for the young: arkle, the facts.

​I am of the opinion these days, be it by journalists or enthusiasts, that equine greatness is too hastily, and often wrongly, bestowed on any young horse that either singularly or through the course of a season performs way above expectations. 
Arkle was a slow-burner and with a doubtful pedigree.
He ran 36-times. He won 27.
His longest odds were 20/1 when he won the Bective novice Hurdle at Navan, ridden by Liam McLoughlan. Pat Taaffe first rode Arkle in a race at Naas, a handicap hurdle which he won as the 2/1 favourite, carrying 11st 2Ibs.
The following season Arkle started his trajectory towards becoming the greatest racehorse of all-time by winning two handicap hurdles, the Wee County Hurdle at Dundalk and the President’s Hurdle at Gowran Park. From that day forth he was to be a steeplechaser, putting down a marker by winning the Honeybourne Chase at Cheltenham as the 11/8 favourite. He won his next 4 chases, including the Broadway Novice Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, now the Brown Advisory.
He won neither of the two Bumpers he contested but in 1963 he won a flat race at Navan over 1-mile 6-furlongs, ridden by T.P.Burns. Again, he was favourite.
Of course, he was beaten in the Hennessey Gold Cup by Mill House and Happy Spring, though Pat Taaffe predicted Mill House would never beat him again. Between Newbury and redemption in the Gold Cup, Arkle won the Christmas Chase at Leopardstown on St, Stephen’s Day, the Thyestes and Leopardstown Chase, then run in February. After the Gold Cup, he won the Irish National.
From 1964 onwards Arkle’s career became one of prodigious weight-carrying performances, the likes of which we will never see again, or gallant defeats giving away monstrous amounts of weight to top-class chasers. He won the Hennessey under 12st 7Ibs and in the Massey-Ferguson, with no less than 12st 10Ibs on his back, he finished a close-up 3rd, conceding 32Ibs to the winner, Flying Wild and 28Ibs to Buona Notte. He won the Leopardstown Chase again under 12st 7Ibs and after his second Gold Cup he carted 12st 7Ibs around Sandown to win the Whitbread.
The following season he returned to Sandown to carry 12st 7Ibs, his first race of the season, to win the Gallaher Gold Cup in a time that has not been eclipsed in the years since. Search the race out on YouTube. He simply toyed with Mill House, allowing him to go clear, caught him up, let him go clear again and then went on to win by a fence.
He then won the Hennessey a second time under 12st 7Ibs. He then came to Kempton on Boxing Day to saunter home in the King George. By now, trainers were loathed to run their best chasers against him as no weight concession gave them much hope of beating him.
Arkle carried 12st 7Ib to a third victory in the Leopardstown Chase as prelude to hack round at Cheltenham to win his third Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Of course, the next season was to prove his last and it started with defeat in the Hennessey Gold Cup when he failed by a narrow margin, conceding 35Ibs to the entire field, finishing second to Stalbridge Colonist who later that year was to finish second in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. The ground was heavy and 2-weeks before the race Arkle suffered a cut that kept him off-work for a few-days.
Not that anyone could know it, Arkle’s last victory came at Ascot in the S.G.B. Chase, as always carrying 12st 7Ibs.
His defeat in the King George 13-days later is not worth dwelling on, a broken pedal bone bringing prematurely to an end the career of a horse the likes of which we will never see again.
Pat Taaffe revealed in his far too short yet still wonderful autobiography ‘My Life and Arkle’s’ that he had persuaded the Duchess of Westminster to run Arkle in that season’s Grand National. Would that not have been an occasion for the ages.

The point I am labouring over is this: if your only viewpoint about Arkle is gained from grainy images of him on YouTube winning 2 uncompetitive Cheltenham Gold Cups, - in the first he beat Mill House in his prime – then your viewpoint is leading you up a garden path of ignorance. No horse in the history of National Hunt racing, and I include Golden Miller who won many races giving lumps of weight away but also lost a similar number, achieved what Arkle achieved. When the weights were announced for the Irish Grand National, to be fair to every other horse entered, the handicapper produced two handicaps, one if Arkle was to take part and another if he did not take part. Otherwise, it was a case of Arkle 12st 7Ibs, the rest less than 10-stone. He was beyond handicapping.
In my lifetime only Desert Orchid was regularly asked to shoulder top-weight in handicaps. Yes, Denman won two Hennessey Gold Cups off top-weight but he did not carry 12st 7Ibs, far from it. Kauto Star and Sprinter Sacre are the best chasers I have seen since Arkle, though Sprinter only qualifies during his pomp and splendour years when Barry Geraghty had the pleasure of riding him. Yet neither of them, or Galopin Des Champs, the present prince of steeplechasers, were given the herculean tasks that were central to Arkle’s career.
Finally, Pat Taaffe broke in Mill House when he was with Pat’s brother, Tos, and in his autobiography, he rated Mill House the second-best horse he was associated with during his long career, with Flyingbolt third and Royal Approach fourth. Look-up Flyingbolt, a horse that won the 2-mile Champion Chase, was third in the Champion Hurdle the following day and finished that season winning with ease, under 12st 7Ib, the Irish Grand National. Yet Pat rated Mill House superior to him.
Arkle was the greatest racehorse of all-time.