ARKLE VERSUS FLYINGBOLT.

​It is odd, isn’t it, that a trainer can have the best two horses of his or her career at the same time, even someone who has trained for twenty years or more. It is a subjective judgement, I admit, but I would say that the best two horses Nicky Henderson has ever trained would be Sprinter Sacre and, at least one hopes, Altior, horses that were stable companions until the former’s retirement.
Paul Nicholl’s had the privilege of having Kauto Star and Denman, not to mention Big Buck’s and Master Minded, at the same time and Fred Winter had Bula and Pendil, as well as Crisp and the ill-fated Killiney. Even Dorothy Paget, an owner, of course, not a trainer, started off with the best two jumpers she ever owned in Golden Miller and Insurance, a dual Champion Hurdle winner.
So it should not be such a surprise that the two horses no less a judge as Ted Walsh believes to be the greatest jumpers of all time were also housed in the same stable. If Tom Dreaper had not trained neither Arkle nor Flyingbolt he would still remain one of the most successful trainers in either Ireland or Britain. He farmed the Irish National like no other and both his great chasers are on the scroll of honour. But he also trained Prince Regent, the greatest chaser of the war years and the horse that kick-started Dreaper’s career and until Arkle came along he believed to be the best he had under his care.
And here lies a problem. I have nothing but utmost respect for the opinions of Ted Walsh and hang on his every word yet he believes Flyingbolt is the best jumper he has ever seen, even though Flyingbolt’s trainer believed Arkle was superior. Indeed the man who knew both horses best, Pat Taaffe, wrote in his wonderful autobiography – ‘I never had any doubts at all about the winner of such a race (Arkle v Flyingbolt) …. Arkle with a bit in hand. He would have broken Flyingbolt’s heart.’
We can never know, with Arkle sidelined with injury, if Flyingbolt would have acceded to Arkle’s throne as brucellosis tragically cut short his spectacular career. And it was spectacular. In this rather sanitised modern world of National Hunt that we have now, when the top-class horses are treated as if made of glass and only run pre-Cheltenham in soft races that will not expose their limitations, it would be considered an act of near cruelty to run a comparative novice in heavy ground under the welter burden of 12st 6lbs and to be in front four out and to win going away from really good horses. From that moment at Cheltenham in 1965 people could say the name Flyingbolt in the same breath as that of Arkle and be not be laughed at.
And no wonder. He gave the runner-up in the 1965 Massey-Fergusun Gold Cup, Scottish Memories, 26lbs and beat him sixteen lengths. In the previous year’s Massey Fergusun Arkle had given the same horse thirty-three pounds (it is mind-boggling, isn’t it?) and a two length beating. In the Leopardstown Chase he gave him 35lbs and beat him one length.
Indeed the form book does suggest Flyingbolt has the credentials to be thought, if not better than Arkle, the equal of the great horse. When Flyingbolt won the Irish National he gave the top-class mare Height-o-Fashion 40lbs, and though Arkle had beaten the mare giving her a huge lump of weight it was not 40lbs. You really do have to keep emphasising the massive amounts of weight these two horses had to concede in their careers.
Flyingbolt was asked questions not asked of Arkle. Flyingbolt won the Champion 2-mile Chase (yes, he had the speed to comfortably win the 2-mile Champion Chase and the stamina to win the Irish National) and to come out the following day to run third in the Champion Hurdle. Pat Taaffe was convinced he would have made a great hurdler and in another age would have been the best chaser in the world over any distance.
Some horse by any measure. Yet it takes people of the calibre of Ted Walsh to keep Flyingbolt in the conscious memory. He was a phenomenon; the likes of which we shall never know again. More should be done to keep his name alive and relevant.
Though the form book suggests Flyingbolt could have been the greatest and he is certainly the closest to Arkle we have ever seen, he did not win the Cheltenham Gold Cup three times or a King George or a Hennessey and it is upon such races that the mantle of ‘the greatest ever’ is forged. And let us not forget that Pat Taaffe was definite in his opinion that Arkle was superior, that he possessed the greater turn of foot from the last fence. And they did change the rules of handicapping in Ireland to accommodate Arkle – one handicap to be used if Arkle ran, another if he didn’t. He was so superior to ordinary equestrian mortals that a handicap in which Arkle was entered but did not run ended up with every horse running with 9st 7lbs.
Arkle is the horse all steeplechasers past and present will be judged against, and for all his wonderful achievements any comparison between Kauto Star, except the good fortune of his longevity, and Arkle are woefully one-sided. That is how great is the name Arkle.