popularity & golden miller.

​The debate in the Racing Post today is why Galopin Des Champs in not universally loved. Given that he has achieved far more than Constitution Hill, who is adored by the public, it is surprising that this is a topic of conversation six-weeks away from his impending coronation as a three-times winner of the Blue Riband race in National Hunt’s racing calendar. While the Henderson superstar has won only one Champion Hurdle compared to Closutton’s superstar having won two Gold Cup, with a third awaiting his arrival at Cheltenham in March, you would have thought that Galopin would be the more treasured of the two.
The reason for the disparity in affection is simple, at least to me. Galopin only makes one visit to British shores each season. It was the same with Arkle, though less so. At the beginning, while we in this country believed in Mill House we had the successor to Golden Miller, ‘Himself’ was adored more in his homeland than here. Here (Britain) Arkle was the usurper. He came, he saw, he conquered, and, worst of all, he took both our dreams away with him and our reputations for recognising a superstar when we saw it. Arkle became the superstar soon enough, while Mill House became loved for forever getting up off the floor in vain attempts to rekindle the aura of mightiness he had established by winning the Gold Cup aged only six, before Arkle put him firmly in his place. And when he defied the darkening of his career by winning the 1967 Whitbread Gold Cup – ‘grown men had tears in their eyes’, David Nicholson, his rider that day, is reported as saying – he was the most popular winner of the season.
Arkle cemented his popularity by racing as often in England as he did in Ireland. If Willie Mullins was to be bolder and less tied to traditions of his own making and brought Galopin to Kempton on Boxing Day or even attempted ‘an Arkle’ and tried Galopin in a handicap, the former Hennessey or Whitbread, I am sure his popularity would surge. Not that Willie Mullins ever will allow sentiment or a need to have the British racing public send his great horse birthday cards and boxes of polo-mints, to affect what he thinks is right for the horse and his lucky owners.
I will always contend that the affection thought to have flowed toward Best Mate was not so much for him, as again we just did not see him often enough on the racecourse for a bond to develop as intangible and magical as we had with Desert Orchid but for Henrietta and Terry, the ageing sweethearts. They were the story, the fact that in effect Henrietta’s love had saved Terry’s life when he was all but a wasted rose. Terry, as with Mill House, was peeled off the canvas and once again the public could think of him as the dashing buccaneer of a jockey that was his reputation.
Galopin Des Champs will inevitably become one of the few in six-weeks-time, joining Best Mate on a roll of honour that is short on numbers and which is adorned by Arkle and Cottage Rake and towered over, statistically, by Golden Miller’s five Gold Cups, even though back then the Gold Cup was nothing more than a glorified Grand National trial.

On the topic of Golden Miller. One of the races at the Cheltenham Festival – I believe it might have been the now cancelled intermediate novice chase – apparently had as its registered title ‘The Golden Miller’. I am not sure how this honours one of the sport’s greatest steeplechasers, when no one, as far as I am aware, ever used his name in relation to a race that has had so many sponsors over the years it would make a good quiz question if anyone could name at least three of them. Golden Miller won five Cheltenham Gold Cups, no matter the lesser esteem it was held in during his lifetime. He is also the only horse to have won a Grand National and a Gold Cup in the same year. To my mind he is equal of the honour of immortality as Arkle. We have the ‘Arkle’ and we should have the ‘Golden Miller’, and I would suggest the 3-mile novice chase, presently going under the title of the ‘Brown Advisory’, not that I know who or what Brown Advisory do for a living. As I said many times, this race would benefit the sport and whichever sponsor takes it under their wing if it were advertised as The Golden Miller Novice Chase, presented to you by Brown Advisory, followed by a short description of the sponsor.
Also, while writing about Golden Miller. Basil Briscoe, who trained the great horse to his Grand National victory and four of his Gold Cups – he was owned by the mercurial Dorothy Paget – wrote a really terrible book about the horse, though mainly about himself, ‘The Life of Golden Miller’. We have so many top-notch writers in this country, many who earn their crust writing for the Racing Post, I would implore one of these people to write a book about the horse and the racing times in which he lived. Ivor Herbert wrote commendable books on the life of both Arkle and Red Rum, and other great horses like Sea Pigeon, Monksfield and Moscow Flyer have had equally splendid accounts of their lives published. But as with Persian War, another dreadful book, Golden Miller languishes in history as unloved and unremembered as it seems Galopin Des Champs might be in 75-years time. As with Red Rum’s three Grand National wins, Golden Miller holds a unique place in National Hunt history. He at the very least deserves his name enshrined in a race at the Cheltenham Festival and for a good writer to write good account of his life.