by Dick Francis
Varinia finished third. Lester had made his point, but no one was sure at what cost.
During the weeks ahead, it became clear it had been at very little cost at all. Lester continued to win races almost daily, fuelled by the whole bunch of trainers he normally rode for when not wanted by Noel Murless. He rode three winners at Royal Ascot, and with a flourish brought home Pieces of Eight in the Eclipse for Vincent O'Brien, earning prize money not so very far behind the Oaks.
Three days before the Eclipse, Lester rode again for Noel Murless. Neither had wanted the open split, and in quiet and in private they patched it up. Lester reserved his right to choose his mounts in big races and Noel offered him the stable hope, Aunt Edith, in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes.
Aunt Edith was one Lester was definitely not going to turn down. The sedate name did no justice to the zipalong four-year-old filly which Lester had ridden to easy victory in the Yorkshire Cup just before the Valoris/Varinia affair. Since then, she had flopped at Royal Ascot (with Scobie Breasley), but Lester harked back to her three-year-old days when she and he had skipped lightheartedly away with a big race at Goodwood and then the much bigger Prix Vermeille at Longchamp, prize money £30,485.
Lester rode Aunt Edith in the King George in the simple and well-tried pattern: take her to the front fairly early and just stay there. Stay there he did, although Aunt Edith this time was sorely pressed by the favourite, Sodium, which in the last stages of the race was gaining with every stride. Lester, riding all out, saved the day by an exhausted half-length, and later in the afternoon won twice more, making a Murless treble.
After that triumph, all seemed to go on as before in Warren Place, but to the trainer's repeated offer of a retainer and a binding contract for the following year, the jockey said no. Lester very much wanted to continue with the stable, but on his own terms.
Noel not surprisingly felt that he had to have a jockey he could be sure of for big events. With nothing resolved they continued their normal winning progress, and in October, all hatchets buried, Lester won on Varinia at Ascot.
During the latter half of the season two especially significant things happened. First, in the Champion Stakes (October, Newmarket), Lester chose to ride Vincent O'Brien's Eclipse winner, Pieces of Eight, in preference to Hill Rise on which he had won the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes by a neck last time out for Noel Murless. Again, Lester chose right.
Second, Lester rode two winners on the Murless-trained two-year-old Royal Palace which was showing definite promise. Lester, however, didn't think the colt was anything really special because on the second occasion, in the Royal Lodge Stakes, the horse refused to start properly and was left by six lengths, and later wanted to run out instead of straightening after the bend: Lester was put off, and that time he was wrong.
Royal Palace, the following year, won the Two Thousand Guineas and the Derby, without Lester on board. During the early part of the winter, Noel again asked Lester to commit himself to Warren Place. Lester still preferred freedom of choice. Noel finally decided he needed the certainty of a contracted jockey more than fife with an unpredictable wizard, and he invited George Moore to come from Australia to take the post.
George Moore accepted, and the long scintillating Murless-Piggott era finally came to an end. "I left a year too soon," Lester said later. "But I never regretted leaving."
During that last season, Lester won 191 races, more than in any other year, thirty-five of them, despite the hiatus in the middle, for Noel Murless. Many predicted that Lester had made a fool of himself, as it was considered that no jockey, however good, could successfully freelance. The last who had tried it, Steve Donoghue, had promptly and permanently lost his wellestablished champion status to Gordon Richards. Lester, it was said, had consigned himself to oblivion.
Lester took no notice of the pessimists who presumably hadn't done any sums either.
Of Lester's 191 winners, 156 had been for trainers other than Noel Murless, and the champion had every hope those trainers would still employ him. Naturally, they did.
When the best jockey is to be had for the asking, one asks. Lester had always ridden for his father-in-law, Fred (Sam) Armstrong, when he could and in 1967 he could most of the time. There were other regulars like Fulke Johnson Houghton and Freddy Maxwell, and many occasionals such as Dick Hem, Ryan Price, Sam Hall and Pat Rohan.
With mixed feelings and a stoical exterior, Lester back down the field watched Royal Palace win the Two Thousand Guineas, and the next day rode Noel Murless's second runner, Royal Saint, in the Old Thousand Guineas, coming ninth in a close-packed finish behind the stable's first string winner, Fleet.
Ah, said the know-ails with malicious grins, serve him right. He could have won two classics, they said.
Lester doggedly went on winning a good many smaller races, giving more than value for money, and by sheer force of appearing constantly in the frame began to silence the critics. The Derby, all the same, was a wry experience. George Moore won on Royal Palace: Lester rode Ribocco for Fulke Johnson Houghton and finished second by two and a half lengths. Every chance, not quite enough speed. The critics still smirked.
Ribocco, by, Ribot, had been an outstanding two-year-old but in his first three-yearold outings had run below his promise. In the Derby itself, his old form had swept back encouragingly, and he and Lester were sent to the Irish Sweeps Derby at the Curragh three weeks later.
There Ribocco beat a Murless horse, Sucaryl, into second place, and the critics were more or less silenced. A few grins broke out again when Noel's Busted won the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes with Lester on Ribocco third, but when Ribocco and Lester scorched ground to defeat Noel's excellent Hopeful Venture within the last furlong of the St. Leger, there was nothing more to be said. Lester had made the "impossible" transition, had won at least one of the classics, and had emerged still as champion. He had cemented important ties with Ribocco's owner, American Charles Engelhard, and had survived with a minimum of official troubles-to wit, two mild cautions for being late into the parade ring and one for "jostling" in a race.
Besides all that, he had won both the Gimcrack and the Middle Park Stakes, top races for two-year-olds, on his father-in-law's best horse, Petingo.
Petingo, owned by Captain Marcus Lemos, a good friend of Lester's, represented Sam Armstrong's strongest-ever hope of winning both the Two Thousand Guineas and the Derby, and everyone assumed that Lester would be out there putting his genius to familial use. They reckoned without Vincent O'Brien, fate ... and Sir Ivor.
Lester had no contract of any sort with Vincent O'Brien, just an understanding that when the Irish trainer ran a good horse outside Ireland, Lester would be asked to ride.
It was an agreement that suited them both well, and it had been in operation since Gladness's win in the Ascot Gold Cup back in 1958.
Accordingly, when Vincent asked Lester to go to France to ride Sir Ivor in the Grand Criterium at Longchamp in October, Lester accepted; however, as it was only a week before the race, it meant getting himself off another horse, Timmy My Boy, that he had been engaged for.
Lester had never seen Sir Ivor and knew nothing about him, but Vincent's opinion that he was "a hell of a horse" was enough. A glance at the form books showed reasonable wins in two races in Ireland after a modest first outing, all ridden by the O'Brien retained jockey, Liam Ward.
So Lester went to France and met Sir Ivor, and they won the Grand Criterium easily from opposition that proved to be of the very highest class. Bella Paola, second, went on the following year to win all the French fillies' classics, and Timmy My Boy, third, finished second the next year in the French Derby.
Lester returned thoughtfully to England and wrestled with his problem. Petingo was family, Petingo had won easily every time out, and Petingo wouldn't stay the Derby distance of a mile and a half. Sir Ivor was very good indeed and Sir Ivor would very possibly stay. Petingo might beat Sir Ivor in the Two Thousand Guineas, but Sir Ivor coul
d win the Derby, and other races after.
When he decided on Sir Ivor, Lester's popularity in the family suffered a temporary dent. Lester, all the same, had been consistent. Having gone through all the trauma of extricating himself from the constraints of obligation at Warren Place, he was not going to surrender his hard-won freedom of choice to fetters of blood. He told Sam Armstrong early in the winter, as soon as he had decided, so as to give his father-inlaw time to find another jockey with whom to plan Petingo's spring campaign.
Vincent sent Sir Ivor to Pisa for the worst of the winter, thinking Italy might be warmer for the American-bred colt. Whether or not it made any difference, Sir Ivor came back into training and won the Two Thousand Guineas Trial at Ascot early in April 1968.
No one was deeply impressed. Over a distance of seven furlongs, too short for him, Sir Ivor had had to struggle hard to get home by half a length, Lester slipping the field a furlong out by just enough to keep his nose ahead at the post. He had started at 15-8 on and hadn't looked worth the confidence.
Eyebrows were raised even higher when, a week later, Petingo came out for his first race and with Joe Mercer won easily by four lengths at Newmarket. Speculation arose that L. Piggott had got himself off two classic champions in a row, and Lester himself, in the quiet of the night, could only sweat and hope.
Sir Ivor had been taken back to Ireland to train for the Two Thousand Guineas, but Vincent O'Brien was dissatisfied with his colt's progress, chiefly because of his tendency to pull himself up before the end of a gallop. Vincent decided to send Sir Ivor over to Newmarket ten days before the Guineas so that Lester could gallop him on the Heath and test his fitness.
With Sir Ivor came two other of Vincent's good horses, to make the work-out both strong and private, and the gallop was held unobtrusively at the southernmost end of the schooling grounds, heading away from the town, seven to eight furlongs alongside the Devil's Dike, ending down by the golf course beside the road to Cambridge.
Jockey Brian Taylor, who had come to ride one of the pacemakers, was wearing exercise boots and couldn't get his feet into the stirrups of the racing saddle Vincent had supplied. Lester told him prosaically to take off his boots and ride in bare feet.
Lester's solutions to many problems are breathtakingly direct.
So with a bare-footed Brian Taylor in the racing saddle of one, the two pacemakers set off in front with Sir Ivor behind, Lester mindful of Vincent's instruction to follow the other two until about two furlongs from the end, and thus make Sir Ivor work hard.
Two furlongs from the end, Lester urged Sir Ivor to accelerate, and he felt for the first time the stunning ability of that splendid colt to switch on extra speed as if with booster rockets. Sir Ivor passed the other two as if they'd been standing still and by the end of the gallop had opened up a lead of a hundred yards. It was, Lester says, the best training gallop he rode in his whole life.
Much relieved, Vincent and Lester rested more peacefully, both of them in Lester's house, as Vincent wasn't returning to Ireland before the Two Thousand Guineas.
Vincent and Sam Armstrong were very good friends, having in the past been partners in a bloodstock agency. After the Sir Ivor gallop it so happened that Susan, driving Vincent home, noticed that Petingo was about to be given his own work-out on a different training ground on the other side of the road. With interest she stopped the car, and she and Vincent watched Joe Mercer give Petingo as smooth and satisfactory a gallop as any trainer could wish. There was clearly going to be no easy task ahead for Sir Ivor.
Lester by now had come to understand the horse's preferences. Sir Ivor, he says, was a lovely horse to ride, very easy and intelligent, willing to do whatever his rider asked. Racing excited him, and he would signal his approval with a kick and a buck in the paddock. He carried his head low and liked to be ridden on a long rein.
Diametrically opposite to St. Paddy, he dropped his bit immediately a race started and went along on his own.
He knew that when Lester stopped riding him hard, the race was over, and he would pull himself up in a few strides. He stopped indeed so fast that other horses behind sometimes ran into the back of him. With most Flat horses, it's the exact reverse: they don't understand about winning posts, and stopping them afterwards can be a problem.
Lester pondered the likes, dislikes and intelligence of Sir Ivor and worked out how to ride him to best effect: an effect that left racing crowds gasping and believing every time that Sir Ivor would get beaten because Lester had left his winning run too late.
The Two Thousand Guineas in 1968 was a hot race packed with good horses. So Blessed went off fast in front and led for six of the eight furlongs and, significantly from Lester's point of view, sped straight down the centre of the course, not swerving over to the stands' rails, as happens in most races. The other runners followed So Blessed, so that the stands' rails were left clear.
At the Bushes, two to three furlongs out, Lester and Sir Ivor were almost last.
Petingo took up the running from So Blessed, and the contest looked over.
Lester shook up Sir Ivor and steered him into the untenanted lane alongside the rails; and Sir Ivor flew as he had in the gallop, leaving the others standing. He reached the front a very short distance from the winning post, streaking darkly past the hard-driven Petingo by one and a half lengths.
He hadn't won, Lester thought privately, by as much as he had expected. The point, however, had been made. He had truly chosen his winner.
Raymond Guest, Sir Ivor's owner, was the American ambassador to Ireland. He greeted his magnificent winner in the unsaddling enclosure with breathless excitement, and immediately with Vincent began making plans for the Derby.
Lester's plans were already made: to ride Sir Ivor as before, to hold him up until the last minute, tucked in behind other runners, and to get him to switch on the after-burners not too soon and not too late. Lester was certain Sir Ivor would win, and uncharacteristically said so publicly several times. Asked before the Guineas what could defeat him, he had said "a fall". Approaching the Derby, even that possibility was discounted.
No one knew for certain that Sir Ivor would actually get the mile and a half because he had never worked or galloped more than a mile and a quarter, and besides, on his breeding his best distance should have been a mile, as in the Guineas.
At Epsom, Lester carried out his plan to perfection, taking up a handy position at sixth or seventh with Sir Ivor well tucked in and relaxed. Straightening up after Tattenham Corner, Connaught took the lead by two or three clear lengths, with Lester tracking Remand, which he thought a great danger. About a furlong and a half from the post, he could see Remand would have no chance of catching Connaught, now five lengths ahead, so he pulled out Sir Ivor to give him a free run, and told him to go.
Nothing happened. For fifty precious yards, Sir Ivor seemed not to understand what was wanted. Lester thinks he'd got the horse so well settled that the change-gear message took a while to get through. When it did, though, the flying machine overhauled Connaught effortlessly in the last hundred yards and beat him by an easy one and a half lengths.
The American ambassador to Ireland wasn't there to cheer. He was watching the race on a television set on a long lead on a lawn in Ireland while he awaited the arrival of the President of Eire to the opening of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Park in County Wexford. That day had been chosen because it had been John F. Kennedy's birthday.
Too bad for Raymond Guest! The President of Eire's car drove in through the gates a few seconds after Sir Ivor had passed the post, a marked piece of tact and diplomacy between two friendly powers.
The next time Sir Ivor ran, which was in the Irish Sweeps Derby, Lester didn't ride him, as Liam Ward was retained for all Vincent O'Brien's horses in Ireland. Lester rode Ribero, which he thought was a waste of time, but he agreed from regard for his owner Charles Engelhard, whom he liked and for whom he had won on Ribocco and many others. Ribero had had to be taken out of the Epso
m Derby because of a foot injury, but Lester had ridden him at Royal Ascot later and finished eight lengths behind Connaught, who had been second to Sir Ivor at Epsom. On the face of it, Ribero had absolutely no chance against Sir Ivor at The Curragh.
Lester all the same was as usual out to do his best. He took the Johnson Houghton-trained colt early into third place and halfway up the straight was in front and going for home. He glanced back to see Sir Ivor coming and about a furlong from home he urged every fraction of speed from Ribero to counter the inevitable as best he could.
The inevitable didn't happen. Sir Ivor approached Ribero's quarters and stayed there, the two horses racing flat out to the winning post. Ribero won by two lengths, which was, Lester says, one of the mysteries of all time.
Poor Liam Ward came in for a great deal of criticism, which Lester thinks was bad luck. A mile and a half was Sir Ivor's limit, and Liam Ward, Lester says, was probably doing what he thought was safest, taking the horse to the outside as they came into the straight to give him a clear run. But Sir Ivor, Lester knew, didn't like to see too much daylight too soon. "Those horses," he says, "that have that terrific speed at the end, you don't want to let them see anything until it's time to let them go, otherwise they won't produce it. Even the best horses can get beaten if there's a certain way they want riding, and you don't ride them that way."