A horse called Danoli

FOR every step Danoli takes, Tom Foley takes on too. Not 20 yards from the front door of Foley's home, Danoli looks out over his stable door to the new outhouses and watches the brick and mortar expansion of the trainer's modest holding. Lord of the yard and keeper of the public imagination.

Like any thoroughbred, he gives you the evil eye. He has his own thoughts, does his own thing. Not unpredictable, not nasty, but a well defined character. Foley will tell you that and more, because Foley is a talker and a believer in his horse. He converts all comers. Foley has sold the horse as something more than a dumb animal. The media have done the rest with caricature and hype and the public have weighed in. Danoli now carries emotion as well as money on his back.

"He never wants to make little of another horse," says Foley. "If he met a really bad horse he'd be happy to beat him by a length and if he met a really good horse he'd be the same way. He might beat him by a short head and be quite happy to do it."

Backed into the corner of his stall, that edgy stare and lone leg hovering just above the ground confirms his trainer's assertion that he is a champion who is indifferent to strangers but who rises to the buzz of the course. Danoli has had some time to enjoy his preference for familiar people and friendly surroundings: Shep the yard dog; his beat around the mud lanes and roads of Carlow; the field where he loses himself rolling in whatever mud and manure he can find.

Foley has indulged him this year. He put him out for the summer for the first time since his horse ignored the pain of a broken bone in his fetlock joint, cleared a hurdle and took Charlie Swan to the winning post at Aintree in 1995.

A summer of inactivity has been good for Danoli. For Foley, he has reacted beyond what he might have expected. He hopes that it is the renaissance of his champion.

"The horse changed completely. He loved getting out. Loved finding the dirtiest place in the field and rolling in it. He came back a different horse this year. He came back the horse we wanted.

A swatche of white bandage around his leg is the only indication of his fetlock injury. A warm wrap to keep arthritis at bay. That's on the outside. Save the two screws in his leg. Danoli is fully recovered. He has been one of the lucky ones. Arkle, three time Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, broke his leg in his final race and, after attempts to save him failed, was put down.

Eighteen months on from injury and after a handful of anxiety ridden outings Foley has giddy aspirations for Danoli once again. Yesterday, at Clonmel, was an education. But the horse must move on. Clonmel is not Cheltenham. Foley takes refuge in a "one race at a time" philosophy. But Cheltenham is breathing on him. That's where his horse was made.

Third in 1995 to Alderbrook and Large Action in the Champion Hurdle, fourth this year and a winner in 1994 in the Sun Alliance Novices' Hurdle, Danoli is a special competitor. And an unusual horse. Unusual not just in his humble origins, but in that he has come back from a point where others have perished.

THE small explosion of horse and jockey at the back of the chasing pack was barely caught by the cameras. Polaris Flight and John Reid crashed out of this year's Prix de L'Arc as unexpectedly as the ground at Longchamp had given way beneath them.

The bone in Polaris Flight's foreleg shattered and half a ton of animal touching 35 miles an hour ploughed into the turf. Reid lay motionless as an ambulance took him away. The screens went around Polaris Flight. The vet took one look at where the hone had broken the skin and immediately knew it was a compound fracture. It was clear that the animal had to be destroyed.

At the Listowel races in September, Charlie Swan experienced a similar fact of life. The big chaser, Life of a Lord, making way in front of the stands lost his balance and shattered his off foreleg. Swan slid off the horse immediately. He knew that something was seriously wrong. Again the screens came out and the crowd instinctively hushed. The course vet, Colm O'Callaghan, had one look and took the humane killer from his car. He knew the implications.

"I waited for a racing board official to give me the nod. But the bone was hanging out through the skin. They all realised it was bad," said O'Callaghan, who put down the animal.

At Cheltenham, this year, Draborgie, Mack the Knife, Kilfinny Cross, No When To Run, Major Rumpus, Riverdale Boy, Monsieur Le Cure, Martin's Lamp and Lamero all died during the climax of the three day festival. Nine in all perished in an unprecedented run of ill fortune, with trainer Martin Pipe alone losing two of his string in the first day.

Racing has never been said to be safe, either for horse or jockey. Dead horses are a fact of life.

"It's been a bad few weeks," says Foley, reminded of Polaris Flight and Life of a Lord. The fractured bone of his celebrated horse is a case study the racing industry would dearly wish to hold up as the norm. Both Danoli and Life of a Lord injured bones. Both were breaks and both were different. Only one was repairable.

"I don't know when it happened to Danoli," says Foley. "It must have been quick or perhaps it was because we were all so excited at the time. It was just as he was passing the winning post when Charlie (Swan) dropped his hands on him and I noticed him nodding. I knew that something was wrong at that stage. What first came to my mind was that the horse had broken down. We raced up to where he was and he was nodding all the more. Charlie just said to me `we're in trouble'."

"You could see the fetlock joint swelling when we took the boot off and he was in fierce pain. He was trembling all over, there was a white froth coming out of him and he kept nodding all the time. The vets were getting very worried about him.

"The ambulance was forced to wait until the Aintree meeting had finished in case another horse got hurt. But Danoli was given a police escort to the veterinary hospital at the University of Liverpool. When it arrived the vets were waiting. They'd the doors open, everything ready, the X ray machine set up. Nothing more could have been done," says Foley.

"We watched the race over again on TV and he jumped superb. The last jump was possibly his best. We all agreed it was at the second last hurdle that it happened. Then he got over the last and the bit home made it all the worse. He's the type of horse that will always battle. He'll stay going. If there been another jump he'd have stayed going until the leg would break completely. At home he hates pain, but at the race track divil the matter. He'll never, never give up."

The slab fracture Danoli sustained is common in racehorses. Occasionally, the bone cracks but remains in position and attached to the main body of bone. Sometimes the slab breaks off, goes into the joint and, as one vet put it "the leg falls to bits", Danoli's was midway on the spectrum.

"He had a complete fracture with a mobile bone and there was damage to the cartilage also," says Dr Chris Riggs of the Liverpool University Veterinary Clinic.

"Scrcwing the bone back is almost routine these days, but osteoarthritis setting in was always our worry because of the damaged cartilage. We also had to put the horse in plaster until it recovered fully from the operation. An animal weighing half a ton who struggles back to its feet immediately after the operation can cause tremendous problems. It's quite a violent movement. They can re fracture the leg or sometimes cause a new fracture."

When the plaster was removed Danoli was bandaged tightly every day. For two months he remained under medical care in Liverpool. Occasionally he was led out to pick at a patch of grass close by, as much for his mind as his body.

"Very, very few come back," says Foley. "In a seven year old like Danoli, the bone is done growing. In a younger horse, you've a better chance of success. He almost broke off half the bone and although the vets knew they could save the horse, they said that the chances of coming back to racing, was, very slight. They kept saying to me don't get your hopes up, the chances of racing again is nearly nil.

Des Leadon of the Irish Equine Association points to post operative care as being critical.

"It's very difficult to explain to a horse not to put weight on an injured leg. And if that can be done the full weight of the horse must be borne by the other three legs. It can sometimes be disastrous for the other legs. Because of the anatomical structure of the horse they just can't bear the weight."

Danoli's vets in Liverpool voiced similar concerns. "The opposite front leg came under strain. We were concerned that the tendons would become strained or laminitis would affect the hoof," says Dr Riggs.

Leadon also points out that the statistics show that only 0.02 per cent of injuries are terminal. He also suggests that steeplechasing is not necessarily a greater risk than flat racing, as many people would believe.

"Steeplechasing is slower than flat racing for a start. If you look at the mechanics of a moving horse you will see that one foot is responsible for the transition of weight. That represents half a ton of animal possibly moving at 35 mph. So there is a lot of momentum.

Foley's instinct told him that the horse was different, that it could survive and thrive. "Nearly every report said that Danoli wouldn't come back. But he out bested everyone. It's typical of the horse. He loves racing, loves to see the saddles coming. It was only after he had come back and was beaten that they told me there was only ever a five per cent chance of him making it."

Danoli's medical record also echoes that of another high profile horse to have beaten the odds. Mill Reef, who won the Prix de L'Arc and the Epsom Derby in 1971 as a three year old, was one of the first animals to be successfully treated for a broken leg.

As a stallion Mill Reef's value in stud was immense. His leg was put in a cast and his body suspended in a cradle like device for months until the hones knit. Mill Reef subsequently became a highly valued stallion in England.

While the carnage at Cheltenham was an aberration, the fatality rate overall appears to be very low. "There are 1,000 runners every year in Ireland involving 5,000 horses," says a Turf Club official. "On average, each of those horses runs 4.8 times. I doubt it you ever get into double figures with fatalities at a meeting."

DANOLI was bought for £7,000. Foley had him six weeks and was offered £14,000. When he won at Cheltenham in 1994 they were offered £300,000.

Around that time Foley says, "if you'd put half a million (price) on him you would have got it." The horse is not for sale.

Foley had another runner, a four year old called Moonman. He'd won two bumpers and was going for his third just after Danoli's Cheltenham success. Moonman had a great future. In Foley's mind the thought was that if anything happened to Danoli, he always had Moonman. He was a head strong horse and determined. Different from Danoli.

Going into the second last hurdle at Navan, a long way in front, Moonman collapsed and shattered his leg. He had to be destroyed.

"It's along way from Navan home with an empty box. It's hard to start up the next day. Some might kick you, some might bite you, but you get to know them and you don't mind," says Foley.

The ground is coming right for Danoli now. He likes the mark of a hoof on the turf, but nothing tacky. The summer of 95, a hot summer, and the horse was stuck in his box looking out mystified. He eventually became unmanageable. Danoli kept pushing Foley to do more and more. Foley kept ringing the vet. The vet was cautious but said go ahead. He was schooled over fences. Bigger jumps. Bigger demands. He's met them all so far.

"You always have a worry, but not that the bone will break again. It's probably stronger. The joint itself. . you'd be afraid that jumping a fence he might knuckle over. But he's a good jumper. He minds himself and after 21 or 22 races there's very little mileage in him."

Danoli came into 1996 on the back of confined and painstaking rehabilitation. No summer grass in his blood. No soft rain on his boat or rollicking in the mud. But be came back willing when other horses did not. That, Tom Foley will tell you, 15 Danoli.