by Robin Oakley
After a courageous victory in the Lowther Stakes at York that summer her trainer said that few fillies could have done what she did. She was trapped and had to fight to get clear. Said Sir Michael Stoute, ‘She showed acceleration and she showed guts.’ Russian Rhythm became the 5-2 winter favourite for the big race. But in the autumn, in season, she was beaten in the Cheveley Park Stakes by the speedy Airwave, the only time she lost a race to one of her own sex, and as the new season began Sir Michael Stoute was not pleased with Russian Rhythm. She didn’t sparkle in her work, she did not eat up well. (Nor did I, as I kept my ante-post vouchers out of Mrs Oakley’s sight.) There was trouble with a bruised heel, there were stories that she was to be taken out of the first Classic, and with the direst of rumours circulating, her price steadily lengthened.
Come 1,000 Guineas Day I had been planning to double my bet as she went to post, but I allowed myself to be deterred by all the scare stories, kept my hand in my pocket, and watched in some chagrin as Kieren Fallon brought Russian Rhythm home the winner at 12-1, two points better than I had happily taken the previous summer!
The French favourite Six Perfections had a troubled run but Russian Rhythm did all that was asked of her. Afterwards her trainer wondered aloud if she had been kidding him a little in her work.
In her next contest, the Coronation Stakes at Ascot, Russian Rhythm again beat the talented Soviet Song and posted a record time for the race too. But the real thriller came when she stepped up two furlongs to take on older fillies and mares in the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood. Jockey Kieren Fallon was unable to get a clear run when he wanted to move up and challenge. He had the class to wait until his filly was balanced and ready: Russian Rhythm had the class and tenacity when he found her a clear run to chase and catch the leader Ana Marie in the last few strides and win by a neck.
It could not last forever and in October in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes Russian Rhythm was beaten, by the ultimate alpha male Falbrav, for my money the best horse Luca Cumani has ever trained. When he overtook a Godolphin pacemaker and set sail for home she was the only one with speed and guts enough to go after him, but he had too much left in the tank for the younger filly. The Ascot crowd knew though that they had seen something special from both horses and applauded both first and second with real fervour after the race.
Although Russian Rhythm was beaten too in her final race of the season, the Champion Stakes, this time by Rakti, my fervour remained undiminished and I rolled up at Newbury for the Lockinge Stakes in May of the next year to continue the affair. I was not disappointed. In the paddock, cool as ever, the object of my affections lobbed around with her head lowered, her mane rippling silkily like a shampoo model and her powerful quarters a well-muscled indication of the power still there to be unleashed. Once Kieren Fallon swung into the plate she perked up, ready for the business in hand, happy to take on the boys who included Refuse to Bend and Indian Haven, the winners of the previous year’s English and Irish 2,000 Guineas. In the race, as soon as Kieren found a gap she quickened, rather too swiftly in fact, taking the lead two furlongs out. Luca Cumani’s Salselon and David Elsworth’s Norse Dancer ranged up on either side and briefly seemed to head her. But while the longer-term message for this exciting breeding project had to be ‘come up and see me sometime’, that was not the game plan just yet. The daughter of Kingmambo was ready for a scrap. She stuck her neck out, went on again and won by a gutsy half-length.
Back in the paddock when her lass Jane Saunders told her what a good girl she was and sloshed a water bucket over her, Russian Rhythm didn’t need telling. She stuck out her tongue and preened as her trainer declared, ‘She’s got the right mind, she’s got this wonderful physique and she loves racing. She’s a competitor. She doesn’t lack courage. She’s a real pleasure to train.’ He praised too the brave decision of Patricia and David Thompson of Cheveley Park Stud to keep her on the track one more season rather than rushing her off to stud, saying it was a decision taken without the trainer. ‘Perhaps because they thought I’d be too windy.’
Sadly, soon after that race Russian Rhythm suffered an injury and never raced again.
Frankel
I saw Frankel most of the times he ran. My only regret is that I wasn’t there for all of them. Everyone will carry their own memories of that extraordinary racehorse. Certainly I will never forget his explosive effort in the 2,000 Guineas or his humbling of Canford Cliffs in the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood. But it was after his run in the Lockinge in May 2012 that I found myself reflecting as much as anything on the sheer strain imposed on Henry Cecil and his team in looking after such a phenomenon. I wrote then:
When they present themselves there are certain experiences you simply have to undergo to make life complete, like rounding Cape Horn, watching the waters cascade over the Niagara Falls or flying on Concorde. I would add to the list, in the five months or so while it is still possible, the absolute must of seeing Frankel in action on a racecourse.
Owner Lady Beaverbrook once declared, ‘I have all the art I need but nothing makes my heart beat like a horse.’ And while in one way it is hard to think of something as muscular, mighty and masculine as a work of art, Frankel certainly is one. When jockey Tom Queally told him to go two furlongs out last Saturday, half a ton of horse quickened away from the second-best miler in Europe with an instant supercharged acceleration that was totally sublime.
The 14,000 of us who flocked to Newbury to see this racing phenomenon needed reassurance after the recent injury scare that could have ended his career. What we got as he recorded his tenth victory from ten starts was not just reassurance but a polished, controlled, yet dominant display that was truly life-enhancing. How we are going to report his future appearances I am not quite sure: cricket writers said of W.G. Grace in his time that he had exhausted the language of superlatives and Frankel has done that to racing already.
Frankel’s trainer Henry Cecil is a steel-stemmed poppy who combines outward diffidence with inner certainty of purpose. Watching him struggle to contain his emotions after Frankel’s success was a reminder of the huge strain that is imposed on those who handle quality in sport, particularly when they are tending talents which have become public property. As Tom Queally said of Frankel before dismounting, ‘He belongs to racing.’ One small misjudgement on Cecil’s part and the whole magic story could be over.
I was of course at Ascot for Frankel’s final appearance in the Champion Stakes that October and I found myself caught up in a small way in the extraordinary celebrations:
After Brad Wiggins’s Tour de France victory, Mo Farah’s Olympics successes and Andy Murray’s first Grand Slam title any other result would have been unthinkable, so praise the Lord Frankel did win Ascot’s Champion Stakes. On unsuitably soft ground and after gifting the others lengths at the start, the unbeaten star of world racing proved that he could fight as well as run. Now it is off to a pampered life in the breeding sheds with the hope of lots of little Frankels to come.
I have never seen a crowd like it at Ascot. The roads were choked three hours before. The velvet collars and City suits were there, so were the trilby and cords set. But so were the likely lads with gelled hair and ties at half-mast, the giggling girls in chiffons and high heels, the tatty anoraks and the chancers in pointed sharkskin shoes, all gathered to pay homage. In the parade ring before Frankel’s Champion Stakes with the trees turning Olympic gold and the whiff of burger-frying floating past there were celebs like Bryan Ferry and plenty of owners and trainers who didn’t have a runner. As Frankel’s connections arrived, led into the paddock with his usual quiet elegance by the silver-haired Prince Khalid Abdullah, I looked back at the vast stand to see balconies packed with flags in the pink and green of his colours. Even so, the mood before the race was one as much of anxiety as of elation. ‘He is going to win it, isn’t he?’ we were all asking each other before Frankel’s fourteenth and final contest.
There was s
ome reassurance when in the race before, the million-pound Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, Excelebration, the talented miler who has so often followed Frankel home some lengths behind in second place, triumphed in the style of the supremely talented and consistent horse he is too. As one commentator put it, ‘Even today he could only beat Frankel by turning up half an hour earlier.’ But there was still that edge, that niggling fear that Fate would deprive us of a happy ending.
In the event Frankel won splendidly against two toughies who had proved they could act on the rain-softened ground, Cirrus des Aigles and Nathaniel. Ironically, the horse whom they had feared might be too buzzy and hot-headed to reveal his best on the track had by now so brilliantly been taught to relax by the Henry Cecil team that he virtually fell out of the stalls like a sleepwalker leaving poor Ian Mongan on Bullet Train, his pacemaker, looking round nervously to see where he had got to. Jockey Tom Queally though gave Frankel time to collect himself. It is never so easy coming from behind on heavy ground but he came up to Cirrus des Aigles two furlongs out with the crowd roaring on their champion and went away to win by a one-and-three-quarter-lengths margin that could have been more.
Few held back their emotions after the race and as vast numbers of spectators dashed from the stands to be in position to cheer Frankel back into the winner’s enclosure I found myself beside Sir Henry Cecil as the crowds closed in, obliterating the walkway down the steps to the paddock. With Cecil’s voice reduced to a whisper by his cancer treatment there was only one thing for it. I pushed through the sea of bodies shouting ‘Make way for the trainer’ like some demented toastmaster. My apologies to those whose feet I trod on or whose ribs I elbowed in the process.
It was a supreme training performance by a master of his art and the Prince and his racing manager Teddy Grimthorpe too deserve huge praise for the calm way in which they have campaigned their superstar. Given the dire conditions that race was run in this year thank heavens they did not listen to the entreaties to run Frankel over a longer distance in the Arc. Frankel is special enough without that and he could provide a handy answer in a year when awarding the BBC Sports Personality of the Year is going to be fiendishly difficult. Why not this time give it to a horse?
Rainbow View
Your wishes don’t always come true. Another filly I spotted early on and was convinced would win the Guineas was Rainbow View, but although she was an odds-on favourite for the Classic at 8-11 she failed to match Russian Rhythm’s achievements. Trained during her English career by John Gosden, Rainbow View was a thrilling juvenile to watch and a real equine personality. This was how I wrote about her after a visit to her accomplished trainer’s yard in April 2009:
If she was human Rainbow View would be a stroppy teenager, chucking down her school satchel and heading straight out to the sort of club you wouldn’t want your daughter in. One word from a parent and she would do the other thing. Threaten a smacked bottom and she’d be off to the child protection officer, knowing her rights. She is a head-tossing little madam who puts the x into minx, the original wild child. But she also inspires infinite patience because her strength of will is matched with exceptional physical ability. Given the right mood on the day, Rainbow View will confirm that by winning the first fillies Classic, the 1,000 Guineas, on May 3 for her trainer John Gosden and owner George Strawbridge.
Visiting a trainer’s yard is always fun at this optimistic end of the racing year. Serious questions are just beginning to be asked on the gallops. Any of the heads popping inquisitively over box doors can turn out to belong to something special. But visiting John Gosden’s Clarehaven yard is an experience. The running commentary, delivered at shock-jock speed, is not limited to recitations of horse performance. It throws in a condensed history of the great Pretty Polly, who was trained there in the early 1900s – ‘She ate the colts from five furlongs to two and a half miles’ – and a discussion of the Munnings and Constable Suffolk skies. There is no shortage of opinions either, for example on racecourse parades: ‘It’s nice for the public to see them cantering down but I’ve never been a believer in them marching to the furlong pole and coming back. You can do it in America where they train on track but they’re all accompanied by ponies. They’ll sleep on the pony and the jockey doesn’t have to ride them. You get an American jockey here and tell him “You’ve got seven races and you are cantering them to the start and there’s a six furlongs, a seven furlongs, a mile and a two miler”, well, he’s going to want an oxygen tank and a conveyor belt.’
Parades, of course, don’t suit Rainbow View, who would have been flicking pellets and chewing gum through class roll-calls. ‘She just doesn’t do waiting around,’ says her trainer. ‘One day she got bored waiting for a canter and took off, five furlongs away. Down the walking grounds and in. She nearly took out Sir Mark Prescott’s wall on the way. Of all the fillies I’ve trained she’s a long way the wildest.’ Now Rainbow View goes out on her own, with a lead horse. ‘She doesn’t do strings.’
In a corner box of the top yard, with its yellow brick and duck-egg blue box doors we are allowed finally to see the pocket rocket herself. The door is open but she isn’t allowed out. Says her trainer, ‘She’d have gone through us, broken a window and finished up in [wife] Rachel’s office.’
Munching handfuls of grass from her stable hand’s pocket, madam is comparatively cooperative. But the last time I saw such a naughtily flickering eye it belonged to a princess. The message is clear. ‘I’m in charge. I do what I like, when I like.’
Her trainer confirms: ‘She takes some riding. She can just throw shapes for no reason.’ He goes on: ‘That is part of her character that makes her so determined and so good. It’s important not to think of beating the spirit out of them, the idea that when you “break” a horse you beat any evil spirit out of them. That’s crazy. That was the old concept. I don’t believe in that at all. Our job is to channel that determination, that nervous energy, to turn them into athletes.’
We are talking about some athlete. As a two-year-old Rainbow View ran four times and won the four races by a cumulative margin of more than sixteen lengths. The last was an impressive victory in Ascot’s testing Fillies Mile, a Group One race. In that, despite sweating up in the pre-race preliminaries, she beat Fantasia by two and a half lengths. Fantasia, who has since been bought by Rainbow View’s owner and who will not face her in the 1,000 Guineas, came out last week and spreadeagled a high-class field, winning by seven lengths.
Size, says John Gosden, is not an issue. ‘It’s not the case of a little two-year-old that hasn’t trained on because of her physical limits. She’s trained on in terms of ability. Mentally she’s tough to deal with, but it’s that nervous energy that gives her such a competitive edge.’
I was lucky enough to see all four of Rainbow View’s performances at two. She won her Newmarket maiden by six lengths and then took the Group Three Sweet Solera Stakes by the same margin, being shaken up to lead one furlong out and then coasting clear. Progressing next to the Group Two May Hill Stakes at Doncaster as the 1-3 favourite she was anchored in the rear and came up smoothly on the outside two furlongs out to assert her superiority over Snoqualmie Girl. Rainbow View’s very best effort though was when she took on the highly talented Cumani filly Fantasia at Ascot in what promised to be one of the races of the season in the Meon Valley Stud Fillies Mile. She moved up to the leaders after the two-furlong pole, and although she did not take the lead until inside the final furlong, she was two and a half lengths clear at the line.
Naturally following that she was made favourite for the 1,000 Guineas but in that race she never quite let herself down on firmish ground and finished only fifth behind Ghanaati. In her three-year-old career Rainbow View ran in the best company but never quite had the luck of the draw and never quite realised her juvenile promise. She was fourth to Sariska in the Oaks but lost all chance two furlongs out when hampered as she improved to third place. She ran third to Ghanaati
in the Coronation Stakes at Ascot, again having a troubled passage as she stayed on to be third. She was fourth to Goldikova in the Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket and second to Midday in the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood over ten furlongs. It was not until her sixth race of the season and her last this side of the Atlantic that she finally got her nose in front again, winning the Matron Stakes at Leopardstown from Heaven Sent.
After that Rainbow View went to Woodbine to contest the E.P. Taylor Stakes, in which she finished second, done for finishing speed despite leading in the final furlong, and she finished the season fourth of eight at Santa Anita. At four, trained in America by Jonathan E. Sheppard, Rainbow View did win once again in a Grade Three at Pimlico.
Denman
One day when I arrived at his Ditcheat base to talk to Paul Nicholls about Cheltenham, the invariably courteous trainer was caught up on the phone. I wandered out across the yard. There in one box was the unmistakeable slightly crooked white blaze of Kauto Star; next door was the heftier, slightly more stolid Denman. Was it just my imagination that Kauto Star looked like a star accustomed to attention and celebration, Denman more like a horse there to do a job?
Kauto Star made it into the top ten of my Top 100 Racehorses book, Denman was ranked in the 30s. Both were wonderful horses who generated huge excitement. I would happily have travelled the length of the country to watch either run. But because Kauto Star won five King Georges as well as his four Betfair Chases and two Cheltenham Gold Cups, and because he showed the speed and athleticism to win two-mile Tingle Creek Chases as well, he was always the one who received superstar treatment from the media. Fair enough in a way, but that always left me with a soft spot for the honest bruiser Denman, a massive seventeen-hands horse who required enormous amounts of work to get fit.