DECEMBER 2024
Merchant gets off the mark in emphatic style at Wolverhampton (27.12.24)
By Harry Herbert
May I take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Happy New Year with much success on the racecourse in the months ahead. We go into 2025 with the best group of Highclere horses I believe we have had for a while so, as you can imagine, excitement abounds at HTR HQ as we all discuss what lies ahead.
The very mention of this year’s Classic races sees us hanging onto the nearest piece of available wood but it is not out of the question that one or more of our talented team of young three year olds could take their chance. This wonderful sport is all about big dreams and these horses have given us the chance to do so!
Wishing everyone the best possible luck with your horses in 2025.
With my best wishes,
Harry Herbert, Chairman
On the track
By Emily Scott
It was fantastic to sign off the year with a winner as Merchant put his nose in front on the line at Wolverhampton. It was a deserving victory, having been denied by the same distance on his second start at Newcastle three weeks earlier. He stood out a mile in the preliminaries, boasting a summer coat and serious presence in the parade ring. The track didn’t suit one bit, and the distance was very nearly too short, but despite these negatives he still pulled it out of the bag to beat the second favourite and brother to Too Darn Hot, Mallorca. Having now had three runs Merchant has been given an opening handicap mark of 82, which is a nice place to be starting his 3yo campaign from later this spring. One for a handicap at the Royal Meeting perhaps?!
Looking back on the year’s runners there have been numerous highlights. Of 144 runners, 31 have been in black type races (22%) and of those five were victorious. As it is so hard to win these races it’s worth giving the horses another mention to celebrate their achievements.
Chic Colombine kicked things off early in the season when winning the Prix La Camargo (Listed) by 8 lengths to provide young Billy Loughnane with his first stakes winner. Believing will probably be better remembered for her many near misses in Group 1 races, but she was also successful in the Achilles Stakes (Listed) and the Sapphire Stakes (Gr 2) this year. Soprano is another who has been placed multiple times in stakes company, so it was extra special to see her storm to victory in the Prix de Lieurey (Gr 3) at Deauville. 10 days later Spycatcher returned to form to win the Prix de Meautry (Gr 3) and amazingly remains in training as a 7yo in 2025. He is a credit to Karl Burke and all his team.
An additional 11 placings in black type races meant that 52% of our runners in stakes races either won or were placed, which is an amazing statistic. As well as these notable results, we also cheered home winners at both Royal Ascot and Glorious Goodwood. The fiercely competitive handicaps at these festival meetings may as well be stakes races and there’s a saying that it ‘takes a Group horse to win one’.
Soprano, who won the Sandringham at Royal Ascot, has since proven she is a Group 1 filly having been placed in a red-hot renewal of the Matron Stakes at Leopardstown and the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland. Approval raised the roof at Goodwood when getting up to win a £100,000 handicap for William Haggas. The decision was made to rest him in the autumn to prepare for what promises to be an exciting 4yo campaign.
Our crop of now 3yos put down some exciting markers as 2yos in 2024 with 7 winners from just 31 runners (23%). Any 2yo winner is exciting, as it shows the raw ability of a horse that has not yet reached full maturity, but it was the exploits of first time out Yarmouth winner Rhapsody and 5-length Newbury novice winner Centigrade that really got the heart racing!
Classic trials have been mentioned for this pair and for the striking Blue Point filly, Orchid, who won impressively on her third start at Kempton. Our highest rated 3yo going into the season is Bountiful (99) who was incredibly unlucky not to achieve black type when beaten a nose for third in the Duchess of Cambridge Stakes (Gr 2) at Newmarket. She had won her two previous races and will be aimed at black type races early on in 2025.
Given our small team of National Hunt horses, the quality has shone through in the first half of the 2024/25 season with 5 winners from 20 runners (25%). Amazingly, five of those runs have been down to the exploits of one horse, Beau Balko, who won at Wincanton in early November and finished placed in his other four races taking his seasonal earnings to over £40,000. He has become an incredibly consistent horse now that his jumping is more reliable and I’m sure there are more races to be won with him later in the season, but for now he is having a well-deserved break!
The Hannon Dynasty
Behind the scenes with trainer Richard Hannon
by Frances de Haan
Richard Hannon is a name synonymous with British Racing, but what you might not know is that it is also synonymous with the Carnarvon family and Highclere. The Carnarvon and the Hannon family have a long-standing relationship that dates back nearly four decades, even preceding the inception of Highclere Thoroughbred Racing. Harry has had horses in training with the Hannon’s for over 36 years; Richard’s father, the legendary Richard Hannon Snr, trained horses for both Harry and Harry’s father, the late seventh Earl of Carnarvon, and Richard Hannon Jnr has carried that tradition on to the next generation.
Under Hannon’s expert training eye numerous horses have risen to Black Type glory. There have been some outstanding success stories with the likes of Lyric Fantasy who was the fastest filly in training and was known as the ‘Pocket Rocket’. She was barely 15 hands tall but was a two year old sprinting sensation, winning the National Stakes (Listed) and then the Queen Mary (Gr3) by five lengths, beating the track record in the process. She then went on to win the Weatherbys Super Sprint at Newbury by a staggering six lengths before taking on older horses at York in the Nunthorpe (Gr 1) and winning impressively.
Multiple Group-winning filly Niche is another, she won six of her ten starts, four of these at Group 2 and Group 3 level. She narrowly missed out on gaining a Classic Group 1 victory when, under Lester Piggott, she was denied by an agonising half length to Sayyedati in the 1000 Guineas. What is more Lemon Souffle, bred and owned by Harry’s father, was another Champion two year old filly. She won five of her eight starts, three at Group level including the prestigious Moyglare Stud Stakes (Gr 1).
In terms of Highclere Thoroughbred Racing’s horses, there have been too many to count them all, but just to name a few stand outs there was Memory, a Champion two year old filly who won her first three starts, including the Albany Stakes (Gr3) at Royal Ascot and the Cherry Hinton Stakes (Gr 2). Beacon denied Astrophysics to claim the Flying Childers Stakes (Gr 2) at Doncaster, and went onto be placed in further races at Group level. Multiple horses have added Black Type to their form, Gusto was one such horse who won his last five runs in succession, four of them being Listed races! Nugget won or came placed in nine out of his eleven races before being sold on to Australia for an attractive £400,000.00. Party lived up to her name causing her owners to celebrate on numerous occasions, in particular when she landed the Radley Stakes (Listed) under Ryan Moore. The well named Prizeman took the spoils in his first two races, the second launched him into Black Type company when he justified favouritism in the Washington Singer Stakes under Richard Hughes. Regiment joined the Black Type roster at only his third start, with an impressive win in the Easter Stakes (Listed). It is safe to say the Hannon’s have an exceptional ability to bring out the best in young horses.
These are just some of the success stories on the track, but it is the relationship off the track that is what makes the longevity of this relationship so special. As we embark on an exciting 2025 season ahead with Cosmic, Mojito and Kebili in training with the Hannon’s, I thought it would be the ideal moment to reflect on where it all began.
The Hannon dynasty needs no introduction as a family steeped in racing history. Richard Hannon Jnr is a third-generation trainer, following in the footsteps of his father, four times Champion Trainer Richard Hannon Snr, and his grandfather Harry trained before him. You could safely say this was a job Richard was born and bred to do and if he was a racehorse, you would certainly be backing it!
Richard Hannon Jnr with his father Richard Hannon Snr
Richard spent a lot of his youth by his father’s side swapping play parks for the racecourse and gallops. With a childhood surrounded by the sport he has become so passionate about, I wondered whether it was in fact ‘love at first sight’ for the career he was destined to take.
‘I just used to go everywhere with my dad. I loved it.
‘My earliest memory of racing will probably be going with my dad to watch a horse win the Christmas Hurdle on Boxing Day at Kempton (1991) called Gran Alba. I never went to the Classics though because I was always at school. The earliest race on television I remember watching was probably Nashwan winning the King George (1989), I remember the race so well. I was always watching it on telly. There wasn't much of it on telly in those days either, so you had to go racing to see it – I loved it.’
Richard evidently has a mind for racing, being able to recall specific events so clearly even as a child. It is one thing to remember iconic racing moments, but I also wanted to know if he could recall the moment he knew he wanted to train and in doing so make the trilogy of the Hannon dynasty complete.
‘Well I knew pretty early. I learnt to ride when I was 13, so I was quite late, but I always wanted to be in the yard even then. I knew I wanted to be a trainer really when I was 18, so I left school then and went away riding out for various trainers around the world while I was at university.
‘I would have loved to have worked in the city for a bit, but I didn't. And I regret that actually, but I was probably always going to do this and I knew that pretty much when I started riding. I know a lot of blokes who were stock brokers, and it looked like great crack. It is pretty much the same job [as training horses], you're out selling and it's like the races every day, an industry where of course you have ups and downs. I just thought it would've been fun, but you have got to be brave too.’
Brave is a very honest and raw way of describing training. Bravery itself can be described in many forms; the philosopher Seneca would apply a more stoic approach, he emphasizes the importance of ‘facing fear with reason and composure’, a method that would be very fitting for a trainer in the face of speaking to owners when perhaps a race had not gone as planned...! On a complete side note I did find it a fitting coincidence that the aptly named Bravesmangame (trained by Paul Nicholls) won the 2022 King George, the first race that Richard ever remembers watching when Nashwan won 33 years earlier.
I digress and so back to the point at hand, one occasion that I felt this mindset would be needed most is in 2014 when, after eight years of working alongside his father as his assistant trainer, Richard took over the reins of the licence.
“We sell the dream and deliver the nightmare, but occasionally we get to deliver the dream and that makes it worth it.”
For context when Richard Hannon Snr retired he had accumulated over 4000 winners during his illustrious training career that spanned over four decades. He saved the best until last, going out with a bang in his final season with a haul of 238 winners, $4.5million in prize money and a fourth Champion Trainer title! Just a small pair of boots for Richard (Jnr) to fill then!
‘I did not really ‘take’ the license - no I did basically take it, it wasn't given to me! He [Richard Snr] worked with me so it was as though there was no difference in the license and not a lot changed. It was always going to happen, and I think my father went on as long as he wanted and he's still part of it to this day. I didn't take his wages I can tell you that, he still "takes" the wages!’
I had just come in from another hugely successful owner’s morning at Herridge stables, an outstanding training establishment boasting world class facilities set in the heart of the stunning Wiltshire countryside. As I sat in his office, I took in the walls which were adorned with photos and trophies of numerous Black Type successes, being brave was clearly a winning formula.
This set up stands a world apart from Richard (Snr) who started his career at quite the opposite end of the spectrum. He took over the licence from his father (Harry Hannon) in 1970, back then they trained out of a small yard at Everleigh in the heart of the Salisbury Plain. There were nine horses and five of these were moderate hurdlers. It was known that he would frequent the local pub playing drums in a band to help subsidise the business. A sight I could not imagine having met the regal patriarch of Herridge, who still holds court during owners’ visits where he recants wonderful stories of racing in years gone by, engulfed in a plume of féth fíada like cigarette smoke.
Mon Fils winner of the 2000 Guineas, Newmarket 1973
A combination of buying yearlings that had failed to auction and a good bet on one named Mons Fils at 200-1 who won the 2000 Guineas in 1973, meant that he could buy the yard Everleigh. From here he built the foundations on what was to become a long and glittering career as a trainer. In 1993 he added Herridge to the portfolio and continued to flourish for another 21 years. He went on to become one of most renowned trainers in industry, retiring with a training establishment stabling over 200 horses and having accumulated 4,193 winners (a record at the time).
It has been said by many that few have risen to such great heights from such humble beginnings. Lester Piggott paid a great tribute on his retirement:
"Starting from nothing Richard (Snr) did a wonderful job and had a great career.”
When Richard (Jnr) took over the licence in 2014 he added; "He [Richard Senior] is an enormous act to follow. Maybe an impossible act to follow. The best thing is that he is still working beside me".
With success comes added responsibility, the pressure mounts to continue to maintain or surpass the level of achievement reached by those set before you. So when Richard took over the licence it was vital that people saw Richard as a successful and sincere flat trainer from the off…
‘I was about 38 I suppose, and had just had my first child, Eliza, I had to be the boss. But she [Eliza] tells her teachers that I am a ‘fat trainer’ – not a ‘flat trainer’! So the teachers said "Mr Hannon, I think we need to have a word. Your daughter thinks you are a fat trainer" I said "well, she's kind of right!"
Not perhaps the first impression for which he was hoping! However, it did not take long for Richard Jnr to make his mark. In fact it was a matter of days before he was able to chalk his first winner on the board. Did he remember it?
‘Sh*t yeah, I was trapped by nerves and it was relief more than anything. It's on the wall there and it's called Unscripted and it won by 13 & ½ lengths. We went up there, stopped at the pub on the way, had a couple of pints and watched it win. Took us about two days to get back I think.
‘My dad wanted to run it between Christmas and New Year, and I said 'no no no no no f**k that. That's not running because I've got a race for it on the 3rd or 4th of January, which is when I had the license, so I said “we're not running that until then”! So I kept saying “he's spread a plate” and “he's pulled his shoe off” and “he's a bit sore so we can't run him”. Do you know what, he made a miracle recovery for the 3rd or 4th January and won by 13 & ½ lengths, [Sean] Levy rode him. It was a sign of things to come I think.’
And he was right. In 2014 Richard had a sensational first season, he produced over 200 winners, six of these were at Group 1 level, including Classic and Royal Ascot victories, races that people wait a whole lifetime to win and even then it might not happen. Night of Thunder was the first of these, when he brought home the prize in the 2000 Guineas, a British Classic for a first Gr1 win was not a bad place to start! He did not stop there, in the same season Toronado brought Richard his first Group 1 Royal Ascot winner when storming to victory in the Queen Anne Stakes. Super filly Tiggy Wiggy followed suit landing the Chevely Park Stakes (Gr 1) at Newmarket. Olympic Glory, a horse that had won multiple Group 1’s for his father, went on to win two more in 2014, The Lockinge Stakes (Gr 1) and the Prix de la Foret at Longchamp (Gr 1). The icing on the cake of a stellar season was claiming the prestigious title of Champion Trainer. Safe to say he was well on his way to filling those shoes, and not for being a “fat trainer” at this point anyway!
Champion Trainer Richard Hannon and now brother in law Richard Hughes Champion Jockey 2014
There has been little let up since, in 2019 Richard reached the 1000 winner milestone and has shown little sign of relenting having accumulated over £2.5 million in prize money for the last four consecutive seasons. A decade on his most recent Classic-winning star Rosallion added three Group 1 wins to the hall of fame, including the Prix Jean-Luc in 2023, the Irish 2000 Guineas and the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot, proving himself to be the best miler of his generation in the process.
Rosallion with owner Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum, jockey Sean Levey and Richard Hannon after winning the St James's Palace Stakes (Group 1) Royal Ascot 2024
I wondered as this interview took place at the end of his 10th year holding the licence if there had been any particular favourites (a big question I admit):
‘I think there's been many. I've enjoyed winning small races as well as big races and quite often it's about the person and the story behind each horse. You get a lot of job satisfaction training for friends or a big syndicate like Highclere. You have a big winner and there's about 15 or 20 people slapping you on the back and that's quite an amazing feeling. I was second in the Derby, but no one remembers being second. I won the Guineas and they all have a little story, but it's about the people and the buying process, how the horses behave, what it's like to break in. We sell the dream and deliver the nightmare, but occasionally we get to deliver the dream and that makes it worth it.’
But it is not always plain sailing, in addition to bravery, a key attribute needed to train is resilience, to be able to take the rough with the smooth. For every winner there can be nine that have not won, that is a lot of disappointment to manage for both the trainer as well as the owners.
‘I'm a racehorse trainer, I get disappointments every day. You work on about a 10% strike rate. I hate it when people say a horse lost. Maybe they didn't win, but they could finish 8th and have come better than they did last time. You don't say lost, you just say 'ran much better'. Some people coming into the sport now don't understand that and it's the same old quote "if you want to make money, go to work". Clearly people who buy racehorses are very good at what they do when they go to work! Owning a racehorse is an indulgence and it can still bring you something money can't buy, a good horse, and that's what we all train off.’
“That’s my office, you know, and if you can call that your office, you’re a lucky man”
Good horses are evidently what Richard Hannon has plenty of, but as he says the ability to get an average horse to win is just as satisfying, and ultimately that is how his father built his success, therefore it is clearly in the genes. Out of all these successes I wondered what race was on the bucket list next?
‘I've got to say winning the [Epsom] Derby would be something else wouldn't it? Hard to come across Derby horses but you'll go down in history forever if you win a Derby. It might not happen, but you keep hoping.
‘I’ve won the 1000 Guineas, 2000 Guineas. There are a lot of very very good races, ambition wise. Is it about winning the races or is it about staying in business, being popular, having winners and enjoying what we do for a living? They say “if you enjoy what you do for a living, you never have to work a day in your life”. I can tell you it feels like work, but I love it! And you know one of your syndicates came down here, one of your members said 'do you ever get any down time away from us lot?' and I was like, 'do you know what, the day you lot don't want to come is a very very bad day in the business, effectively it's over.
‘A lot of owners end up becoming friends, you get a bit of rapport with them and it's so important that they want to come down and see the horse. I drove a woman from Highclere up next to her filly [on the gallops], we were literally three feet away from this filly, and she just started crying. I asked 'what are you crying for?' she was like 'oh I have never ridden a horse and what I have just seen is just so beautiful, it made me cry'. That's my office, you know, and if you can call that your office, you're a lucky man.’
Richard socialising with owners at Herridge
Richard is one of six siblings, he is a triplet alongside Elizabeth (Lizzie, married to trainer Richard Hughes) and Henry. He also has three other sisters Claire, Julie and Fanny. Family is a huge part of any training establishment, as we know racing is a way of life and that becomes the way of life for the family too. Now Richard has two children, the aforementioned Eliza and a son Jack, I was curious if he had any hopes for his children to continue the Hannon dynasty into a fourth generation.
‘Do you know what, I would really love to say yes, and I hate it when people say no, but they will do whatever they want to do. This is a great business, but whether the industry is maintainable at the moment the way things are going is questionable. I'd love for them to come into this business, but you know you've just got to hope that the industry is capable of giving a living to everybody and I slightly think there's a lot of issues that we need to put right before that is failsafe.
‘I don't think that it will end, but I just think it's getting harder and harder and more competitive. All that glitters is not gold. You’ve seen Royal Ascot full of people and you've seen a nice training establishment here. Don't forget, this was here when I started and it's taken 40 years to get this, and with inheritance tax and everything now, things are getting really hard for the next generation - almost impossible. So, I think Jack wants to be a professional footballer - every kid has that dream and he's one of those dreamers; he's quite good. And Eliza, I think she wants to be a vet or a nurse. Now being a vet she will earn half a blunder if she does that because they are the ones earning the money I think!’
It was not the first time that I have heard a trainer speak of such concerns for the sport we all love, but it is sadly an ever-growing one. As Richard mentions, he is perhaps one of the ‘lucky ones’ and it begs the question whether, if Harry and Richard Hannon Snr were starting their careers now, would the Hannon era ever have come to be? Quite a sobering thought.
“Strive for quality horses and to give owners a good all-round experience, with hopefully some success on the way”
My final question is a favourite, we all have once chance to live our lives to the best of our ability but given the chance to speak to our younger selves, or to live with the benefit of hindsight is a luxury we are not afforded. If it were, I wondered what advice Richard would give to his younger self?
‘Slow down and don't take it personally. Horses get beaten all the time and that is an occupational hazard. As a trainer, you can only enable a horse to run as fast as it can, there are no magicians, nobody can make them run faster. You can enable them to run as fast as they can and after that they are on their own.
‘I used to take it quite personally when they got beat, but that's every bit selfish and no one would feel sorry for me if my racehorses don't run as fast as I hoped they would, I mean it's a pretty third world irrelevant issue, isn't it. But you know, you just have to relax a bit.’
Richard’s ethos is to “strive for quality horses and to give owners a good all-round experience, with hopefully some success on the way,” it is safe to say he has delivered this ten-fold and I am sure his grandfather Harry would be incredibly proud of what his son and now his grandson have achieved. Arguably taking over such a prestigious licence comes with a greater sense of responsibility, but one it is clear Richard has carried forward with skill, enthusiasm and dedication to both horse and owner. If Eliza or Jack were to follow suit, they might be looking to fill an equally big set of boots!
We have three horses with Richard Hannon, and if you are hoping to get involved after reading this article, we have a wonderfully athletic Palace Pier filly with only one share remaining in the Aspen Syndicate! See below if you do not want to miss out.
2023 b f - Palace Pier x Swing Out Sister
End of year QUIZ!
We thought it would be fun to round up 2024 with a short quiz. So get your thinking caps on and see how many you can get! Best of luck!
1. In what year did Harry start Highclere Thoroughbred Racing?
2. What was the strike rate of Highclere winners in:
A. the 2024 flat season?
B. the 2023-2024 national hunt season?
3. Which flat horse has run in the most races in 2024?
4. What is the name of the horse that Harry asked Queen Elizabeth II to use, which went on to win The King George V Handicap at Royal Ascot in 1997?
5. How many Highclere horses ran in Black Type races in the 2024 flat season?
6. Of these Black Type races, what percentage were won or placed?
7. How many yearlings were sold at the 2024 Tattersalls October Yearling Sale?
8. In the last 10 years, which flat season saw the most races run by Highclere horses?
9. To the nearest hundred, how many miles has the racing team covered going racing in the 2024 flat season?
10. To the nearest hundred, how many miles have our overseas runners travelled this year?
Bonus: Which horse travelled the furthest?
Rolf’s Ramblings
by Rolf Johnson
Highclere isn’t in the habit of plotting ‘coups’. You missed out on Motivator’s big day at Cheltenham in 1986? Weren’t in on the million-pound Coral Golden Hurdle gamble? Fearsome punter Terry Ramsden’s six-year-old ‘did the business’, nineteen years before an altogether different Motivator had his glory day at Epsom - the 2005 Derby. Apologies for that bit of legerdemain: here are some authentic ‘mistaken identities’.
Actual gambles don’t often make the headlines. Bookmakers don’t want the world to know they’ve had their pants taken down and if Joe Punter can’t help telling the world he’s ‘had it off who wants their ear bent by gloating after-timers? Some gamble for ‘the craic’, fun – the apology for being a serial loser. Serious horse players keep schtum.
One stormy night two horses arrived without ceremony at Fyfield, Hampshire from Norway. They were shovelled, hastily, into their boxes – but the wrong ones. And for the next few weeks nobody tumbled the fact that the two bays – one big and dark, the other small and bright, weren’t who we thought they were. The guv’nor would ring Oslo, baffled that Norway’s Champion hurdler “couldn’t jump a stick” while the ‘novice’ was “a bloody natural”.
The Scandinavians, a phlegmatic lot, were unperturbed, unaware of the enormity of the error playing out. They didn’t know what was going off. And of course, as it transpired, neither did we.
If you’re still with me…the one was sent to Nottingham (jumping ceased in 1996) and the other to Devon & Exeter (until 1990 – ‘Exeter’). Nottingham stewards wouldn’t let the small bay (novice) run: the passport was in order – but for a different horse. Our travelling head lad was called in and given a right rollicking.
As luck would have it, down at Devon our big bay (champion hurdler) didn’t make the parade ring until the others had gone out. “Would the trainer or his representative please come to the Steward’s room as soon as possible” the tannoy pleaded. When he got there he bamboozled officials into letting the imposter run. Of course the horse bolted up. And was disqualified.
With great trepidation the guv’nor phoned Norway to relay the bad news. Whatever the Norwegian for ‘over the moon’ is, the owner was. With his Nottingham horse a non-runner all the money, plenty, went on his West Country winner who’d beaten a bookmaker-inspired gamble.
“Could we do it again?” asked the happy Viking. Well err no…The story doesn’t end there though, but let’s take a pull.
Between the wars, and until the end of the Second, Damon Runyon was the laureate of Broadway low life: mobsters, panhandlers, Speakeasies. The celebrated musical Guys and Dolls was quintessential Runyon. It features the line from Ecclesiastes 9:11 “The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong”: the gospel according to Runyon reads: “But that’s how the smart money bets.”
Our bohemian equivalent, Soho, was the haunt of the louche gospeller of London low life, Jeffrey Bernard, as quotable, as flagrantly cribbed, as Runyon – or Sir Mark Prescott. “There’s no fun unless the stakes are more than you can afford” wrote Bernard, self-styled “Prophet of loss”. It was sad he and his bibulous coterie of cads and cards degraded into nostalgic caricatures. Bernard played out his dissolute gambler’s role, the montage of which was translated into the West End play ‘Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell’. It was euphemistically based on his failure to meet deadlines - other than the one with early death, 1997.
Graham Greene was another habitué of London W1 but tunnelled out with a range of celebrated novels, notably ‘Brighton Rock’ (1938). Greene captured a far more dangerous world than Soho, that of pre-war racing on Whitehawk Hill, beset with armed gangs although the inspiration for Brighton Rock was the vicious clash for turf territory at nearby Lewes (R.I.P.) races.
Some say the most memorable betting yarns are perforce of the ‘if only’ category. Take my coup, at Cheltenham in early December, when I back two winners in the first and come away disgruntled. The Bowen brothers Sean and James dead-heated. I was on both; got over the odds about Quantock Hills 7-1 and took just under SP, 16-1 (hadn’t calculated on it drifting to 18-1, really should have gone in again) on Teriferma. But I perpetrated the punting crime of the timorous, shovelling more on the shorter-priced Quantock Hills – which is not ‘the smart way to bet’.
The rule is that stakes are halved for a dead-heat hence my winnings fell short of the amount I could have trousered.
Racing without coups? Soccer without sending’s off? Cricket without bouncers (whatever happened to them?); snooker without Higgins or O’Sullevan; non-alcoholic Guinness; golf without bunkers; the America’s Cup without wind. A politician without hot air.
What goes round comes round. We sent one horse to Towcester (R.I.P.) one Bank Holiday for a selling hurdle. There were so many meetings Towcester was buried among the mass of Bank Holiday cards. In theory it would be a lesser stunt to pull nowadays when racecards are dropped from newspapers altogether. And technology and ‘affordability checks ‘are robbing us of chances to ‘make a few quid’. Everybody knows everybody else’s ‘business’. ‘Getting on’ has got very hard.
Anyway, surely champion jockey John Francome was at Towcester to steer home the reigning selling king John Jenkins’s ‘good thing’? In the ring the self-same stentorian bookie (no grudges) we’d thwarted at Exeter, bellowed increasing odds on our runner: a ‘knockout job’. The practice – our man the ‘ring leader’ (self-indulgent pun), was for the pre-eminent bookie to keep extending the odds so that when the SP was returned, it didn’t reflect the real money off-course. Our man’s price went from 9-2 to 20-1 and our horse, as they say, duly obliged (Francome unseated). Pips squeaked, but in those days they pulled up their pants and paid.
The colour, the complexion of the racetrack has faded. The brotherhood of betting ‘faces’ who migrated between meetings, is moribund. Bernard claimed to have killed off one of the ‘noblest’ – Prince Monolulu whom he visited in Middlesex Hospital in 1965, gave him a Black Magic chocolate – on which the pseudo African Prince and charlatan tipster choked to death.
Time and again a significant face detached itself from the ‘community’ and went its own way – notably the late Barney Curley. But Runyon’s Hot Horse Herbie, The Seldom Seen Kid, Willie The Worrier, The Lemon Drop Kid, along with their British counterparts, have faded away.
And then we pulled one off, almost monster. Four more winged in from Scandinavia – accurately identified as three novices and the Norwegian Triple Crown winner who had already run with distinction in the King George & Queen Elizabeth. The trio were sent to nondescript Warwick jumps meeting, ridden by their Norwegian trainer. The ‘cert’ went to Haydock for a humdrum novice hurdle partnered, long odds on, by our stable jockey.
Warwick went to script: The Haydock ‘good thing’ would top up a jackpot of millions – mostly in krone. And do you know what? Of course you do, we ‘bumped into one’ – called Mayhem, and the all hell that would have broken loose had the Yankee been landed, subsided.
To repeat, Scandinavians are nothing if not congenitally stoic. “The jockey’s never been lucky for me,” was the owner’s resigned take. Still, his treble paid off a proportion of Norway’s National Debt.
Some of us identify, perhaps too closely, with inimitable Runyon who was diagnosed, on my first birthday, with the same cancer he died of and I got rid of. From the mouth of Sam the Gonoph (‘Gonoph’ a ‘thief’, first used by Charles Dickens in Bleak House) Runyon voiced, “I long ago came to the conclusion that all life is six to five against”. For every five winners you have six losers – that’s the bookie’s ‘edge’.
I got 4-6 about mine. Life’s odds are not regulated - everything is transactional even if, for most of us, in the end someone else always seems to hold the aces. Runyon eschewed use of the past tense; eventually nobody beats the odds.
Where Are They Now?
by Lynda Ayre
On the 1st October we welcomed Pulling Stumps & Global Focus into our lives. Known now as Stumpy & Dylan (after his dam Dylan’s Star) They have settled in amazingly well & are having a couple of months off (Dylan will have longer). They are thoroughly spoilt & come in every night to a full hay net , feed (with carrots) and a very deep straw bed. I plan to start stumpy in a couple of weeks going back to basics before going hacking to build him up. The plan is then to have some fun, going up the Quantock’s, some riding club activities & maybe a bit of local hunting as the hounds live next door. Thank you very much with trusting me with your horses, they have the most amazing kind temperament and looking forward to fun times ahead.
Clodagh’s recipe
by Clodagh McKenna Herbert
CHICKEN & MUSHROOM PIE
METHOD:
1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6.
2. Set a large saucepan over a medium heat and melt the butter. Add the chicken, season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the leek and cook for a further minute.
3. Add the mushrooms and kale or cabbage to the saucepan and cook for 3 minutes. Sprinkle over the flour, stir and cook for another minute, then pour in the milk and cream and cook until the sauce has thickened. Allow to cool
4. Roll out the shortcrust pastry and line the bottom of an 8 inch (20 cm) pie dish.
5. Once the chicken filling has cooled spoon the mixture into the pie dish.
6. Next roll out the puff pastry so that it will cover the pie and the rim. Lift the pastry on to the pie trimming off any excess with a sharp knife. Press down and crimp the edges with a fork. Cut a couple of slits in the pastry to let the steam out and brush all over with the rest of the beaten egg.
7. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes or until the pastry is crisp and golden brown.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
30g butter
4 skinless chicken fillets, diced
1 leek, finely sliced
200g kale or cabbage, sliced
280g button mushrooms, quartered
1 tablespoon flour
250ml milk
100ml single cream
320g pack of shortcrust pastry
500g pack of puff pastry (use butter puff or brush ordinary puff with a little butter)
1 egg, beaten
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Taittinger Moment
Anthony MCKEEVER
This months Taittinger moment goes to Anthony Mckeever for a brilliant surprise reveal of a share in the stunning filly Piazza for his son Alistair’s 40th birthday. What a cracking present! Anthony had been keeping it under wraps for months and it all went to plan over Christmas when is son Alistair and his wife Megan (who was also in on the secret!) flew over all the way from America to see the filly.
A simply fantastic idea and a wonderful way to celebrate a special birthday. Piazza is already going great guns at Manton under the care of Ollie Sangster and we look forward to seeing how she gets on this season. She will no doubt bring in plenty of memories for Alistair and Megan and the whole family.
Happy 40th Alistair!
Out and about with the Highclere camera
