our favourite racehorse is ...

​Not being a convert to social media, I have played no part in the choice of Racing Post readers for the title of Britain’s favourite racehorse. My selection, Spanish Steps, received a mention in dispatches, as I hoped, as did my ‘reserve’, Frodon. Unfortunately, as with any such poll, recency will always play a part in determining an award where the nominees come from different decades, with Brown Jack, who figured to a small extent, coming from a decade so far back in time it might have raced in an entirely different world altogether.
I predicted at the onset of voting that either Red Rum or Desert Orchid would win the accolade and both vie for favouritism. If this poll had been conducted in 1970, 80 or even 1990, Arkle would have surely won. But, shockingly to someone like me who was at school when ‘Himself’ ruled the racing world, it is now over fifty-years since the great horse died, let alone raced. You would need to be as old as Brough Scott to have seen him at his peerless best and supporters of Kauto Star, for example, just cannot comprehend that any horse might have achieved greater fetes than their own beloved hero.
Frankel is the only living nominee and the only horse to have graced the flat. I suspect in other racing jurisdictions one living flat racehorse against four deceased jumpers would be scarcely believable. But that is the situation; a telling tale if ever there was one.
Frankel, Desert Orchid, Red Rum, Kauto Star and Denman are, at this moment in racing history, Britain’s five most favourite racehorses. All British-trained. One flat, one alive, four chasers, all of whom won handicaps, though Kauto Star and Denman far fewer than Desert Orchid and Red Rum, a sign of the changing face of horse racing. A change, I would argue, not in the best interests of the sport.
The Racing Post should be commended for organising this poll as its intention, I believe, is to bring to the attention of a wider sporting and perhaps non-sporting public National Racehorse Week that begins this weekend and which allows without charge people to visit racehorse stable to discover for themselves how racehorses live their lives and ask any searching questions they might want answering.
I will have to force myself to vote as the ‘final’ is not to be conducted via twitter or X as it must be known now. But which criteria can be applied to reach a verdict of contentment? I would willingly bow down and kiss the hooves of each and every one of these immortal equines, as well as so many of those that did not achieve the votes required to usurp the magnificent five to win the public’s greatest affection.
I couldn’t vote for Frankel as though I respect his racing record, I believe a good deal of his widespread popularity was down to the affection racing people held for his trainer, Sir Henry Cecil. Also, two other factors sway me against him: although unbeaten, he did not beat a horse within 10-lengths of his ability. He was a great in a 2-year era of unremarkable horses, the exception being his hair-tingling victory in the Juddmonte International. And that, the greatest performance on the flat of  most recent times, is another reason I would place Frankel in fifth-place where others will place him first. He should have run over trips further than the distance of the Juddmonte as that day he clearly demonstrated he had stamina as well as brilliance in abundance. I believe we never saw the best of Frankel as his connections refused the challenge to seek out his limitations.
To my left of where I presently sit, there is a photograph of Denman bullying Kautu Star in a paddock at Ditcheat. It is small photograph, only a quarter of the size of ‘We Three Kings’, Arkle, Red Rum and Desert Orchid and smaller than the photograph of Sprinter Sacre at exercise. But it is my favourite, which suggests either of Paul Nicholl’s greatest horses should achieve my vote. And how proud must Paul Nicholl’s be that he was custodian of two of Britain’s favourite racehorses of all time? I wonder which of the two he will vote for? 
Yet Red Rum, perhaps single-hoovedly, saved our sport. At least he saved the Grand National. A debt that could be repaid in some way by being voted B.F.R. But then again Desert Orchid was Desert Orchid. He achieved stuff even Arkle failed to achieve. Good over 2-miles. Better over 3-miles and defying all logic by proving capable of giving away bucket-loads of weight in races as arduous as the Irish Grand National and the race that will always be referred to as the Whitbread Gold Cup.
I’ve said on many occasions that Desert Orchid was the most popular horse of my lifetime, whereas Arkle was the unarguably the greatest. But was he my favourite horse of all time? I doubt he’ll win but I think my favourite, outside of Spanish Steps and Frodon, is Denman. For a season, I thought he was the new Arkle. And perhaps his memory is fresher in the mind than Desert Orchid or Red Rum. And this is not about achievement, which, if it was, Denman would finish last of five, but about which horse sits closest to the centre of the heart.