Horses and Courses
If you’re Irish and like horses racing you’re supposed to prefer National Hunt to the Flat. In fact you’re not supposed to really like the Flat at all. But I can’t help it.
Now I like Arkle as much as the next man, but the greatest horse I saw in the flesh was El Gran Senor. American bred and Irish trained. Horses that good don’t run; they float.
When he was a two-year-old I saw him in the saddling enclosure of the racecourse where I worked. Tempermental like all the great champions, he was nonetheless amazing looking.
Despite being unbackable, at increasingly ridiculous odds as he nonchalently floated to more victories, I couldn’t help but cheer him on. Perhaps it was the greatness itself more than the horse I was cheering.
The night before the English Derby of 1984 I had a dream in which the Vincent O’Brien trained odds-on favourite came a shock second, and I was worried. It was already pretty much decided that he wouldn’t stay in training once he finished racing as a three-year-old, and he was valued at $80 million for going to stud.
In front in the Derby he saw nobody to race so didn’t bother. Coming from behind he liked; it gave him an opportunity to show off, but at Epsom Secreto went past him by a short-head at the line. A half-brother, also sired by Northern Dancer. And trained by Vincent’s son David.
It wiped $30 million of El Gran Senor’s stud value. He raced in the Irish Derby shortly after and jockey Pat Eddery didn’t make the mistake of sitting out in front this time, but that victory didn’t replace the lost $30 million. Shakespearian stuff.
But this is all very old news now as this particular hero of mine, at the age of twenty-five, has just been put down.
So instead focus on the current and possible future legends. Yeats, the only horse to win the Noble Prize for Literature, is a potential Irish winner of The Melbourne Cup in Australia on November 7, according to his jockey Kieren Fallon. And Kieren Fallon doesn’t tell lies.
See Also:
• Racehorses, Romance, and the Irish
• What Do You Miss About Ireland?
• Irish Attention for Johnson County Soccer
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
