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I first became an owner as part of a three man partnership in October 1979 and although some of what follows in the story of that horse may seem hard to believe, I hope it will also entertain and amuse those that stick with the tale.
In October 1978, I flew out to Kuwait City to start a one year contract at the Kuwaiti Government Computer Centre, attracted by a large tax free salary. There were three of us on that flight and we were to share a flat, so that we were thrown together 24/7. Once we’d gotten established, our hobbies were the beach, cards and home brewing, but I also had a fellow racing and betting enthusiast to share my interests. His wife had remained in England to work and she sent his copy of the Raceform/Chaseform Notebook updates through the post every week.
Inevitably we gained other friends from within the ex-pat community either through our work, which involved contact with all the goverment ministries, or through our hosting of a weekly poker game. In the summer of 1979, my flatmate and I, along with one of our new friends, decided that we’d invest some of our healthy income in a racechorse, to give us a focal point of interest for the year ahead, as we’d agreed to a second year on our contracts.
After several evenings of heated debate and time spent trawling through the form books, we decided that David Elsworth, then a first year trainer, would be our man, based on his record of winning races with cheaply purchased cast-offs. Contact was established and DE invited us to visit his stables on the Sunday morning prior to the Newmarket Autumn sales, which would take place while we were home on a months holiday between contracts.
It was the first time I’d ever been inside a racing stable and I was frankly in awe of the trainer, but one thing he said as we looked at his horses did stick in my mind. “This is Head Scarf, a 3-y-old filly and she’ll win the seller at Brighton on Tuesday.” He spoke as though it was a foregone conclusion rather than an expression of hope, which prompted me to make the journey from London to Brighton two days later and lay out £200 at 11/2 in the ring. Head Scarf (Form figures 000000), ridden by Richard Fox, won the Stelning Selling Handicap over 7F for 3-y-olds by seven lengths and I was pretty sure we’d chosen the right man!
I waited for DE by the winners enclosure after the auction and he dragged me off to the bar, where he ordered G+Ts all round. When I offered to pay, he said his £50 at 5/1 would cover it, but when I mentioned my bet, he turned to the barman and shouted ‘Make them doubles and he’s paying’ – I never got another tip off him for any horse other than the ones I owned!
Two days later we met at the Tattersalls sales complex in Newmarket and DE indicated two horses from the catalogue that he felt would be available for our proposed budget of £3,000. He later rejected the first one as too small for hurdling, but the second one was approved and we were delighted to be able to purchase Comrie for 1,900 gns. Such was my naivety about this process that I’d turned up with three grand in cash jammed into my coat pockets, totally unaware that Tattersalls would bill the trainer and we’d then pay him. The scene in the office when I started to count out £20 notes would have made a Bateman cartoon. For those unfamiliar with the genre here’s an example:
http://www.hmbateman.com/half_guinea.htm
Comrie had recommended himself to DE by winning a 10F maiden at Windsor during the summer, as well as a couple of other placings, and he also looked to have the size and substance needed for the jumping game. It was thus a big blow when we saw him back in his box fifteen minutes after the sale, as six sedate circuits of the ring had left him wheezing like a sixty a day smoker. As an asthmatic myself, I could sympathise, but I wasn’t planning to spend the winter running two miles races in the mud round Exeter or Towcester.
By chance this also turned out to be just about the most important day in the first year of Elsworth’s training career, as earlier in the afternoon, he spent 14,.500gns on a 3-y-old gelding called Heighlin. Within the next twelve months, that horse had won the Triumph Hurdle and eight staying handicaps on the flat at distances from 2M to 2M 4F, including the Ascot and Goodwood Stakes. It was his success with Heighlin that helped persuade the owners of horses like Desert Orchid, Combs Ditch, Barnbrook Again, Floyd and many others to join his stable.
By the time we’d returned to Kuwait in early November, poor old Comrie had been gelded and tubed, but he recovered quickly from both operations and we were warned that he’d be ready to run over hurdles (no AW then of course) soon after Christmas. The story of his first seaon to follow in Part 2.
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