pretty polly.

​Back in the day, they had a very bad habit of giving racehorses cutesy names. This was fine, and remains fine to this day, when the horse is confined to minor races at minor race-meetings but when one such name is given to one of the best, and during her lifetime a mare so popular she received letters addressed to her and poems in her honour, it is less acceptable. For all her extraordinary achievements on the racecourse, Pretty Polly is an unfortunate name, one better suited to a famous parrot of an infamous pirate. But there we have it, she was thusly named and we, or at least I, will have to put up with it.
The great mare was foaled in 1901, in Ireland, at the stud of her owner/breeder Major Eustace Loder. In fact, only last weekend at Leopardstown there was Group 3 two-year-old race named after the major’s stud, Eyrefield.
The information I offer here comes from a book by Michael Tanner (I seem drawn to his work) titled ‘Pretty Polly’, An Edwardian Heroine. So nice to have the word ‘heroine’ used to describe a celebrated female. Words such as actress and heroine are sliding out-of-use due to, I suspect, this bloody awful ‘woke culture’ sane people must endure.
What struck me on reading Michael Tanner’s account of Pretty Polly’s career was how it mirrored, in some respects, the career of Enable 100+ years later. Both, remarkably, were trained at Clarehaven, now the home of John Gosden, though back in Pretty Polly’s day the racing stables of Peter Purcell Gilpin.
The two-year-old careers, though, of two of the greatest mares to grace the turf were wholly different. In fact, as different as chalk and cheese or honesty and government. Enable ran once as a two-year-old, Pretty Polly 9-times. Yes 9-times, winning all 9 races. She began on June 27th at Sandown in The British Dominion 2-year-old Race, over 5-furlongs, worth £915 to the winner. She had shown little on the home gallops and Gilpin thought a race might bring her on. She won by 10-lengths without coming off the bridle or indeed troubling herself too much. In fact, reading about her early career what came to my mind was a sketch by the ‘Two Ronnies’ where Corbett played an enthusiastic badminton player thrashed by a suit-wearing Barker who had never played the game before.
On July 18th the mare ran again at Sandown, The National Breeders Produce Stakes, again over 5-furlongs, worth £4,357 to the winner, no less. Connections of the opposition doubtless thought her debut win was a fluke and she was taken on by 11 rivals. This time she only won by 2-lengths, head-in-her-chest, though, giving weight away all round. Incidentally, the first horse to bear the name Merryman finished behind her, the second Merryman, won the 1960 Grand National.
When she went to Liverpool six-day later the penny had dropped and she was only opposed by a single rival. At 33/1 on, she won again. She went on to win the Champagne Stakes at Doncaster, an Autumn Breeders Foal Plate at Manchester, the Cheveley Park, her first venture over 6-furlongs, in a canter and 2-days later turned out for the Middle Park, winning easily again. 13-days lapsed before she won a match for the Criterion Stakes at Newmarket, before a day later winning the Moulton Stakes back at 5-furlongs without breaking sweat. And so ended the first lesson on how to train a classic-winning filly.
She didn’t run again until the 1,000 guineas which she breezed in a record-breaking time. Given her breeding, there was talk she would be better suited to shorter trips but owners and trainers had pluck in abundance in those days and her next race was the Oaks at Epsom. Only 3 took her on for the first prize of £4,950, winning by 3-lengths and a bad third.
She went back to a mile at Royal Ascot, winning the Coronation Stakes. Back up 4-furlong to win the Nassau at Goodwood. Next she won the St,Leger, completing the fillies Triple Crown and then, at this point modern trainers should be seated or else they might do themselves an injury, two-days later she turned out for the Park Hill – well they were up in Yorkshire, it was a nice day and all that – winning yet again by 3-lengths and a bad third.
Then it all went horribly wrong. And it is here that Enable came into my mind. She was dispatched to Longchamp to run in the Le Prix du Conseil Municipal, over 1-mile 4-furlongs for a winners’ prize of £4,160. She had a terrible sea passage, a train journey to Paris where she was held up numerous times, backed into sidings to allow other trains to pass, not arriving at Longchamp until 10.30 pm. The race was the next day. And it rained. Torrents, like recently, if you recall. The upshot was the great mare was beaten for the first time. The winner Presto II was receiving 9-lbs. Back in Britain the defeat was taken badly; it was if Wellington were belatedly disqualified at Waterloo on some technicality. Yet 2-weeks later out came Pretty Polly to complete her season by winning The Free Handicap over 1-mile 2-furlongs in a common canter.
The following season she won the Coronation Cup, the Champion Stakes, The Limekiln Stakes and the The Jockey Club Cup, having been held up in her work early in the season by a minor injury. Again, as happened to Enable.
As with Enable, she was unexpectedly kept in training as 5-year-old, with the sole objective of winning the Ascot Gold Cup. The season started well; she won the March Stakes at Newmarket in early May at 100/35 on. This was followed by a second win in the Coronation Cup, which brought her nicely to Royal Ascot and like (again) Enable, her career came to a shuddering halt, her defeat brought about the winner’s pacemaker setting a scorching gallop that exposed the stamina limitations of the great mare. Female spectators openly wept, journalists came up with many a reason for the defeat, her trainer, as trainers often do, blamed the jockey.
The mare retired to stud the winner of 24 races and win prize money of £37,297. And though she bred nothing even vaguely of her ability, the Pretty Polly line, especially her daughters, have spawned many brilliant horses down the generations. She is buried at Eyrefield next to Spearmint and Spion Kop, each Epsom Derby winners. Even in death, only the best was good enough for Pretty Polly.