Any Second Now can
prove Walsh is master
of the generation game
“Marietta lives in Kent, about ten miles from Dover,”
Longsdon said. “She’ll drive her car and trailer to us,
which is at least three hours, and often she’ll go on a
few hours from us. She’s amazing. They don’t make
them like they used to!”
Even though Snow Leopardess is back in training, the
wonders of modern science mean that there will soon
be two more of her offspring coming into the world.
“They’re planning to have an event horse out of her as
well,” Longsdon said. “They have taken a couple of eggs
from her. Through AI [artificial insemination] they’ll
have two foals through surrogate mares.
“Those foals will be for eventing. You can’t do
AI in racing but you can for dressage, eventing,
showjumping and polo. So she’ll have two foals in the
spring by the showjumping stallion Chacco Blue. She’d
love to create an eventer because Snow Leopardess
jumps so well.”
Longsdon learnt his trade with spells working for
Nigel Twiston-Davies, Oliver Sherwood, Kim Bailey
and Nicky Henderson. Now in his 16th season with a
trainers’ licence, he has saddled 656 (as of Monday)
winners, but the Grand National would take his career
to another level. “The Gold Cup is the blue riband [race]
but I think the Grand National is the most iconic. She’s
got such an amazing story. As long as she comes back
safe and sound, that’s the most important thing, but by
God we’d love to go close.”WINNING MARES
Just 13 mares have ever
won the Grand National
— and none for 72 years
Charity 1841
Miss Mowbray 1852
Anatis 1860
Jealousy 1861
Emblem 1863
Emblematic 1864
Casse Tete 1872
Empress 1880
Zoedone 1883
Frigate 1889
Shannon Lass 1902
Sheila’s Cottage 1948
Nickel Coin 1951
O
n the one hand you may consider Any
Second Now an unlikely Grand National
favourite, since he is trained a furlong from
the Dublin motorway by a 72-year-old
pensioner who has hardly a dozen horses
in his yard and only three winners this season. On the
other hand, Any Second Now was third last year, and
that pensioner is Ted Walsh.
For Ted has seen it all and more. In the saddle he
rode 600 winners as an amateur, a world record at the
time. As a part-time trainer he saddled Papillon to win
the 2000 National in the hands of his 20-year-old son
Ruby, who was led up by Ted’s
then 16-year-old daughter
Katie, accompanied by the
23-year-old Jennifer with the
rugs and the 20-year-old
rugby-playing Young Ted with
the muscle. By 2013 Ruby had
won another National and was
long established as one of the
greatest riders in racing
history and Katie drove the
father-trained Sea Bass to be
third at Aintree, at the time
the closest finish by a female
jockey.
The kids are all married
now and the 15 country acres
that their father Ruby bought
at Kill, beside the still sleepy
main road to nearby Dublin,
have stretched to 80 acres,
one or two of which have
been profitably sold to the
modern developments
pushing out from the city.
Jennifer lives on one part of
the property, Katie on
another. Ruby and Ted are
but half an hour away and
Ted’s wife, the former riding ace
Nina Carberry, has just won Ireland’s version of Strictly
Come Dancing.
Last week’s visit to Kill was to be greeted by Helen
Walsh with a proud grandmother’s smile. She was
holding Katie’s six-month-old son in her arms, the
tenth grandchild. He’s called Ted, and after all that it
should be no surprise that Any Second Now also has
family connections — back in the 1990s, Ted, that is
Father Ted, rode his grandmother.
It’s a hilarious and complicated story that loses little
in the telling but it seems that after a couple of
judicious sighting shots Ted delivered the mare Fast
Time to two such impressive triumphs that JP
McManus got out the chequebook. Two decades later
Fast Time’s grandson arrived with the now Grand
National-winning trainer, and to great surprise — but
perhaps, considering another McManus horse was
favourite, not everyone’s total delight — today’s
potential hero winged in at 66-1.
In five seasons and 27 races since, Any Second Now
has shown himself an admirable contender, winning
five times and falling only once. He would have been
much closer in last year’s National but for being badly
impeded when Double Shuffle came down and rolled
left at the 12th — if he had rolled right he would have
blocked the winner, Minella Times.
“He’s a fine big horse,” Ted says admiringly, as Any
Second Now stands tall and proud in his box, his bay
coat gleaming, the skin supple against the tautly
muscled frame. “He’s very sound of wind and limb and
he’s had a perfect preparation, winning last time. Of
course he has got to carry 7lb more than last year, and
you always need a lot of luck. My own view is that if
Delta Work takes to the place he could be hacking overthem. He’s won five group ones; Minella Times and my
horse are just good handicappers.”
Part-time Ted may profess to be, but unprofessional
he is not. The original 16-box barn — which at one time
housed the stars Commanche Court and Rince Ri
alongside Papillon — now has a 20-box sister barn in
which Katie and her husband, Ross O’Sullivan,
successfully prepare two-year-olds for the breeze-up
sales. A whirring horse walker turns on its tireless way
and over in the paddock the six-furlong all-weather
track is ready as the ever-present work bench of the
present day.
“It’s a bit different than when we started,” laughs the
trainer, a compact, dynamic figure, the energy and good
humour still crackling from that bowl-like and balding
head. “Back then as a ten-year-old my dad and my
uncle Ted would ride one and lead one, and I would
ride one behind and we would go trotting round the
roads. You could never do it now with all the traffic.
But, hey, that’s progress.”
Of course it is by the ordinary standards of life, even
the usual parameters of sport, but the whole game, and
especially this afternoon’s 40-runner race, is a cavalry
charge of craziness. In an ever more risk-averse world,
that is both its challenge and its charm.
As both Ruby and Katie rode down to the start in
2014, Ted turned to Helen and said: “Are we totally
fricking mad to be doing this?”
Maybe, but it’s a wonderful form of madness.Third-place finish in the Grand
National last year does not begin
to do justice to the horse or to the
legendary racing dynasty that has
trained him, Brough Scott writes
eAny Second Now has shown himself an admirable
contender with 12 wins to his name; top, Ted Walsh
hands the 2000 Grand National trophy to Ruby, his sonGRAND NATIONAL
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