Already a subscriber? Log in
Jump trainers tell me regularly that the worst thing about their job is having to call owners with bad news about their horses. Training horses is one thing, training owners is another. In the old days it was easier: owners were country-folk who knew that horses frequently suffered injuries that would take time to heal. In our more restless world, those who own top-class animals are often those who have made money fast in various trades and it is harder to explain the need for 12 months on the easy list.
It is no easier, it seems, when great horses come to the end of their careers. The retirement of the greatest steeplechaser we have seen since Arkle, Kauto Star, has been soured by a spat between his owner, the golf-course builder Clive Smith, and champion trainer Paul Nicholls over the horse’s future. Clive Smith, whom I have never found anything other than proud and civil on the racecourse, decided that Kauto should move on to a career as an eventing dressage horse in a different equine discipline. Paul Nicholls and his staff, apparently not primed before Clive Smith announced this to a wider world, wanted their hero, who won 16 Grade One races and £2.3 million in prize money, to enjoy his retirement in a familiar world as a stable hack.
It is easy for racing writers like me to side with trainers, especially open and approachable ones such as Paul Nicholls on whom we rely as regular sources. But while we sometimes forget the debt we owe to owners like Clive Smith, who provide the funds to keep our sport going, my instinct here is with the yard. On Nicholls’s Open Day, which I could not attend, there were stories that Clive Smith was visibly angry that his Kauto Star was no longer given No. 1 star treatment and perhaps his desire to switch Kauto to a sphere in which he could remain a ‘name’ has affected his decision. We shall see, but the whole furore does demonstrate how wrong those outside the sport are who think of racing yards as mere cynical exploiters of the animals who pass through their hands. Nicholls and team were deeply upset not because they were losing a star — Kauto’s racing career was over — but because they cared deeply about what they thought was best for the horse.
I wrote recently about a visit to Oliver Sherwood’s Lambourn yard. As one who went birdwatching in the Oman desert only to see it flood and whose taxi-driver in Dubai pulled off the road in terror because he had never before encountered the hail that was drumming on the roof of his cab, I have become used to bringing bad news to those with whom I travel. I have only to name a horse as a future prospect for it to go lame. But I could not imagine in my wildest dreams that following my visit Oliver would find himself up before the stewards on a ridiculous charge of exercising his novice chaser Furrows in public, in effect not trying. The day I was with him on the gallops he had confided that the horse had frightened himself badly in a fall and that they were having to rebuild his confidence. When Furrows came out a few days later at Hereford, jockey Leighton Aspell gave the 20–1 shot an appropriately educative ride in fourth place, only for the authorities to fine Oliver £3,000 for ‘schooling on the racecourse’ and ban the jockey for 14 days.
Having since watched the race, I still believe it was a miscarriage of justice and other trainers have rightly been swift to rush to Oliver’s defence, saying that they would have done the same with a nervy novice. At least, I suppose, there was a silver lining for Mrs Aspell, who runs a point-to-point yard but who had been suffering from a dislocated knee. ‘How’s the Missus?’ inquired Oliver from the 4-by-4 as his jockey rode by that morning. ‘Getting better — but she’s not mucking out yet,’ came a laconic reply that wouldn’t have brought bouquets from the Women’s Liberation Front. At least her husband will be around to help with that for an extra fortnight.
Also in Society
Latest
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in