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“I can guarantee that those who got hooked in the 70’s if faced with a similar survey would have been enthusiastic enough to have gone back down the years and put the likes of Sir Ken, Hatton’s Grace and Persian War under consideration, besides those greats of that then present decade.”
100% THIS.
Tudor Minstrel and Abernant were “before my time,” but I made it my business to find out about them.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"You might also get some of the recency bias for people who say they are fans of sport ‘x’ but that it only covers maybe the last 10-15 yrs or less. Depending on how much you like said sport you may be engaged enough to learn more about its history/heritage and then you come to discover earlier participants and some of the feats they accomplished, which would never be attemted by today’s participants.
For me my grandad got me into racing purely by the fact that on a Saturday he would have the tv on and his Daily Mirror out on the table turned to the racing page studying form when I was about 4 or 5 yrs old and I would ask what he was doing and then he would explain to me and then we would watch the racing later that day and mark off the first three home in the paper……I was hooked and that continued on as I got older with us going racing during holidays and several coach trips to Epsom for the Derby (Shergar strangely enough being the first one, although all I could see from the infield over the vast amount of opened topped buses was brief flashes of a green helmet followed by well pretty much nothing with him being that far clear up the straight).
Before that I had already found my favourite horse to watch in Sea Pigeon simply because he was a dual purpose horse which meant I was able to watch him all year round plus I was given a book on him (The Sea Pigeon Story by Bill Curling, which I still have to this day) as a birthday present and that brought up the likes of Night Nurse, Monksfield & Bird’s Nest and that started me into looking back and discovering other great hurdlers and by extension chasers etc….
I have a vivid memory of school finishing at 3:30pm (the exact start time of the 1981 Champion Hurdle) and me running flat out the whole way home (fortunately the school was onlyan 8-10 minute walk from home) in order to turn on the TV just in time to see John Francome pulling double two out on the old man (as Peter O’Sullivan dubbed him on his commentary on the run in).
I also remember not more than a year later when the news came shortly before the Festival that he had been retired (I believe stating he had not recovered from an illness) and feeling like I had lost a friend because I wasn’t ever going to see him racing again.
Whilst no other horse (with the possible exception of Frankel but that was also because of the Sir Henry’s backstory running along with it) has had that particular effect on me since (I guess growing older you become more hardened to that feeling although I wasn’t much older than 10 at that time that Sea Pigeon retired) but the love of the sport and the ability of horses to suck you in to their life story and those of the connections is still a powerful drug.
There is so much rich history to the sport that a lot of these so called recent devotees to the sport are missing out if they don’t take some time to look back especially considering how easy some of this information is now available on the various media platforms to the masses then it ever was back when I got into it.
Agree LD73 – you use to have to rumble around second hand bookshops or visit dusty libraries to find out of print racing books. Now there is minimum effort involved for those who have an appetite for digesting historical information. A couple of clicks on e bay and you can find Timeform Annuals at bargain basement prices – just the other day I was reading the essay on Alcide from the 1958 Annual.
Two other cracking books, both from late 70’s early 80’s are Classic Lines and Decade of Champions – without sounding all gooey the prose from Patrick Robinson is beautifully created and there are full plate sized reproductions of Richard Stone Reeves paintings. Both great dip in and out books and would be hugely educational too for those wanting to pick up on some of the great equine contributors to the sport.
“you use to have to rumble around second hand bookshops”
Allen’s, opposite Buckingham Palace, was the place to go. Really miss that place.
There are also a few racehorses who’ve become mythologized in music to the point where people don’t even realize they actually existed. There’s an old bluegrass standard called “Molly and Tenbrooks”, the spelling of the names and the lyrics vary but it is based on an actual match race held in 1878 between Mollie McCarty and Ten Broeck. Bill Monroe’s version is the most well-known (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pK3kfq4y6Q). A song about the real 18th century English racehorse Skewball crossed over to America as “Stewball” in two versions, a chain-gang call-and-response version recorded by Leadbelly that conflates him with the Molly and Tenbrooks story (https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z2JdHcpfDIE) and a ballad most famously covered by Peter Paul and Mary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXdQB-mR4tg)
LD73 – just for interest, Sea Pigeon lived with my friend Polly in his retirement. He was sent to her stables to recuperate from his illness and, sadly, just left there when it became clear he couldn’t race again. Lord Oaksey raised money to pay for his treatment. Polly loved him and kept him until he had to be PTS. He was completely beautiful and I considered him my friend. He was an intelligent horse and pretty strong willed but as he aged, he mellowed. He chewed a hole in my jumper once, while I was wearing it, because I wasn’t quick enough with the mints. He was the light of Polly’s life and she too called him The Old Man. He was never on his own in his retirement and Polly was with him at the end.
Some brilliant posts here, thanks to everyone who has commented so far
The discussion about having knowledge of other sports that you don’t follow is interesting. I have no interest in golf or rugby, but could name far more golfers than rugby players for no obvious reason!
Racing has become sufficiently niche that the level of knowledge is almost non-existent for those that don’t follow it. This is especially true for younger people; it is so easy now to put yourself into a bubble where you don’t get exposed to things that are different, or that are outside your predefined interests.
Returning to my list of the top 10 most famous racehorses in the UK at the start of this thread, I’ve not seen any comments that make me think it was too far off, though the “fame” levels are none too high!
On reflection, I’d probably move Dessie ahead of Arkle, and add in Seabiscuit ahead of Aldaniti. My thoughts re Seabiscuit are that he was in an Oscar-nominated film, and this alone will ensure he is remembered by quite a few film buffs regardless of whether they care about racing. His quirky name also helps with memorability. Perhaps he should be even higher, though I don’t think he would be above Red Rum or Shergar.
So my updated list is:
1) Red Rum
2) Shergar
3) Desert Orchid
4) Arkle
5) Seabiscuit
6) Aldaniti
7) Frankel
8) Tiger Roll
9) Kauto Star
10) DenmanApologies to Best Mate for his relegation – I still love him anyway
He did not have a particularly distinguished career but Whistlejacket must be one of the most famous racehorses courtesy of George Stubbs’s masterpiece in the National Gallery:
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/george-stubbs-whistlejacket
Another ‘Stewball’ version; “The Plains of Kildare,’ by Andy Irvine and Paul Brady https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJNcEgTTCXY
There have been a few songs about Arkle, but this is the most recent and the best; more than just about Arkle, I think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzntoINLqgQ&t=138s
Bonazaboy – thanks for that comment, another thing to add to the long list of things Lord Oaksey did for racing.
I do remember when the horse would show up to racecourses in his retirement (if memory serves it was usually for the Ebor which he still holds the weight carrying record of 10st some 43 yrs later) and they always mentioned that Polly was the one leading him up.
Sad that it was a pedal bone issue that meant he couldn’t be saved but he left us at the ripe old age of 30 with a lifetime of memories and fittingly he was burried under two beech trees at Peter Easterby’s side by side with his old stable companion/rival Night Nurse with a plaque that details both of their career successes with the fitting epitaph of “LEGENDS IN THEIR LIFETIMES’.
It was also nice to see that Jonjo now owns The Old Man’s racing colours for his own racing syndicate, just a shame he will never have a horse that could do even half justice to them.
It is not as famous as Whistlejacket but “Hambletonian, Rubbing Down” by Stubbs is arguably even greater:
https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1220985
In all the recent discussion about whip use, it is worth remembering what racing used to be like. During their famous match at Newmarket, reporters noted how both Diamond and Hambletonian had been “much cut with the whip” and “severely goaded with the spur”, Hambletonian, ridden by the jockey Francis Buckle, “shockingly so.”
The Hambletonian I (and likely more Americans) am familiar with is the half-bred foundation sire of the Standardbred breed, officially known as Hambletonian 10 (it was a common name in the 18th-19th century apparently). https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_325762 The Hambletonian Stakes is the most famous harness race in the country, which is to say that it is the only one that has had major television coverage.
Had a Family Fortunes type question in the pub a few years ago. Name a horse that won The Derby? Nijinsky came top above Shergar which surprised me. Is this because people do not relate Shergar with the Derby whilst they do Nijinsky especially with Piggott on board?
Surprising isn’t it Homer? So many people remember Nijinsky. I suppose it must be the Piggott association, though it’s not like he was the only horse he rode!
Very good colt with a great name, great jockey in his hey day, at the dawn of the colour TV era, so everyone saw his pilot treat his rivals with contempt with a clarity possibly not quite as apparent as had been the case with Sea Bird in black and white a few years earlier.
Nijinsky had a charisma and a name that resonated – and Piggott was just unstoppable back then, whether it was delivering Sir Ivor late and fast or just cruising all over everything on this one: https://youtu.be/04uO3yqLllI
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"
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