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On the back of Peruvian Chief’s excellent "I was there" thread how about telling us which racing moment you would love to have seen in the flesh.
As it’s my thread I’m going for two. Both Dessie and Dawn Run’s victories in the Gold Cup are races which still send shivers down my spine when I watch them and it must have been amazing to have been part of the crowd.
Mind you, without Sir Peter’s commentaries.
Frankel’s 2000 Guineas!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a race that had gripped me from start to finish as this one did.
1) The element of surprise when Frankel shot from the stalls and immediately started turning the screw. I was like "What’s this?"
2) After 3 furlongs his commanding stride already taking its toll on other horses as he increases his lead to around six lengths. I laughed when Frankie Dettori was pushing and shoving on Casamento trying to keep up.
3) The camera zooming in on Frankel and seeing the mechanical perfection of his super stride. I marvelled.
4) Just over halfway and Frankel is in orbit. I recall my mouth being open and dry.
5) Two furlongs out and although Frankel’s lead has been reduced, there’s a knowing feeling that nothing is going to get near him. My heart is pounding like a kettle drum.
6) Frankel steams past the winning line and I’m filled with jollification and wonder.
I can only imagine what the atmosphere must of felt like watching it at the racecourse. Jeez, I need a time machine!
Patriot,
Thanks to the advantages of age and a location not far from HQ, I was an annual Cheltenham member seated in the main stand overlooking the run-in for both those Gold Cups.
The latter was especially emotional for me as I’d had two horses with David Elsworth earlier in the decade, and Janice Coyle (who led up Desert Orchid), had her first exposure to handling a runner in a big race when she led up one of mine in the 1981 Cesarewitch. Because of that connection, I’d followed the grey from his very earliest days at the stable and had seen most of his races in the flesh.
Dawn Run was a great mare and the Irish part of the crowd generated enormous excitement after her win, but with Desert Orchid, the feeling was that the entire crowd was happy after the race and the emotion around the winners enclosure has never been matched in my personal experience. The official responsible for getting a sample for the dope test kept calling ‘Horses Away’, but the crowd howled him down several times, insisting on one more lap of honour.
And even before the Gold Cup, we’d had emotional and moving scenes in the winners enclosure after the Foxhunters, won by the locla horse Three Counties, ridden by Katie Rimell and trained by her extremely popular grandmother Mercy Rimell. It was an afternoon to cherish in the memory.
A virtual novice, and we all know the record of novices in the Gold Cup, a chancy jumper, Cleeve Hill shrouded in mist, the atmosphere gladiatorial. Every time she she came to a fence, the crowd would hush. Run + Skip harried her all the way, she looked beaten at the last but surged up the hill into history. As Jonjo punches the sky, you’ll see a black hat sailing up into the air; that was my hat.
Unforgettable!Depressingly, if Dawn Run was around now she’d probably have Cornelius Lysyght creaming his pants by winning 3 Mares Hurdles and a Rynair.
Sorry to digress – I would have loved to have been present when Fahey and Hanagan broke their G1 ducks in France with Wootton Bassett. Richly deserved.
For me it has to be Red Rum’s third Grand National win. Though I’d really like to have the big screen viewing available for it so I could actually see all the race rather than just when the horses run past where I was standing.
Frankel’s 2000 Guineas!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a race that had gripped me from start to finish as this one did.
1) The element of surprise when Frankel shot from the stalls and immediately started turning the screw. I was like "What’s this?"
2) After 3 furlongs his commanding stride already taking its toll on other horses as he increases his lead to around six lengths. I laughed when Frankie Dettori was pushing and shoving on Casamento trying to keep up.
3) The camera zooming in on Frankel and seeing the mechanical perfection of his super stride. I marvelled.
4) Just over halfway and Frankel is in orbit. I recall my mouth being open and dry.
5) Two furlongs out and although Frankel’s lead has been reduced, there’s a knowing feeling that nothing is going to get near him. My heart is pounding like a kettle drum.
6) Frankel steams past the winning line and I’m filled with jollification and wonder.
I can only imagine what the atmosphere must of felt like watching it at the racecourse. Jeez, I need a time machine!
I was on a mate’s stag do in Bournemouth that weekend and slipped off from the pub to the nearest bookie to watch the race. Your words pretty much sum up to perfection my reaction watching that race.
Brave Inca’s Champion Hurdle.
Kauto Star winning the Gold Cup in 07.
Canford Cliffs Queen Anne beating Goldikova.
Premio Loco winning the winter Derby.
Don’t Push It’s Grand National.
Ouija Board and Alexander Goldrun’s Nassau Stakes.Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Frankel’s Guineas was a proper ‘wtf’ moment right enough. I remember thinking, ‘Cecil’s gonna kill Queally for this’ after two furlongs. unbelievable.
But my ‘wish I’d been there’ race is another already mentioned, Red Rum’s third National. There have been so many great racing stories over the years but that was surely the greatest of all.
Too many to mention over the 40+ years I’ve been following the gallant game, let alone those way back when; so I’ll restrict my choices to this miillennium and in fact one horse – Denman
His Gold Cup and second Hennessy were devastating exhibitions and have left a lasting impression at least on a par with any other race or horse I’ve seen: real pit-of-the-stomach, shake-your-head, blow-out-your cheeks, super-admirable stuff
Days when nothing else mattered but the horse, the noble horse
I wish I had been there…
…to visit any UK Rules or Pointing course that became defunct before I got chance to enjoy a day’s fare there.
I’ve a little to reproach myself from a Rules point of view, having never seen jumps action at Nottingham or Flat racing at either Folkestone or Warwick despite all still remaining active for at least some of my adult life. Stockton I couldn’t have done a right lot about, being barely seven when it bit the dust.
So many Pointing venues have expired in my lifetime, too. Stainton, Castle Of Comfort, Magor (among countless esoteric Welsh venues) and – in particular – Lemalla are just four of several that read from
Annual
write-ups like the preserves of the masochistic only.
The vast, Mendip-hugging line at Nedge, though; or the popular challenge of Kingweston with virtually every fence built into a hedgerow; or the dramatic swoops and contours of original Lord Ashton of Hyde Cup host venue Fox Farm – all places that look truly amazing from the pictures that survive, and all places I could have got to with greater planning, resource, money and perspicacity. Gone.
In the next life, I’m hoping to be born a few decades earlier.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
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