Sport
the times | Saturday September 12 2020 2GS 25
contending for the Premier League.”
Muir thinks so too. He follows
Manchester United but in 2016 he
was seduced by Leicester’s story.
“Every week I wanted Leicester to
win,” he says. “This would be another
one for the underdogs. It would be a
great story for racing. You don’t have
to spend the earth. At York last time
there were two horses that cost
£7 million.”
Where many of racing’s bigger
yards look as if they could be
from a National Trust brochure,
Linkslade was in an appalling
state when Muir took a leap of
faith to buy it in 1993.
“It has been wrecked by
people,” he says. “The bath
suites had been taken, radiators
pinched, doors were hanging off
the boxes. If I showed you pictures
you’d say, ‘wow’. We lived in the
hostel while we got it ready, my wife,
daughter and mother-in-law.”
The family spent seven months in
the hostel before the house was ready
enough. “We had to get the boxes
done first because I had horses
coming,” Muir says. “It was all hands
to the pump. My wife, Janet, has been
magnificent. If not for her behind me
I would not be doing this job.” His
daughter, Claire, is now married to
Martin Dwyer, who rides Pyledriver
today.If Pyledriver wins the St Leger today
then it will be the equine equivalent
of Leicester City winning the Premier
League in 2016.
That is the claim of Roger Devlin,
the William Hill chairman and one of
the horse’s owners, and if it sounds
outlandish given Leicester were a
5,000-1 shot, it would certainly be a
story to lift the spirits in these days of
slightly soulless sport.
Pyledriver, joint favourite for the
last of the classics, won the Great
Voltigeur Stakes at York last month to
underline the form shown when
taking the King Edward VII Stakes at
Royal Ascot. However, this is also a
horse that the owners could not sell,
trained by a man who started his
enterprise in a shell of a house
stripped for copper piping. “When I
said I wanted to move my wife cried,”
Willie Muir says. Pyledriver started
this merry jaunt as a 50-1 winner at
Salisbury. It would be a copper-
bottomed romance.
Back in 2015 Devlin and his
partners, Guy and Huw Leach, were
about to give away their mare, La
Pyle. Instead, Kevin Mercer studied
the stamina bloodlines and
suggested sending her to Harbour
Watch, a stallion that Muir says
was “so unfashionable” that he
was “dead in the water” in terms
of racing. Devlin adds: “We
didn’t take the coupling
seriously and were about to
name the colt Shagpyle until we
reflected this was disrespectful
and so Pyledriver was born.”
They could not offload him at
the sales. “They had a reserve,”
Muir says. “But it could have been
two grand and they wouldn’t have
sold him because of Harbour Watch.”
Instead, they posted him to Muir’s
modest Linkslade yard in Lambourn.
Now they sit on the cusp of unlikely
glory.
“In a time of social distancing,
Pyledriver’s background is a million
miles socially distant from the
expensive pedigrees of his rivals,”
Devlin says. “From where we started
this is the equivalent of Leicester
Pyledriver can defy odds like Leicester
The lockdown has hit racing and
Muir says that in two races Pyledriver
has lost £75,000 compared with what
was on offer last year. “It’s been really
difficult,” he says.
His own longevity is another strand
to weave into this rich and ragged
tapestry as he seeks a first Group One
triumph. “William is one of the good
guys,” Devlin says. “He’s grafted away
in racing for more than 40 years. He’s
hit the bar on several occasions with
group two winners but he has never
been blessed with the support of
expensive owners. Hopefully,
Pyledriver may prove the pinnacle of
his career.”
There will be no fans to see how
this ends because of Covid
restrictions and Janet is recovering
from back surgery. Muir will drive the
box and says he will have to talk to
Devlin and his co-owners over a
barrier. Bigger names and better
pedigrees will be in the line-up but
this dream will be hard to beat.
“I can tell you this,” Muir says. “If
we ever get a vaccine then, win or
lose, we will all get together and we
will enjoy this.”Rick Broadbent learns
how a horse from the
most unpromising
beginnings is on the
cusp of St Leger glory
great st
to spen
there w
£7 mil
W
yar
fro
Li
st
fape
su
pin
the
you’d
hhhostelw
daught
The f
the hos
enoughredch.”rnHe is a million miles
socially distant
from the expensive
pedigrees of rivalsMartin Dwyer rides Pyledriver to
victory in the King Edward VII
Stakes and, below, the horse
with trainer Willie MuirREUTERS; EDWARD WHITAKER/RACING POSTHull Kingston Rovers
St Helens
Fages keeps misfiring Saints marching
second period. But the visitors, whose
tries were scored by Dean Hadley,
Shaun Kenny-Dowall and Ethan
Ryan, sent it to extra time thanks to
William Dagger’s penalty. Lachlan
Coote then had a drop-goal attempt
adjudged wide and it was left to Fages
to come up with the winner.
6 A depleted Leeds Rhinos edged out
Huddersfield Giants 13-12. Leeds were
without seven players who had been
stood down as a precaution, with
one player awaiting the results
of a Covid-19 test and the other
six having been in contact with
him. Leeds trailed 10-0 at the break
but tries from Konrad Hurrell and
Tom Briscoe, and a Luke Gale drop
goal, secured victory.St Helens survived a scare to make it
six straight wins since the resumption
of the Betfred Super League and go
back to the top of the table last night.
The defending champions were
taken to extra time by the bottom side
Hull Kingston Rovers and needed a
golden-point drop goal from the
scrum half Theo Fages to clinch
victory.
Regan Grace crossed in the first
half for Saints, with Jack Welsby and
Alex Walmsley dotting down in the
James Graham celebrates a hard-
fought Saints win that keeps them topRugby league
21
20