The Sweetest Photograph in the World.

Obviously, the title of this post refers to an entirely subjective judgement.

It is the sweetest photograph in my very own eyes.

Here I am, this morning, with the two nieces, the red mare and the little American Paint.





There are several things which I love about this picture. One is that the two nieces and I are hardly ever together in the same place. They are young and antic and move about a lot, embarking on their own lives. So it is extremely special when the three of us are reunited.

Second, I love that The Younger Niece and The American Paint both are doing almost identical ready for their close-up faces. (Autumn the Filly’s owner was taking the picture, so it might have been a pretty face for her. But it still makes me laugh and laugh.)

Third, I find it amusing that despite the fact I am supposed to be posing for a rare photograph with my beloveds, I am far too busy pulling Red’s ears to put on my own camera face.

Fourth, it was quite a tight space, between two stretches of grass that MUST NOT BE STEPPED ON. (The Brother-in-Law gets sad if there are hoofmarks all over his nice turf.) So The Older Niece, as you can see, is having to crane her neck even to be seen. Hello, I’m here at the back.

Fifth, that dozy old donkey you see there on the left, all muddy and woolly and shaggy, really is one of the poshest horses in Britain. My father brought me up not to pay any attention to human grandeur, but oh, when it comes to horses, he gave me a snobbism I cannot shake. I am not especially proud of the fact. But on dark nights, when my heart is afflicted with melancholy, I am afraid I trace Red’s pedigree back through Nijinksy and Northern Dancer to Hyperion and St Simon, in order to cheer myself up.

She has not only that obvious top line, but Derby winners a go-go in the bottom line. I love reading the storied names, as lyrical as poetry: Mahmoud, Sir Peter Teazle, Voltigeur, Smolensko, Dante, Gainsborough. She has the Byerley Turk, the rarest of the three foundation sires, twice. Nearly everyone has the Godolphin Arabian, as she does, but not everyone has the Turk.
None of this really means anything, but it means something to me. And what I really love is that there she is, day after day, dopey as a faithful hound, following me back to the field without a rope, swinging her dear, scruffy head, smiling her soft equine smile, quite unaware of the blue blood which courses through her veins. Of course, I could posh her up a bit. I could give her a haircut and brush a bit more of that mud off her. But I like her being a horse, mooching around in her paddock, getting as dirty as she likes, no matter how many glittering prizes her ancestors won.

And in other horse loveliness, the most tenacious, gutsy, bold and brave Bobs Worth returned to his best in Ireland today, and made my mother and me cry. He’s one of the most talented and most tough horses in racing and last time out he never went a yard. After a horse has been triumphant in a hard Gold Cup, there is always the danger he is never quite the same again. Some big race glories can take it out of a horse; they can look fine, work well at home, seem well in themselves, but that glittering, glimmering brilliance has been dulled, in a way that nobody quite understands.

After watching an uncharacteristically lacklustre run at Haydock, I feared for little Bobs Worth. He was so magnificent last season, and I was sad to see a champion brought low. But today, he kindled his fire again, and even though he had it all to find after the last, he picked himself up, put his head down in his trademark terrier fashion, and powered past his rivals.

Then he pricked his ears, stretched his neck, and looked up at the stands, as if to say: Ah, you were fretting over nothing. I got it covered, said Bobs Worth. I’m back. And the crowd, which knows greatness when it sees it, rose to him in delight.
 
Some more sweet pictures for you:







Back in the paddock, modelling her astoundingly smart new Amigo rug. I don’t really believe in giving animals Christmas presents, but the old rug was falling to pieces, literally held together with binder twine, and this one happened to arrive just yesterday, so it does feel almost like a present. And she looks so smart in it. Excellent service from the wonderful Ride-Away, who should surely employ the red mare as a model. She is, I often think, wasted in real life:



She did get an awful lot of love:



And, in other news – Stan the Man has a BLOODY ENORMOUS STICK:

Farewell, Frankel; in which I say goodbye to a true champion

I’m going to say something controversial. I wrote yesterday, in the heat of emotion and adoration and nerves, that Frankel does not have an off day.

I think that yesterday he had an off day.

He has just won his fourteenth race, out of fourteen. He is confirmed as the greatest flat horse my generation has ever seen. He retires, unvanquished. Every inch of newsprint this morning is about the power and the glory, so it seems churlish and grouchy even to think of such a thing as an off day. But in my mind, it makes the champion more supreme. Even when not at his crest and peak, he can still dish out a beating to the second best horse in the world.

It is easy to forget how good Cirrus des Aigles is, because he is an older French horse, and we do not see him on our television screens here. On the latest official ratings, he stands on 130, at number two, a full four places ahead of the legendary Black Caviar. He came to Ascot in the form of his life, having destroyed a high-class field over the Arc weekend, cantering away on the bridle. He is a mudlark, relishing the testing ground over which Frankel was untried.

As well as Cirrus des Aigles, there was Nathaniel, fourth best in the world, brought to his peak by John Gosden, who is himself galloping towards the trainers’ championship.

Just to emphasise how difficult the task was, Frankel is in his pomp over a mile. This was only his second go at ten furlongs, and even though he made it look like a party at York, leaving Group One horses labouring in his wake, in testing ground a mile and a quarter will feel like further. Finally, Frankel is a big, heavy horse. In life, he is actually finer and lighter than he seems on the television, but he is still broad and strong, packed with muscle. Whilst his strength would help him go through the ground, he could not bounce over it as a lighter-framed horse might.

When he appeared in the paddock, he was wonderfully relaxed, ambling round like a dopey old Labrador. He used to get in a state before his races; Sir Henry Cecil has taught his horse the art of switching off, so all energy is saved for the race itself. But I started to wonder if Frankel was not a little bit too relaxed. For the very first time, he did not have the white foam of sweat that he always shows between his back legs.

This worried me. The irony is that sweating there is considered a very bad sign indeed. A bit of warmth on the neck is fine, but the hindquarters are a danger zone. I have even heard people say it is a mark of suspect temperament. Frankel always does it, and he always wins. The lack of the trademark white patch scratched away at the back of my mind.

He also looked a tiny bit starey in his coat. This is not surprising at this time of year, as the autumn weather descends, but I missed the gleam and sheen that I saw at York.

He flopped out of the stalls, in a heap, so Tom Queally had to shake him up as if to say, come on fella, this is business. Then Frankel showed his usual smooth power, gunning round the field with his finely balanced stride. Cirrus des Aigles was running on like a tiger, with plenty left, and for the first time this season,  Queally had to pick up his stick. Frankel did not float away, as he has done in the past. Yesterday, he could not rely on sheer class, he had to show his heart as well. He put his head down, dogged, resolute, and flashed past the line a couple of lengths in front.

In the end, the victory was more emphatic than the bare distance suggests. In the end, he won cosily; nothing was ever going to catch him. It was not the demolition job that we have seen from him in the past, but in some ways it was more glorious for all that.

I think he had come to the end of a long season. I think that he is such a fine, brilliant horse that he may have got a little grumpy with the cold and the wet. He will have been working in the gloomy October chill of East Anglia, where the winds whips straight across from Siberia. It may be sacrilege to say so, but I think, yesterday, the grand emperor was a tiny bit out of sorts. 

But that is the mark of a truly great horse. Any racehorse will have its mysteriously brilliant day. Sometimes they just run into form at a precise moment, which is why you’ll suddenly have a fifty to one outsider streaking home. All horses have their off days too, which is why you see hot odds on favourites go nowhere. Earlier in the afternoon, Opinion Poll, heavily backed for the long distance race, was practically pulled up. The historic ones are those that still go on and win, even when the stars are not aligned in their favour.

Even when Frankel is not at his rampant best, even when he may be feeling a little bit blah, as we all sometimes do, he still pulls it out of the bag. All the great ones have lost; even Mill Reef, Nijinsky, Dancing Brave had their defeats. At the winning post, Frankel has never seen the back of another horse; he does not know what losing is. Fourteen out of fourteen, on different ground, under different conditions, and over different distances, ten of those in Group One races, is an outrageous record. They all came for him, and they all were denied.

In some ways, although I rather longed for an imperial procession, I’m glad he had to scrap for it. We saw yesterday not so much a king, as a streetfighter. It made the drama more complete. It made me admire and love him more, not less. That horse is not a machine, or a freak, as some people say; he can go out with a chink in his armour and still prevail. Even when not at his singing, shining best, he can still beat the finest the world has to offer. Because along with his talent, and his grace, and his romping, raking stride, along with his power and brilliance, there is a brave, beating heart, that does not know how to give up.

And talking of hearts, the other one that is stout as the old oak of England is that of Sir Henry Cecil. There he was, frail and pale, bashing away at a horrible illness, but still pulling off the training performance of a lifetime. To keep any top class horse sound over three seasons is achievement enough; to hit fourteen out of fourteen, at the very highest level, is the stuff of dreams.

As Sir Henry spoke to the clamouring crowd of press, as the cheers and trumpets rang out behind him, his voice was thin and hardly audible. He nodded seriously, as he spoke the bare facts. ‘I can’t believe,’ he said, ‘in the history of racing there has been a better horse.’

There, in their swansong, in the midst of a sea of joy, stood Cecil and his lovely champion, the old fighter and the young warrior, a perfect picture of grace under pressure.

And that, that, was why I cried.

 

Today’s pictures:

The sun came out, and Scotland put on a show:

My little herd. Not quite world-beaters, but champions all to me:

How I found Red this morning. She can stand for hours and gaze at that view:

With just a hint of the look of eagles:

Serious Pigeon:

And in perfect profile:

The hill: