by Jim Haynes
Until he hit a fence and took a fall
His rider laughed and muttered with a smile—
‘Well, anyhow, I led ’em for a while.’
And this is the text for my theme tonight,
A moral that the wisest men have sung:
Our life is very short—and swift the flight
Of time—so, comrades, go at it while young.
And when old age comes on you’ll find it good
To think you made the running while you could.
There’s nothing now too solid or too high
For some of you to take and chance a spill;
But we must funk the fences bye and bye,
When limbs grow stiff and hands have lost their skill.
In wintry age we’ll seek the hearthstone’s blaze;
So, let us make the most of youth’s bright days.
So now, my friends, good luck and may you keep
Stout hearts and true and honest kindly mirth,
When drawing nearer to the last great leap
That lands us on the other side of earth,
Where many a gallant horseman and brave steed
Has gone before to give us all a lead.
CRISP
JIM HAYNES
Ask racing men and historians in Australia to name the top ten Aussie horses of all time and I doubt that any lists would include the name Crisp. Ask any British racing fans to name an Aussie champion racehorse, before Choisir took Ascot by storm in 2003, and Crisp would be the only Australian name they’d be likely to know.
Crisp was a great Aussie battler who did what Aussies love doing—taking on the Poms at their own game. Australians take perverse delight in ‘beating the Poms’ at any sport originally devised in Britain. We have done it often at cricket, rugby and tennis, but we don’t do it often in the Sport of Kings.
The great chestnut sprinter Choisir proved it could be done on the flat in 2003. He was followed by Takeover Target, Miss Andretti (the only horse in history to simultaneously hold a total of five track records in Australia and England) and, in one heart-stopping race in 2012, the mighty Black Caviar.
Those sprinters took on the English and won their races, but they didn’t win their hearts the way a horse called Crisp did back in 1973.
Crisp probably had the biggest impact on the British racing scene of any Australian horses since Carbine sired an English Derby winner more than a hundred years ago. It took 32 years for Choisir and the sprinting brigade to come along and have anywhere near the same impact on racing in the Old Dart that Crisp had.
It’s generally considered by racing pundits in Britain that Crisp was the best chaser to never win the Grand National. It’s also generally thought that he deserved to win the great race in 1973.
Crisp was a first-generation Australian. He was foaled here in 1963, although he was by the English stallion Rose Argent from an English mare named Wheat Germ. His return to the ‘Old Country’ in 1972 was, therefore, the sort of journey made by many first-generation Aussies around that time.
Crisp was a big raw-boned gelding who raced over jumps in Australia with great success, winning the Cup Steeple in 1969 and the A.V. Hiskens Steeple at Moonee Valley in 1969 and 1970. On the second occasion he carried 73 kilograms.
Crisp was obviously something special. He was a naturally talented jumper and could carry weight easily. So, with opportunities for really gifted jumps horses very limited in Australia, it was decided to sell him to interests in Britain in 1971.
The original intention was to run Crisp in races up to 2 miles. It was thought that he would not ‘get the journey’ over the much longer, English classic steeplechase distances of 3 and 4 miles.
On arrival in Britain he was entered in a 2-mile handicap at Wincanton. Back then the National Hunt rules stated that any horse not having had three starts in the UK could not be properly handicapped and should be given top-weight.
Crisp was given top-weight of 12 st 7 lb (79 kg) in his first race. He swept to the lead after a mile and ran away from the field to win easily. He was then entered in the 2-mile Champion Chase, an international event of considerable stature, which he won impressively. Crisp was always able to carry weight and run time. He broke race records both in Australia and Britain.
Crisp was trained in England by ex–jumps jockey Fred Winter. Although he had been champion jockey four times, winning two Cheltenham Gold Cups, two Grand Nationals and riding a record 121 winners in the season 1952–53, Winter was about as close to being a ‘battler’ as an English trainer can be.
When Winter retired in 1964 he had no intention of applying for a training licence. In fact, he had applied for a job as a starter but the jockey club turned him down. So he set up the Uplands Stables in Lambourn and, in 1965, just three years after riding Kilmore to victory in the Grand National, he trained Jay Trump to win the event. The following year he did it again when 50 to 1 shot Anglo beat 46 starters.
Fred Winter was to go remarkably close to an Aintree hat trick in 1973 when Crisp produced one of the best jumping displays ever seen over the big fences, only to be caught in the final stride by a horse carrying 24 pounds (11 kg) less weight.
In spite of Crisp being a two-miler rather than a Grand National type, it was decided to have a crack at the world’s most famous jumping race and connections entered Crisp for the Grand National of 1973.
Crisp was given top-weight of 12 stone (76 kg) and Fred Winter’s riding plan for jockey Richard Pitman was not to hold him up at all, as he always liked to bowl along in his races, but to let him settle in front and try to slow the pace.
Crisp, however, had his own idea of how the race should be run; perhaps he didn’t know he had 4½ miles to cover that day.
When the tape lifted he set off at a merry pace, jumping fence after fence as if he was out hunting. He took Becher’s Brook in his stride the first time around and made ground consistently, jumping the enormous fences like an old pro. At the end of the first circuit he was 20 lengths in front.
At Becher’s on the second circuit he was 25 lengths in front and still racing alone, but another horse had broken from the following pack and started to make up some ground on him. That horse was to go down in history as the greatest Grand National horse of all time. His name was Red Rum.
Crisp seemed safe; he appeared to be too far in front for anything to catch him if he just stayed on his feet. But, at the second last jump, Crisp ran out of steam and began to falter.
As he approached the last he began to roll sideways but his instinct took him over safely and he began the long 500-yard run in with his strength visibly failing.
Richard Pitman said later, ‘It happened after the second last . . . just the way I had feared. It all fell apart . . . suddenly his legs were going sideways instead of forwards, grabbing instead of reaching. Those big lop ears went floppy. All of a sudden, his strength was gone. And on the firm ground I could hear hoofbeats, like thunder.’
With Red Rum coming up fast behind, Richard Pitman made what he later considered to be a dreadful error: the jockey gave Crisp a slap with the whip. Crisp was so tired that he shied when hit, staggered sideways away from the whip and lost all momentum. Pitman was forced to stop riding to get him round the Elbow.
Red Rum was finishing fast and, although Crisp was out on his feet, Pitman recalled, ‘I could feel him tighten as he sensed the other horse approach. He was absolutely bottomed, but that racing instinct was in-built. Only he had nothing left to fight with.’
In the end the weight was too much and two strides before the finish Red Rum, carrying 24 pounds (11 kg) less, passed Crisp and went on to immortality by winning the first of a record three Grand Nationals. In the process he broke the record and ran the fastest time in the history of the race.
Red Rum won the race again in 1974 and 1977, and ran second in 1975 and 1976. He became the hero of Aintree and is buried there, near the winning post.
Crisp never ran in the Grand National again but
he did run against Red Rum the following year, at level weights at Haydock Park, and defeated him convincingly.
After retiring from racing at the end of 1974, Crisp lived out his life as a hunter in the countryside around County Durham and North Yorkshire.
It is rare in sport for a second-placegetter to be remembered as well as the winner, but Crisp is revered in the annals of British racing and many, including commentator and television personality John Francome, list him as their favourite horse of all time.
When he died he was buried beneath a flowering cherry tree in the North English countryside. Richard Pitman, who still blames himself for Crisp losing the Grand National in 1973, was asked to write his obituary for Horse & Hound magazine. He ended the obituary by saying that every year, at Grand National time, the cherry blossoms would float down like tears onto Crisp’s grave.
THE OPEN STEEPLECHASE
A.B. ‘BANJO’ PATERSON
I had ridden over hurdles up the country once or twice,
By the side of Snowy River with a horse they called ‘The Ace’.
And we brought him down to Sydney, and our rider, Jimmy Rice,
Got a fall and broke his shoulder, so they nabbed me in a trice,
Me, that never wore the colours, for the open Steeplechase.
‘Make the running,’ said the trainer, ‘it’s your only chance whatever,
Make it hot from start to finish, for the old black horse can stay,
And just think of how they’ll take it, when they hear on Snowy River
That the country boy was plucky, and the country horse was clever.
You must ride for old Monaro and the mountain boys today.’
‘Are you ready?’ said the starter, as we held the horses back.
All ablazing with impatience, with excitement all aglow;
Before us like a ribbon stretched the steeplechasing track,
And the sun-rays glistened brightly on the chestnut and the black
As the starter’s words came slowly, ‘Are, you, ready? Go!’
Well I scarcely knew we’d started, I was stupid-like with wonder
Till the field closed up beside me and a jump appeared ahead.
And we flew it like a hurdle, not a baulk and not a blunder,
As we charged it all together, and it fairly whistled under,
And then some were pulled behind me and a few shot out and led.
So we ran for half the distance, and I’m making no pretenses
When I tell you I was feeling very nervous-like and queer,
For those jockeys rode like demons; you would think they’d lost their senses
If you saw them rush their horses at those rasping five-foot fences,
And in place of making running I was falling to the rear.
Till a chap came racing past me on a horse they called ‘The Quiver’,
And said he, ‘My country joker, are you going to give it best?
Are you frightened of the fences? Does their stoutness make you shiver?
Have they come to breeding cowards by the side of Snowy River?
Are there riders in Monaro?,’ but I never heard the rest.
For I drove The Ace and sent him just as fast as he could pace it
At the big black line of timber stretching fair across the track,
And he shot beside The Quiver. ‘Now,’ said I, ‘my boy, we’ll race it.
You can come with Snowy River if you’re only game to face it,
Let us mend the pace a little and we’ll see who cries a crack.’
So we raced away together, and we left the others standing,
And the people cheered and shouted as we settled down to ride,
And we clung beside The Quiver. At his taking off and landing
I could see his scarlet nostril and his mighty ribs expanding,
And The Ace stretched out in earnest, and we held him stride for stride.
But the pace was so terrific that they soon ran out their tether,
They were rolling in their gallop, they were fairly blown and beat,
But they both were game as pebbles, neither one would show the feather.
And we rushed them at the fences, and they cleared them both together,
Nearly every time they clouted, but they somehow kept their feet.
Then the last jump rose before us, and they faced it game as ever,
We were both at spur and whipcord, fetching blood at every bound,
And above the people’s cheering and the cries of ‘Ace’ and ‘Quiver’,
I could hear the trainer shouting, ‘One more run for Snowy River.’
Then we struck the jump together and came smashing to the ground.
Well, The Quiver ran to blazes, but The Ace stood still and waited,
Stood and waited like a statue while I scrambled on its back.
There was no one next or near me for the field was fairly slated,
So I cantered home a winner with my shoulder dislocated,
While the man who rode The Quiver followed limping down the track.
And he shook my hand and told me that in all his days he never
Met a man who rode more gamely, and our last set-to was prime.
Then we wired them on Monaro how we chanced to beat The Quiver,
And they sent us back an answer, ‘Good old sort from Snowy River:
Send us word each race you start in and we’ll back you every time.’
ROUGHNECK
JIM HAYNES
Oakbank, 1978.
It was a small field for the Great Eastern Steeplechase that year as the track was quite heavy and the weather was wet over Easter.
The atmosphere was a little dampened and the ground was soggy underfoot but it was still Oakbank, the great Easter Racing Carnival in the Adelaide Hills.
In 1978 most of the already small field either fell or retired. Oddly enough it was mostly the front-runners who fell or dropped out.
Of those left standing towards the end, three were way back in the field and one, a tough little chestnut gelding with the totally appropriate name of Roughneck, ridden by veteran jockey Peter Hely, was left way out in front.
What a fizzer of a race, you might think. How can four horses scattered over a mile of racetrack, with one horse half a mile in front, be of any interest?
You might think that.
You might also think these things demonstrate why jumps races hold little interest and are an anachronism.
You’d be wrong on both counts.
You might think, in a race like that, there’s no real contest.
You’d be wrong again.
Unlike 1973, when The Cent and Mystic Moon went head to head, there was no cheering, no roaring of the crowd as Roughneck cleared the fallen log, came down the hill, entered the straight and approached the last two jumps.
There was just an uncanny quiet.
You see . . . Roughneck was just about out on his feet. He was visibly exhausted and laying in badly.
At the second last he clipped the jump and almost went down, just about touching his nose on the turf. He regained his footing but staggered sideways as the entire crowd caught its breath.
I’d never heard 50,000 people catch their breath before. It was a sound that filled the valley.
Hely somehow got him balanced again and approached the last jump.
In those few seconds I truly came to believe in something akin to Jung’s theory of the collective subconscious or the power of prayer. I knew that everyone watching was willing that little chestnut gelding to get over that last fence. We all held our breath.
He steadied and approached the fence at a speed just fast enough to gain some momentum for a final jump.
Hely seemed to lift him by the reins and he rose to take the last fence . . . and landed safely.
Then the crowd breathed again.
And that’s the loudest sigh of relief I’ve ever heard on a racetrack anywhere in the world and the clapping lasted
until long after Roughneck had cantered slowly past the winning post.
No one had backed him. He was 40 to 1.
The nearest horse wasn’t even in the straight when he cleared the last jump. He won by 40 lengths.
But that’s the best battle down the straight that I ever saw.
THE GROG-AN’-GRUMBLE STEEPLECHASE
HENRY LAWSON
’Twixt the coastline and the border lay the town of Grog-an’-Grumble
In the days before the bushman was a dull ’n’ heartless drudge,
An’ they say the local meeting was a drunken rough-and-tumble,
Which was ended pretty often by an inquest on the judge.
An’ ’tis said the city talent very often caught a tartar
In the Grog-an’-Grumble sportsman, ’n’ returned with broken heads,
For the fortune, life and safety of the Grog-an’-Grumble starter
Mostly hung upon the finish of the local thoroughbreds.
Pat McDurmer was the owner of a horse they called the Screamer,
Which he called ‘the quickest shtepper ’twixt the Darling and the sea,’
And I think it’s very doubtful if the stomach-troubled dreamer
Ever saw a more outrageous piece of equine scenery;
For his points were most decided, from his end to his beginning,
He had eyes of different colour, and his legs they wasn’t mates.
Pat McDurmer said he always came ‘within a flip of winnin’,’
An’ his sire had come from England, ’n’ his dam was from the States.
Friends would argue with McDurmer, and they said he was in error
To put up his horse the Screamer, for he’d lose in any case,
And they said a city racer by the name of Holy Terror
Was regarded as the winner of the coming steeplechase;
But he said he had the knowledge to come in when it was raining,
And irreverently mentioned that he knew the time of day,
So he rose in their opinion. It was noticed that the training
Of the Screamer was conducted in a dark, mysterious way.