How can Flat racing keep its public enthused when the moment a superstar emerges he is whisked away to other duties? Winning the 2000 Guineas, the Derby, the Coral Eclipse, the Juddmonte International, the Irish Champion Stakes and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Sea The Stars gave us a glorious summer. But at only three, before you can say ‘how was it for you?’, he is off to the breeding sheds to meet a bevy of equine lovelies and racing must begin the search for the next Great One. It is as if Beckham and Ronaldo had been whisked off permanently to a life of TV celebrity shows before they had played in a World Cup, as if Botham and Shane Warne had been retired to the commentary box before ever playing an Ashes series. Sea The Stars will never prove himself against the next wave.
That could be one reason why, while Flat racing fights for survival, the audience for jump racing continues to grow, why more and more people are attracted to the winter sport despite the battles with the elements and the injury toll. In 2007 Kauto Star scintillated in winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup. In 2008 Denman pulverised his field to take it off his stable companion. In March this year Kauto Star became the first Gold Cup winner to win back his crown while Denman, whose career might have been ended by a heart problem, ran gallantly to finish second after an interrupted preparation. This season, with Denman fit from the start, we could see the best contest yet between the two.
Jump racing’s appeal is part continuity, part character, plus the fact that it is still a sport and not just a business where you can ensure success only if you have money to buy the best raw materials. The horses go on running, some of them until they are 12 or even older. You get to know their quirks and their characters. And while demographics are changing, with the richest owners buying good horses and concentrating them in a few top yards, small stables do still produce winners of good races, little-known jockeys do ride the winners of top contests.
Ascot on Saturday had everything you would want from a jumping card. The opening hurdle was won by Zabeel Palace, trained by the legendary gambler Barney Curley, who now spends most of his time and most of his winnings on Dafa, a charity helping children in Zambia. Zabeel Palace was silkily ridden by Timmy Murphy, who has rebuilt his career without alcohol after a conviction for misbehaviour on an aeroplane. The two winners for top trainer Nicky Henderson were both ridden by champion jockey Tony McCoy, who already has a hundred winners under his belt this season before most have even thought of switching focus from the Flat. Despite the injuries, despite boiling himself like a lobster in the bath every morning to keep down his weight, despite the hundreds of miles he has to drive, the indestructible McCoy has already held his title for 13 years. I doubt there is an athlete in any sport in the world with his determination.
But this was jump racing and the big race went not to one of the prestige stables but to South Kilkenny trainer Eoin Griffin, whose 30-horse operation has dropped to only 20 in the recession. The total was down to 19 when his Sanglote, a favourite in the yard, fell and broke a leg at the last hurdle in the race before. But on Griffin’s first visit to Ascot, his five-year-old The Last Derby stayed on well in the United House Gold Cup to beat more seasoned opponents. The jockey was Liam Treadwell who, thanks to Clare Balding’s efforts in her post-race interview to underline the hazards faced by jump jockeys, got as much attention last spring for his battered teeth as for winning the Grand National on Mon Mome.
The teeth are now well braced and under repair, but that Aintree success has not turned around the young jockey’s career as might have been expected. This was only his ninth winner of the season. He deserves better rides. But it was a post-race chat with Karen McLintock, whose Nodforms Violet won the bumper (a Flat race for jumping horses), that underlined the facts of life on racing’s fringes. The friendly Northumberland trainer confirmed that her impressive winner was for sale: ‘All mine have to be. With ten horses that’s the only way we can keep going.’ Wistfully, she added, ‘What I would dearly love is for someone to buy him and keep him with me.’ Is there a real jumping sportsman out there listening?
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