Pipe dream

‘The unexpected ones are always the sweetest,’ said J.P. McManus

‘The unexpected ones are always the sweetest,’ said J.P. McManus after his Hasty Prince had followed half a dozen duck eggs by running out the 14–1 winner of the first at Sandown last Saturday. Following the extra-marital cavortings of deputy prime minister John Prescott, built more like a manatee than a matinée idol, I’m not sure that Tony Blair would agree with that, but the £12,526 McManus picked up for first prize helped cement his position as champion owner as the jumps season ended.

The biggest surprise, though, was Martin Pipe’s announcement on the day Paul Nicholls became champion trainer that he was retiring to hand over to his son David. Most of us had reckoned Martin would not dream of quitting until he had won a Cheltenham Gold Cup, just about the only top trophy he has never carted back to Nicolashayne, and that he would want at least one crack at wresting back from Nicholls the title he himself collected an amazing 15 times.

If great politicians are those that ‘make the weather’, forcing others to pick up their policies, then great trainers are those who force others to change their methods, and Martin Pipe did precisely that. He developed interval training up sharp inclines so successfully that others came to realise that he was sending out the fittest horses they had ever confronted. They had to adapt to his methods or go under.

The tragedy was that, before most of his rivals adapted, some in a resentful racing establishment ran a whispering campaign against the little bookmaker’s son, suggesting he could only be achieving his phenomenal results by below-the-board methods.

Pipe’s lengthy and triumphant career, under the maximum scrutiny, was the perfect answer.