Was Grundy an all-time great flat racehorse and amongst the toughest of all?
- #All Time Great
- #2Very good but not great
- Amongst tooughest colts of all time
- Better than Sir Ivor
- Better than Generous
- Better than Troy
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Grundy ranks amongst the finest and toughest flat racehorses of all time. This year we commemorate the 50th birth anniversary and 30th death anniversary of this Chestnut star. Few colts in British racing history possessed such indomitable courage, which gave glimpse of a soldier braving it out till the last tooth. Grundy blended all the qualities of a perfect thoroughbred be it speed, endurance or temperament and above all the will to win. His memories are always embedded in my mind for the manner he dominated the 1975 racing season or the manner he accomplished his victories. Grundy possessed the characteristic trait of a champion to quicken from behind and to stave off any effective challenge with contempt.
Grundy was unbeaten as a 2 year old .Grundy won the Granville Stakes over 6 furlongs defeating his stable companion No Alimony, who went on to win the Craven and Predominate Stakes.. In August he won the Sirenia Stakes over the same distance at Kempton from Prospect Rainbow.
In September, Grundy triumphed in the Doncaster Stakes in which he was pitted against the Coventry Stakes winner Whip It Quick. Eddery struggled to obtain a clear run in the straight but succeeded in getting Grundy to the line half a length ahead of Whip It Quick without having to use the whip.
On his final start of the season, Grundy ran in the Dewhurst Stakes, racing on soft ground for the first time, hit the front the front two furlongs from the finish and pulled clear to beat Gimrack and Middle Park Stakes winner Steel Heart by six lengths. In the Free Handicap, a ranking of the year’s best British juveniles, Grundy was placed first with a rating of 133. Timeform rated him the best two-year-old in Europe in. 134. His degree of conviction to conquer rivals was comparable to Sir Ivor or Nijinsky.Grundy’s preparation for this 3 year old campaign was interrupted in March by a training accident at Seven Barrows when he was kicked in the face by another three-year-old colt, Corby. He made his three-year-old debut in the Greenham Stakes April. Running on very heavy ground he lost his unbeaten record when he finished second by two lengths to Mark Anthony. In the 2000 Guineas, Grundy started 7-2 favourite in a field of 24 runners but finished second again, beaten half a length by the 33/1 outsider Bolkonski. The start of the race had been delayed for twenty minutes by protests by striking stable lads.[ Grundy was then shipped ashore to Ireland for the Irish 2000 Guineas. Seizing the lead at the midway point of the race he strode away to win comfortably by one and a half lengths from the French-trained Monsanto with Mark Anthony a length a way in third to record his first win of the season.
On 4 June Grundy started as the 6/4 favourite for the Epsom Derby which attracted a record crowd. The favourite was the French-trained Green Dancer who had won the Observer Gold Cup on his previous visit to Britain, and had since won the Poule d’Essai des Poulains and the Prix Lupin Grundy was held in check by Eddery in the early stages before moving up to fourth place on the turn into the straight. Grundy overtook the front-running Anne’s Pretender to take the lead a furlong and a half from the finish and drew clear to win by three lengths from the filly Nobiliary with Hunza Dancer in third. Three weeks after his win at Epsom, he ran in the Irish Derby for which he started 9/10 favourite. Trailing in seventh place coming into the home straight, he ressurected like a phoenix from the Ashes in an enthralling climax to win by two lengths from King Pellinore and Anne’s Pretender.
In both the Derbies Grundy displayed his powers of acceleration, which were the true hallmark of a champion.
The 1975 King George 6th and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes was arguably the greatest flat race ever where intensity or battle for supremacy reached regions untranscended.
Grundy started 5/4 on favourite against a very solid field in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes that was open to older horses. The participants included Eclipse Stakes winner [and later winner of the Arc], Star Appeal Dibidale, winner of the Irish Oaks , ,Dahlia , one of the greatest female horses in Thoroughbred racing history and winner of this race in 1973 and 1974 editions of the race , and Lady Beaverborrok’s four-year-old horse Bustino, the winner of the previous year’s St Leger Stakes winner Classic.Bustino’s two pacemaker stablemates, Highest and Kinglet, set a scorching early pace in the 2,414 metre (1½ miles) race as a strategy to run Grundy of his legs, to dispel his characteristic finishing acceleration. With the pacemakers’ jobs done to perfection and half a mile left to run, Bustino and jockey Joe Mercer hit the front.. He was four lengths ahead of the other runners on entering into the top of the straight when Pat Eddery urged on Grundy to step the gas.With 2 furlongs to go the race was reduced a 2 horse affair Grundy matched strides to later overtake Bustino .However Bustino clawed himself back to re capture the lead. Just fifty yards from the finishing line, a Grundy with the resilience of a soldier in a battle launched a rearguard action and recaptured the lead, staving off Bustino’s sustained effort to win by half a length after a “thrilling duel “with Dahlia another five lengths behind in third. Grundy’s winning time of 2:26.98 broke the race record by almost two and a half seconds, the record stood until 2010 when Harbinger ran 2:26.78 over a slightly modified course. As sometimes happens, a race of this nature took a toll on both horses. Bustino and Grundy appeared though all the reserves of petrol in the tank were depleted in the unsaddling enclosure. Bustino never raced again. Grundy took racing courage to heights unparalleled when overpowering Bustino.The memories of the duel in the race were like a monument worth preserving in a museum.
The gruelling contest took the toll out of Bustino and Grundy who were defeated in their subsequent races. I would bracket Grundy very close to Generous who too lost his form after the King George.Troy went one better by winning the Benson and Hegdes cup in 1979.Perhaps if Grundy had an a less competitive King George field he may have even gone on to win the ‘Arc’ but that is hypocritical.
Timeform rated Grundy at 137, on par with Troy ,as well as Racing Post. John Randall of Racing Post ranked Grundy as the 25th best British or Irish flat racehorse of the last Century Grundy was thus classified as an all-time great. Still n my view Sir Ivor and Golden Fleece, were both marginally better. Anyway that is a matter of opinion. I feel it was neck to neck between Generous,Troy and Grundy. Grundy won place amongst Julian Wilsons’ best horses on the flat.For sheer toughness I may rank Roberto and The Minstrel in the same class as Grundy ,but Grundy had superior class.
Grundy’s earnings of £326,421 broke the record] for a horse trained in Britain or Ireland which had previously been held by Mill Reef. The record was broken by The Minstrel in 1977.
Until 1984, Grundy stood at the British National Stud. A moderately successful stallion, Grundy’s Group One winners include the 1980 Epsom Oaks winner, Bireme,the 1981 Gran Premio D;Italia winner, Kirtling and the 1983 Ascot Gold Cup winner, Little Wolf.In November 1983, Grundy was sold for £1,600,000 and exported to stand in Japan where he died in 1992.
These are coming thick and fast!
New data source?
I’ve got loads to say on this one for personal reasons, but I’ll let someone else go first!
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Any excuse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4KvQ5fxsdE
So, it’s 1975, I’m 12, and my maths teacher Keith Rogers does a bit of local broadcasting for Radio Hallamshire on Doncaster races.
He knows I am a fledgling racing fan so he encourages me to run a book on the 1975 Derby.
Green Dancer is 6/4 favourite, but the only one the kids want is Grundy, who they’ve heard of, at 5/1.
Except Michael Powdrell who says his older cousin is something to do with Anne’s Pretender.
The rest is history – I think there was a jockey called Kevin Powdrell, maybe he was a stable lad in the years at the time, and hilariously years later as Editor of the Racing & Football Outlook, my former Maths teacher wrote in asking for work.
Anyway, Grundy was a good Derby winner and had a great battle with Bustino in the King George.
But neither are what I would call greats of the turf.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Not one of the greatest, but a very,very good racehorse and my favourite flat horse ever.As a 14 year old loved him as a two year old, a stunning chestnut with that white blaze.
Distraught when he lost his first two races as three year old he soon bounced back to enjoy a stellar career. I vividly remember listening to the Derby on the radio at school, oh I wish it was still held on a Wednesday,and cheering wildly when he won.
There’s nothing much to add to the King George other than to say the admiration I felt as a youngster for the guts and courage displayed still holds to this day.
“I vividly remember listening to the Derby on the radio at school”
That reminded me suddenly that I watched the aforementioned Maths teacher listening to commentary on a small radio held to his ear whilr looming nervously out the classroom window as the Deputy Head was prowling around and Rogers was meant to teaching Maths, not listening to Grundy.
Excellent description – very, very good but not quite a great….I’d go along with that.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Had to go with the very good but not great option – don’t want to offend his fans but is his elevated standing more down to the result of him winning that King George which turned out to be one of (if not) the greatest horse race of all time?
It all depends how far you cast that net with the word “great” printed on it.
My idea of the all-time “greats” simply isn’t as many as 25 plus horses – it’s more like ten.
He’s rated the same as Troy, another very good, but not great, horse in my book.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"
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