Are the Irish an innately wild people? This was certainly a popular theory among 19-th century journalists to explain why we loved watching horses and jockeys come a cropper over fences. “The exacting nature of [steeplechasing] is the delight of Irishmen,” one correspondent suggested, “who alone can fully appreciate the many casualties that occur”.
Frances Nolan’s expertly researched and richly illustrated book takes a more benign view. “Born of the land, this gloriously uncertain sport is embedded in Ireland’s history, culture and identity,” she writes, noting how the world’s first recorded steeplechase arose from a bet made over dinner at Buttevant Castle in 1752. A pair of Cork huntsmen raced 4½ miles over hedges, streams and stone walls to St Mary’s Church at Doneraile, with the victor receiving a cask of wine.
Since then, the stakes have got rather higher. Commissioned by the Irish National Hunt Steeplechase Committee to celebrate its 150th anniversary, Nolan’s earnest chronicle traces jump racing’s development into a €2.5 billion per annum industry employing more than 30,000 people. Brendan Behan famously described the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy as “a Protestant on a horse”, but the so-called sport of kings has also given many commoners a chance to make their fortunes.
Above all, Nolan argues, Irish steeplechasing is an important source of national pride. When trainer Vincent O’Brien’s steeds began dominating Cheltenham in the late 1940s, his wife Jacqueline told this newspaper, it felt like “for the first time, Ireland was the best at something”. Guinness liked to boast that the three-time Gold Cup winner Arkle, dubbed ‘Himself’ by an adoring Irish public, had two pints of the black stuff mixed with his oats every day.
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Nolan’s narrative, however, is not primarily focused on thrills and spills. Instead, she goes into painstaking detail about steeplechasing’s various regulatory bodies and fluctuating economics. There are worthy sections on equine-related issues such as betting tax, course technology and a recent surge in female jockeys dubbed the Rachael Blackmore effect. Thankfully, the rather staid prose is accompanied by more than 100 evocative photographs along with paintings, cartoons and reproductions of historic documents.
“Horses in Ireland are like a drug,” the diplomat Sir William Temple wrote to King Charles II in 1673. This thoroughbred production shows why the country remains well and truly hooked.
