Diplomatic nag – An Irishman’s Diary about the British ambassador and Tipperary Tim

Among those attending the British ambassador’s farewell party on Tuesday was a Jack Russell terrier called Orby. And thereon hangs a tale (as well as a tail).

The original Orby, in whose honour the dog is named, was a four-legged creature of a different kind. His finest moment was the Epsom Derby of 1907, after which he was welcomed back to Dublin by a crowd including one exultant woman who was quoted as thanking God that she had lived to see “a Catholic horse” win the famous race.

This was of course a dubious claim. Orby was of Anglo-American stock, and so just as likely to be Episcopalian. Even his celebrity owner – Cork-born “Boss” Croker, formerly of Tammany Hall – was Protestant.

But regardless of religion, Orby did become a national hero. When he died, he was buried alongside his mother, opposite the front door of Croker’s mansion at Glencairn. And although that is now the home of Britain’s ambassador to Ireland, the grave remains a shrine.

Glencairn was where Dominick Chilcott was taking his bow this week, after a longer than usual tour of duty, extended by the need to have an experienced head in place during the sensitive 1916 centenary season.

The embassy’s Jack Russell aside, meanwhile, there was a more obvious horse-racing presence at the farewell in the form of a number of top Irish trainers, including Aidan O’Brien.

Inquiries revealed that the link with the horsey world was not via the late Croker, but via the living Jane Chilcott, the ambassador’s wife, who although English, has an impeccable Tipperary racing pedigree, including family involvement in another epochal victory.

Her male ancestors include one James Ryan-O’Connor, who was best known in life as a London bookmaker (his customers are said to have included King Edward VII), but who also had a house back in is native Rosegreen, near Cashel.

On his many racing trips to Limerick Junction, he was known from throwing money out the windows of the train to children. Alas, financial carelessness on a larger scale would one day cost him heavily.

Late in life, he was involved in an enormous bet – several thousand pounds – and neglected to “lay it off”, as bookies usually would. So he finished up bankrupt, with £200 to his name.

In the meantime, and with happier result, he contributed half of the parentage in an Irish equine-breeding event that, circa 1918, produced a horse called Tipperary Tim. The latter was named after a real-life Tim Crowe, a prolific athlete in the early decades of the last century.

Unlike the two-legged Tim, however, the four-legged version was somewhat one-paced. It was not a fast pace, either. He was sold as a yearling for £50 and later, it seems, given away as a present.

But as his eventual English trainer noted, he had one important quality for a jumps horse: “He never falls”. And his became a supreme virtue in the Aintree Grand National of 1928, when Tipperary Tim was one of 42 horses to compete.

His chances were rated 100-1 and his jockey Billy Dutton later claimed that a friend had told him: “You’ll only win if all the others fall”. But sure enough, that’s what happened.

His classier rivals, interestingly, included one called Easter Hero. Foaled in Dublin, it was named in tribute to the rebels of 1916, and its many career prizes eventually included two Cheltenham Gold Cups.

But in Aintree in 1928, Easter Hero took off too early at the canal turn fence, landed on top of it, and caused a pile-up. Dutton, meanwhile, rode with the caution of a solicitor – which is what he was by profession – taking the long but safe way around on the outside.

So after the last jump, Tipperary Tim was the only horse left standing, although the jockey on Billy Barton remounted to chase the winner home.

There may have been a moral in all this for the outgoing British ambassador. Certainly, his marathon tour of duty here seems to have been a diplomatic triumph, in which he avoided the potential pitfalls presented by Easter heroes. Also, he is now getting out while ahead, unlike Tipperary Tim.

A measure of the latter’s shock victory was that, in the 1929 National, no fewer than 66 horses started. They fared proportionately better than the previous year’s field, with 10 managing to finish. Lightning did not strike twice, however. Tipperary Tim was still one-paced, and still 100-1. This time, he fell.