arkle, the P.R.A. & trials day.

​For a long long time, I felt the paperback edition of Ivor Herbert’s biography of Arkle was letting down the memory of our greatest-ever racehorse, especially as Herbert’s biography or Red Rum, Basil Briscoe’s book on Golden Miller, as well as all the other books on great racehorses are all hardbook editions, some on them close to pristine, including the books on Flying Ace and Baulking Green. A few weeks ago, I decided something had to be done as this unworthy paperback was bringing shame on my small racing library. This is how I bought a first edition of ‘The Full Story of the Champion. Arkle’ by Ivor Herbert from ‘Ways of Newmarket’. It is a book that purports to bring the story of Arkle to completeness, though how it differs from its first manifestation I cannot say. It does though restore respectability to my racing library.
The story ends, of course, with the death of the great horse after only a few years of happy retirement. The vets who tended to Arkle both when in training with Tom Dreaper and at Bryanstown, one of the homes of the Duchess of Westminster, are unsure exactly what took away his mobility, with brucellosis suspected but never confirmed. Whatever the cause, reading the final pages of the book – his end came on Sunday 31st May 1970 – still evokes deep sadness in me, with tears not far from surfacing. Gosh, was it nearly 35-years ago?
The legend of Arkle will live on as long as horse racing continues to exist in Britain and Ireland, though no one born now or in the future will see his like again. Those who were adults at the time of Arkle’s supremacy were indeed fortunate to be able to witness him first-hand in the flesh and appreciate him for the super equine hero he was. For someone like me, only 9-years of age when he won his first Gold Cup, the conqueror of Mill House, he was the anti-hero at the time, and it was only when I began to understand the sport that I appreciated his achievements. Kauto Star was magnificent but wss he still rated 3-stone superior to every other horse in training when he retired as Arkle was?
Arkle remains the one true equine god of our sport, far ahead of Frankel, with only Desert Orchid and Red Rum able to hold a candle to him. The Irish racing authorities should consider instigating an ‘Arkle Day’, perhaps on the 31st of May each year, to celebrate the achievements of its greatest racehorse, his human connections, the Duchess, Tom Dreaper, Pat Taaffe and Johnney Lumley, his groom while in training. Lest we forget!

To more humdrum matters. Peter Savill who does much good for the sport has created the Professional Racing Association, the membership of which includes racehorse trainers who believe they are being taken advantage of by racing broadcasters. Jockeys are paid for interviews through payments to their riders’ insurance scheme. Trainers are not paid for interviews.
What irks me about this brooding dispute is that many of our trainers are wealthy individuals and cannot claim to be in need of new income streams. That said, the likes of Henderson and Nicholls have to be complimented on being open and honest with the public through interviews with not only racing t.v. broadcasters but with the many podcasters that exist these days. So why muddy the waters at a time when the sport is on its uppers and is damn fortunate to have the limelight of satellite and terrestrial coverage.
Interviews are an opportunity for trainers, large and small, to promote their businesses, for prospective owners to get to know a trainer from afar, which is especially true for the younger trainer setting-up or the smaller trainer experiencing perhaps a first major victory. Surely the 10% of prize-money that goes to a winning trainer is reward enough without going cap-in-hand for a few crumbs more? Refusing to do interviews will not be a good look for trainers dressed in Harris Tweed, with a big Mercedes parked in the car park!
This has the potential to be a ‘please, sir, can I have more’ sort of scrap, especially coming up to the Cheltenham Festival, the sport could do without.

Cheltenham Trials Day today. Constitution Hill will be on exhibition duty today as his four rivals have not a cat-in-hells-chance of laying a glove on him. Lossiemouth, as I suspected, is a non-runner due to travel issues. While it is always a joy to see Constitution Hill, the focus of my eye today will be on L’Homme Presse, our only hope, vain as it might be, of being in the shake-up in the Gold Cup this season. I hope he wins and wins snugly. Gentlemansgame ran a solid race on St. Stephen’s Day behind Galopin Des Champs and is good form line as to whether L’Homme Presse has improved a few pounds since last season. Crossed-fingers that the in and out form of Venetia’s stable just recently proves more in than out and L’Homme Presse wins stylishly enough for his odds for March to shorten a point or two.