Derby Day; or, my racing heart

It is Derby Day.

This is the day that I go down to my quiet field, ringed by Scottish hills and deep woods, and tell my mare of the great moment in 1970 that her grandfather won the storied race.

This is, of course, absurd, and not just because she does not speak English and the name Nijinsky means nothing to her. He was a prolific sire; there are hundreds, possibly thousands of his descendants running round green fields and emerald racetracks.

And yet, it is a daily source of idiot pride to me. It is one of the things that makes me singingly happy. On dark evenings when my spirits fall, I lift them again by going back through her pedigree, finding the mighty names of Hyperion, Gainsborough, St Simon, Mahmoud, Eclipse, and all three of the foundation sires.

Pedigree is what everyone is talking about today. The breeding of racehorses is a science and an art. It is also a lottery. My darling Red was the slowest horse in England, despite her illustrious bloodlines.

The question now is how will that lottery shake out for Dawn Approach. His sire, New Approach, won the Derby himself. New Approach’s daughter, Talent, won The Oaks yesterday. There are no stamina worries there. But it is the bottom line that people often say counts for more, and although there are stayers further back in his dam’s pedigree, Dawn Approach’s mother never raced over further than a mile, and ran mostly at shorter distances.

This is what makes today most extraordinarily exciting. Dawn Approach is a beautiful, well-made, athletic horse with a thrilling degree of natural talent. He also has the advantage of a glorious temperament, taking all the hoopla and razzmatazz of big race days with a gentlemanly calm. Nijinsky, by contrast, used to get wired to the moon. My mother still remembers watching him getting hotter and hotter in the paddock, even after forty years. It was only the genius and patience of Vincent O’Brien that made him into the racehorse he was.

I think of Nijinsky today too because people forget that many serious pundits said he would not stay. He too had questions over his bloodlines, but Lester Piggott and Vincent O’Brien had faith, and he repaid it in spades. He not only won the Derby but completed the Triple Crown when he trounced them in the St Leger, winning on the bridle with Lester cheekily easing him up at the line.

If he stays, he wins, is the line on Dawn Approach. His good temperament will help to conserve energy; his soaring talent will see him through. I’d love to see him make monkeys of them all, with his good heart and his big white face, but there is a possibility he will just pack up two furlongs out, and the glittering dreams will smash to the ground.

The truth is, nobody knows. We shall not be certain of anything until about four minutes past four this afternoon, when the cards are played and the hand revealed. Because of this uncertainty, it is one of the most exciting Derby days I can remember. We have an unbeaten colt, of visceral speed, incredible ability, high class, in the hands of a master trainer. And we have the hovering question mark, dancing over his lovely head.

As I write this, my fingers are trembling faintly. My heart is beating in my chest. There are still three hours to go and I can hardly sit still. I always ask myself why, on these great days. It’s just a race, it’s just a horse; what can it matter?

It is love, for me. It is an antic, vivid, visceral love. I love these racing horses because they are so beautiful, and brave, and bold. So much is asked of them, and so much is given.

But thinking now, I wonder if it is something even more profound than that. Despite Dawn Approach’s lovely, easy temperament, there is something of the wild still in these fast thoroughbreds. They are different from other horses in their pure breeding for the perfect combination of strength and velocity. Any of them, running from the gaff tracks to the famous courses, must go back through eight straight generations even to take part.

I think there is something in that purity, which produces the brilliance and the will to win, which touches an untamed part of the human self. Racehorses are not quite domesticated in the way that riding horses are. It is fanciful, but I think they still hear their ancestral voices, calling down the generations. There is something untrammelled and uncontained about them, which touches the depths of my own human heart.

In life, especially in middle age, I must learn to be sensible and practical and reasonable. (I do not always succeed.) I must live in the civilised world and play by the good rules of civilised society. Watching a great thoroughbred, at full stretch, with all that mighty, wild brilliance, that soaring spirit, that fierce determination, that gleaming loveliness, I feel released from my ordinary, workaday self. I too am untrammelled, taken back to the elemental, wild parts of my sometimes confined spirit. In some odd way, these brilliant creatures set me free.

I love them because they are beautiful, and I love them because they are true. They are truth and beauty; that is all I know and all I need to know.

And I hope that Dawn Approach does defy the doubters. I hope he does stay. I hope he swoops round the impossible camber of Tattenham Corner and sets the crowd on a roar. I hope his sun also rises.

 

Only time for two pictures today. I wanted to show you Red at her most thoroughbred and aristocratic. You can see her here after a damn good gallop round the field, her veins up, her grand blood coursing through her. I had to go back to last year for these, because now she is so relaxed that she rarely breaks out of an amble, and spends most of her time looking more like a dozy old donkey than a descendant of Derby winners:

Have a great day, my darlings. Win or lose, I think it will truly be a race to remember.

Horses, work, time and slightly surprising hats. Or, the end of a really rather lovely week.

Another packed day. There was so much to do that I did not have time to do any serious work with my mare. Still, we achieved something rather miraculous yesterday, so I decided to give her a complete day off.

This morning, I found her, with her little herd, standing under the great tree in the middle of the paddock, which is her favourite place. I stood with her for twenty minutes, and told her, for the hundredth time, of the great day in 1970 when her grandsire won the Derby.

‘See,’ I said. ‘No one really knew if he would stay. He’d never run over that distance before. But Lester thought he would stay; Mr O’Brien thought he would stay. And he came rolling down that hill with a double handful.’

She nodded and dozed and rested her head against my chest and let me ramble on. She is very forgiving, like that.

I should really be getting her ready for riding now. I should be doing all the proper groundwork that goes into that. Even though today’s hiatus was officially because my time management is in tatters, actually sometimes I think one of the best things you can ever do with a horse is simply be.

That is my story and I am sticking to it.

Then I went up to HorseBack, to see Jim Dukes, their most excellent vet, in action. There is almost nothing I love more than watching really good vet at work, and, when it comes to horses, Jim is the high crest and peak.

But there was also a serious purpose. I’m trying a new thing with HorseBack, which is to show all the work that goes on behind the scenes.

There are the banner days, such as on Tuesday, when a member of the government comes to visit, and there are the busy days which will start again quite soon, when the courses are in full swing.

Yet, even on the quiet, unsung, ordinary days, keeping an organisation such as theirs ticking over takes a whole team, working hard together. I thought it would be interesting to show some of that, so I took a little photo essay of the vet doing his job.

Then there was work; then there was a very quick peek at the 3.25 at Sandown; then there was the making of a soup and the considering of all the logistical things which keep my own tiny organisation going.

There are so many things that happened this week which I would like to tell you, but the brain is frazzling now, and it is time to stop. My eyes squint and my fingers crab and my grasp of the English language grows faint.

Still, it was a good week. I had high excitement, a moment of very private achievement, some new ideas, a lot of animal love, the good feeling of being part of something more important than I, a great deal of laughter, a handy little treble which came in at 14-1, a surprising hat moment, a rather unexpectedly touching communication with a stranger on the internet, and, just this morning, in real life, one damn fine compliment.

It was a short compliment, not more than five words. It contained no curlicues or flourishes, no flowery language such as I would employ. It came from someone who does not hurl the things about like confetti.

It meant a lot.

 

Today’s pictures:

The vet at work at HorseBack UK:

Rodney, the most patient patient:

With my friend The Horse Talker, who is a long-time volunteer there:

In the beautiful granite stables, for a little box rest:

Meanwhile, out in the paddock, there is my special friend Gus the Foal, with his heavenly white face, and his insatiable curiosity:

Some quick garden pictures for you:

Myfanwy has had a lovely time this week, getting very muddy indeed:

Autumn the Filly, on the other hand, is looking very pretty and pleased with herself, after a series of excellent adventures:

Since the inexplicable hat proved such a hit, I can’t resist giving you a couple more of those:

That dozy face never fails to lift my heart. (Red’s face, not mine.)

I’m starting to think this might have to be my Cheltenham outfit. It’s the kind of thing Sprinter Sacre would surely appreciate:

Stanley the Dog has been exceptionally good and sweet this week, and had a lot of fine stick action:

And through it all, sails the calm blue presence of my beloved hill:

And since it is a Friday, and if you can’t be a bit self-indulgent on your own blog I don’t know where you can be, here is one final shot of Red and me. I like it because there is the funny juxtaposition of my most speccy geekish incarnation with the affectionate dreamy sweetness of Herself:

I hope you are all having a lovely Friday afternoon, wherever you are.

Of horses and hearts

Of course, the moment I give Camelot my damn heart, he takes it and smashes it. He lost by a length and a half, beaten by a smart 25-1 outsider. Such is racing.

But Frankel, I think, Frankel never did that. Frankel never, ever broke my heart. My heart was safe with him.

It made me realise too, all over again, what a mighty champion Nijinsky was. That elusive Triple Crown was steady on his head, as he sauntered home in the 1970 Leger, with Lester Piggott cheekily dropping his hands before the line, as if he were out for a schooling canter.

Horses, especially the Thoroughbred, are entirely mysterious. Camelot looked a picture going down to the start, relaxed nicely in the early stages of the race, and then, asked to pick up, could only labour past his rivals. Instead of his mighty dashing acceleration, there was a dour plugging on. To win two Derbies, a Guineas and be second in the Leger is a pretty fine record, but there was not the fiery spark today. People will blame the jockey, search for excuses, but it shall remain a mystery.

It is a mystery too why it is that my astonishingly well-bred mare, who can trace her bloodlines back to any amount of champions, from Hyperion to Northern Dancer, who has delightful confirmation and a sweet temperament, was so useless on the racecourse that her last run was thirteenth out of thirteen at Thirsk. (I occasionally look at the figures and feel a bit weepy for her.) But thank goodness she was so slow, because otherwise she would never have come to me, and I cannot imagine life without her.

This morning, away from fine breeding and aristocratic bloodlines, I went up to look at quite different kind of horse, as a possible project. I was not going to take on a rescue, but someone who knew someone got in touch, and just north of Aberdeen there is a mare who needs a new home. There is some Thoroughbred in her somewhere, but a lot of motley else, and she has been through at least three yards, one of which treated her abominably. She looked at me with sad eyes, and I wanted to take her home, so that Red could cheer her up by doing her circus tricks.

Because she is a project, because she has no history and so is a huge risk, and because no one knows her breeding, I had to put in a low offer, which may not be accepted. It’s a bit of a nutty thing to do on my part, because I was saving up for a nice Quarter Horse. But despite the fact that she arrived at her present owner half-starved, and with a gag on her bridle (a hideous bit which should never be allowed, in my opinion) she still has willingness in her.

She joined up with me in a round pen, and was polite and responsive on the leading rein. Whatever horrid humans have done to her, she still has it in her heart to try and please. That is the other mystery of the horse. You really have to do an awful lot of ghastly things to them before they give up. Their default mode is to try. That is why I love them, and that is why I hope that, in days to come, you may find a new girl on this blog, a little bashed and battered, uncertain and sensitive, with the chance of a new start.
 
Rather shattered after my Camelot disappointment, so just the energy left for some quick pictures of my own little champions, and some nice cows: