LIFE
er licence to resume training Flat horses in
America he went for a medical check-up.
He passed nearly every test with flying col-
ours but when the doctor asked him how
he exercised, Michael replied: ‘I run a mile
a day and then on Sundays I run ten miles
with the local hunt.’ ‘You mean you ride
ten miles with the local hunt?’ ‘No, I run
ten miles with them’. ‘Well, in that case it is
another kind of doctor you need!’
I was intrigued, too, to hear from for-
mer jockey Richard Pitman how a stable lad
who had slept with the horse for ten days
had implored him to pull out the great Pen-
dil, trained by Fred Winter, at the start of the
1974 Gold Cup because the IRA had alleg-
edly threatened to shoot the horse if he hit
the front. Of course Richard couldn’t com-
ply but sadly Pendil was brought down by
the falling High Ken just at the point where
it might have happened. ‘Fred must have
thought initially that he had been shot. I told
Terry Biddlecombe about it after the race
and he said, “Hey, that’s not very nice. They
could have missed you and got me!”’
What came as something of a surprise
was being reminded by Michael Dickinson
and by Nicky Henderson, who started as
an assistant to Fred Winter, how few horses
some of the great champions of the past had
in their yards. Winter, Fulke Walwyn, Ryan
Price, Peter Easterby, Michael Dickinson
— and his parents Tony and Monica before
and after him — rarely had more than 50
boxes filled compared with the massive mul-
ti-horsepower establishments maintained
today by the likes of Henderson, Willie Mul-
lins, Gordon Elliott and Paul Nicholls.
As we have moved into more ruthlessly
professional times, trainers such as Nicholls
and Martin Pipe have been true game-
changers as have jockeys like John Fran-
come, Peter Scudamore, Richard Dunwoody
and Sir Anthony McCoy, whose astonishing
20 years as champion will surely never be
equalled. For jockeys, though, it is not just
about technical excellence but also about
courage and the will to win, an assertion
supported by a typical McCoyism: ‘Getting
injured doesn’t mess with your head in the
same way that getting beaten does.’
Of course, no sooner does your vol-
ume reach the bookshops than you need to
update. Future chroniclers of the sport will
have to record Jessica Harrington’s arrival
last month as the most successful woman
trainer at the Cheltenham Festival. Back
in the 1960s, our starting period, official-
dom did not recognise the right of women
to train racehorses at all. It was not until
1966, when Florence Nagle took the Jockey
Club to court after being told to ‘get back to
your knitting’, that they were even allowed
to hold a licence.Sixty Years of Jump Racing, by Robin
Oakley with Edward Gillespie, is published
by Bloomsbury at £25.The turf
Robin Oakley
Every Grand National reminds me of a
hero of my youth: Beltrán Alfonso Osorio
y Díez de Rivera, the 18th Duke of Albur-
querque, a Spanish amateur rider who
became obsessed with the race but whose
only entry in the record books is for break-
ing more bones in competing in the National
than anybody else. I have spent much of the
past year working with Edward Gillespie
— managing director of Cheltenham for
32 years and the impresario supreme of its
springtime Festival — on a book record-
ing the highlights of jump racing over the
past 60 years. It was Edward who unearthed
an Alburquerque story I had not heard. In
1974, having just recovered from a broken
leg, the Iron Duke smashed his collarbone
and rode at Aintree in a plaster cast. At the
Canal Turn second time around, he can-
noned into leading professional Ron Barry
who inquired abruptly, ‘What the fuck do
you think you are doing?’ The Iron Duke’s
reply was a classic: ‘My dear chap, I have no
idea. I’ve never got this far before.’ At least
that year he finished, defying the 66–1 odds
against his doing so.
Following the quest for ‘the next great
horse’ from Arkle to Desert Orchid, from
Best Mate to Kauto Star, from One Man to
Master Minded and Sprinter Sacre, and pro-
filing the 14 winners of the National Hunt
trainer’s title and the 13 champion jump
jockeys over 60 years, the greatest joy was
the weight and quality of jump racing’s anec-
dotage. Peter Cazalet, the old-school train-
er credited with bringing the late Queen
Mother and her daughter into racing, was
an anti-smoking disciplinarian. When a ciga-
rette butt was found in the yard and nobody
owned up, he fired his entire staff then had
to reinstate them when it transpired that the
offender was the local postman.
The genius Michael Dickinson, the only
man ever to train the first five home in the
Gold Cup, had spent the previous year enliv-
ening car journeys with his wife Joan by giv-
ing her a fence-by-fence radio commentary
on the feat in advance. He told me, too, that
when he recently decided to take out anoth-
expensive limestone deposited by mineral
hot springs, just like them rich folks have.
(I must stop imagining I live in a trailer
park in the deep south of America. I’m not
quite there yet. That’s the next move.)
Bridge^
Janet de Botton
Bridge 24 was set up seven years ago by four
Polish internationals who wanted to bring
the glory days of the Eighties and Nineties
back to Polish bridge: teach kids, organise
seminars and start winning medals again.
They have succeeded magnificently. Poland
are the reigning world champions and
Michal Klukowski, at 17, became the young-
est gold medallist of all time. Last week they
held their flagship tournament in Warsaw.
Five days of top-quality Teams and Pairs,
with a pro-am thrown in for good luck.
Pitting your wits against some of the fin-
est players in the world is an exhilarating
experience. This hand, from the Pairs, was
played by my partner, Artur Malinowski, and
was the wildest in terms of distribution:I don’t make a habit of taking three bids
on the same hand, but on these ‘goulash’
deals, when no one really knows who is mak-
ing what, it often pays to ‘walk the dog’ until
you get doubled — especially if you have
the boss suit. West led y4 and it looked as
if Artur had to lose a spade and a heart. He
is only missing the Ace of trumps so he had
to play for the only layout possible to make
his contract. He won the yAce and ruffed a
diamond, ruffed a club, ruffed a second dia-
mond and a second club, ruffed a third dia-
mond (dummy’s diamonds were now good)
and ruffed his last club. The precise layout he
needed was coming in: the person with the
Ace of trumps had to follow to the last dia-
mond. He called for the XQ from dummy,
discarded a heart from hand and poor West
had to follow! The last heart was pitched on
XJ and all he lost was the trump Ace. +1660.
Lovely!z A
y Q 7 6 4 2
X 10 8 6 5
w 9 8 5z K Q 10 8 6 4 2
y 10 5 3
X Void
w 10 4 2West North East South
3 z
Pass 4z 5 w pass
Pass 5z 6 w pass
Pass 6z x all passN
W E
Sz Void
y K 9 8
X A K 3
w A K Q J 7 6 3z J 9 7 5 3
y A J
X Q J 9 7 4 2
w VoidDealer South All vulnerable