at Garron Tower was to tip them a winner or two, and thus I managed to leave that august institution without ever having my head flushed down the toilet. Result. 1986 was also the year of Dancing Brave and Shahrastani.

Michael Stoute’s Shahrastani was a wonderful colt who had plenty in common with Shergar, including winning two separate Derby trials before heading to Epsom where he foiled the flying finish of Dancing Brave by half a length. I’ve written about that race before, but most people came to the same conclusion after Epsom – that Shahrastani was the ultimate professional, but that Dancing Brave was just about the most exciting thing since Shergar, and perhaps even better.

He showed that by going unbeaten between Epsom and a disastrous Breeders’ Cup bid, but Shahrastani and Stoute did not hide, winning the Irish Derby by a wide margin in Dancing Brave’s absence, and then taking that colt on again in both the King George at Ascot and the ‘Arc’ at Longchamp.

He could finish only fourth in both races, but the fact that he went down fighting in races of huge depth changed my view of Stoute. He was a man who would let his horses speak for themselves, which was handy, as – for a man who almost became BBC Racing Correspondent ahead of Julian Wilson – he didn’t seem to like interviews much.

Summer of study

1987 was the summer of my O-Levels and required some serious study, meaning form book study took a back seat. Just as well, I figured, when Stoute’s much-touted Derby horse turned out to be champion sprinter instead. Ajdal was a brilliant enigma, and several of my O-Level teachers saw themselves in similar vein (you know who you are), but while he failed to deliver in the classics, Ajdal was brilliant in completing the July Cup/Nunthorpe/Sprint Cup treble. Self-effacing Stoute called the attempt to turn him into a Derby horse as “one of my biggest cock-ups.” I was warming to the fella by this stage.

Sixth-form meant having access to a television in the common room, and also meant having study periods where attendance was barely checked. Luckily, the school was built on top of a remote cliff, so the chances of bunking off to the betting shop were nil.

That era also saw Mr Stoute do the decent thing for a jumps fanatic and start training hurdlers. He didn’t have many runners over jumps, but nor did he do things by halves, and Kribensis was a pin-up to rival Heather Locklear, but with twice the legs.

Some were upset at the prospect of Sheikh Mohammed dominating the jumps scene as he had the flat, but that was never going to happen, and the opportunity to enjoy the birdlike Kribensis letting fly over hurdles was a godsend.

Being able to sit in the common room (almost alone) to watch him win the 1988 Triumph Hurdle was a surreal experience, but a very pleasurable one, and I knew I had to get to Cheltenham to see such races in the flesh. A-levels beckoned, and I got my head down with good effect, but thanks to the likes of Kribensis, I knew that I had to make racing a significant aspect of my future life.