It’s been 30 years since Paddy Clancy first made a pilgrimage to the great racing festival at Cheltenham – and he’s galloped back many times since
I ONCE HAD a share in the mother of a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner and didn’t even back it. Worse, I put my money on another horse in that race and it finished down the field. I deserved the kick in the wallet for not keeping track of what the mum of my nag was up to after she left me.
The Gold Cup winner was Imperial Call, who led the field up the hill to the finish in the race in 1996. She was ridden by Conor O’Dwyer and trained by Fergie Sutherland. My alert only went up when the legendary racing commentator, Peter O’Sullevan, said that Imperial Call was by Callernish out of Princess Menelek.
Princess Menelek? Princess Menelek had been 5/12ths mine in a slightly complicated partnership. I had owned most of the back-end of a mare that was now the mother of a world champion – and I had let her go.
She was the only racehorse I ever owned. We got an unexpected point-to-point win with her at 8/1. I remember having only a fiver on her that day just to show some interest. The trainer afterwards said it wasn’t that she was best at the end, but that the others were worst in a poor field.
It didn’t matter. I was a part owner of a winner. I felt like JP McManus. Princess Menelek was going to be my passport to racing riches like his.
Of course it didn’t happen. Just when we were ready to scalp the bookies at some little-known track she injured herself in a prep race and her career was over.
We cut our losses, flogged her for not a great price and I forgot about her until more than 10 years later when she got that mention at the greatest steeplechase in the world.
That’s racing. Sometimes it’s enough to drive you to drink, and there’s been a lot of that over the years at Cheltenham. But I also know a guy who was put off the booze for life by his Cheltenham experience.
Whenever you are watching reruns of the great Dawn Run Gold Cup triumph in 1986 – when Jonjo O’Neill famously punched the air as he steered the people’s champion first past the post – take a peek at the top of the screen. You will see a lone hat thrown in the air at the precise moment Jonjo was raising his fist in triumph. The hat belonged to a friend of mine who watched the race from a precarious perch on a bookie’s upturned tea-chest right opposite the finish.
My pal, who shall remain nameless to protect the innocents who are part of his now very respectable lifestyle, had been drinking for Ireland for three days.
He toppled from his perch when Dawn Run appeared to struggle in fourth place between the final two fences. He was just back on board the tea-chest as the race ended. He was unaware, until he saw Jonjo’s raised fist, that his £500 bet at 5/2 meant he was £1,250 richer.
Up went the hat – he hasn’t seen it since, except on telly – and despite great difficulty in placing one foot in front of the other, my mate was swept along with a crowd of cheering Irish into the winners’ enclosure.
There, he threw his arms around the nearest woman and gave her a great hug. It was the Queen Mother. He felt so lucky he wobbled back to the bookies to back the next Jonjo runner, not caring what the odds were or the horse’s name. It was Jobroke, and it won and my pal with a £200 bet at 6/1 was another £1,200 up.
The rest is misty history. All he remembers is how awful he felt the next day. He reckons the taxi taking him to Heathrow for the flight home had to make at least 30 stops to accommodate him. He hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol since.
Cheltenham is full of coincidence. I recalled my friend’s encounter with the Queen Mum when 17 years later I stood close enough to her great grand-daughter, Zara Philips, to see the tears of joy in her eyes as her then boyfriend Richard Johnson steered Rooster Booster to victory in the Champion Hurdle. Cheltenham is like that. Whether you are English royalty or an ordinary Paddy nobody cares. All are equal on the same turf.
I BLAME A HORSE CALLED Kilcoleman for my addiction to Cheltenham. I was working in London when I paid my first visit to the festival in 1977 and I hadn’t a clue about the form of the horses.
On the train journey from Paddington I noticed the name of Kilcoleman and that it was trained by Billy Boyers in the beautiful seaside village of Rosses Point, close to my home town Sligo. Sligo isn’t exactly a mecca of racing. But it’s not a total backwater, either. Joss Bentley put the town on the racing map when he won the 1925 Cheltenham Gold Cup with Ballinode. Then Leo McMorrow, accepting a ride turned down by a sceptical Dick Francis, rode Russian Hero to victory in the 1949 Grand National.
I wondered if Kilcoleman, an outsider in the newspapers, had a chance. Fate was on my side. One of the first people I met in the first few minutes at the first bar I entered on my first day at Cheltenham was a girl from home I hadn’t seen for years. She knew her horses. She knew Billy Boyers, and she knew he quietly expected Kilcoleman to win.
For the London-born friend who travelled with me, that was sufficient. He had heard that a tip from a Paddy was as good as a win or something like that. Actually, I think he fancied the girl with the tip. Me? I wasn’t so sure. Well, we are inclined to spoof the Brits a bit, aren’t we?
My mate plunged with a tenner. I, more cautious, bet a fiver. We got odds of about 20/1. Kilcoleman did the business in the County Hurdle. My Cockney mate’s been in love with the Irish ever since and I’ve been hooked on Cheltenham.