Last (but not least) one in the series. Courtesy of John Randall
The modern jumps scene would be almost unrecognisable to a time-travelling racegoer from the 1960s who saw the two greatest steeplechasers of all time, stablemates Arkle and Flyingbolt.
This week's When Horses Raced series has established that champion jumpers of the past were campaigned very differently to those of today, often in the number of races they were asked to contest, but the achievements of Arkle and Flyingbolt show an even more striking contrast in the severity of their tasks, specifically in handicaps.
Luca Cumani once said that handicaps were a form of communism, yet they dominated jumps racing until the creation of the current Pattern in the early 1990s. Triple Cheltenham Gold Cup hero Arkle and Champion Chase winner Flyingbolt had to run in handicaps, under crushing burdens of up to 12st 10lb and giving lumps of weight to top-class rivals, because there was no alternative if their connections wanted to pick up a reasonable amount of prize-money.
Trained by Tom Dreaper and ridden by Pat Taaffe, those two paragons were the highest-rated steeplechasers of all time, with Arkle achieving an annual Timeform rating of 212 and Flyingbolt 210, both in 1965-66. The official handicappers put the difference at only 1lb. On Racing Post Ratings – created in 1987 and calculated on a similar scale – the highest-rated steeplechasers have been Kauto Star (191), Sprinter Sacre (190) and Desert Orchid (189).
Some have questioned the validity of the Dreaper pair's sky-high ratings but the reason for them is simple: they were forced to demonstrate the full extent of their greatness by conceding up to three stone (42lb) in handicaps to rivals who were of normal Gold Cup standard. Modern champions do not run in handicaps, and are therefore not tested to that extent.
Historic champions habitually ran in handicaps because the championship races at Cheltenham were the only worthwhile targets to be run at level weights. Even the King George VI Chase had hefty penalty clauses. In the four seasons after Arkle's novice-chase campaign, he ran in 21 races and 16 of them were handicaps, in which he carried an average of 12st 4lb and triumphed 13 times.
He received 5lb and a beating from reigning champion Mill House in the 1963 Hennessy (now Coral) Gold Cup at Newbury, but took handsome revenge over that steeplechasing great in all their four subsequent meetings, most famously in their second clash, in the 1964 Gold Cup at Cheltenham.
Arkle ran away with the next two Hennessys under 12st 7lb, but the biggest prize of his career was £8,230 in the 1965 Whitbread (now bet365) Gold Cup at Sandown, when he defied 12st 7lb and conceded at least 35lb all round.
In November 1965, on his seasonal reappearance in Sandown's Gallaher Gold Cup – those were the bad old days of tobacco sponsorship – ‘Himself’ put up perhaps his greatest performance by carrying 12st 7lb to a 20-length victory over the high-class Rondetto (10st 9lb). Mill House (11st 5lb) finished third, with his own record time for the course and distance smashed.
Inside the final mile Mill House had been clear and looking back to his glorious best but, in his definitive biography of Arkle, Ivor Herbert wrote: “Literally in twelve swinging strides Arkle shot up to Mill House and caught him like a monitor catching a naughty boy. And on the bend for the Pond Fence away he came. From that moment and home over the last two fences a greater roar than any ever heard on any British racecourse surged like a typhoon over Sandown.”
Three weeks later Arkle scored his second wide-margin Hennessy victory, starting at odds of 1-6. By this time he had earned a rating of 220 in Timeform's weekly black books, although that was adjusted to 212 at the end of the season.
When he attempted a Hennessy hat-trick in 1966, it needed a superbly opportunistic ride by Stan Mellor to enable Stalbridge Colonist to beat him in a driving finish. Stalbridge Colonist was receiving 35lb and, in Arkle's absence, nearly won that season's Gold Cup. The close third, What A Myth, received 33lb and did win the Gold Cup in 1969.
Arkle's other defeat in a handicap chase came in the Massey-Ferguson (now December) Gold Cup at Cheltenham in 1964, when even he found 12st 10lb too much; he finished a close third.
Arkle won the Irish Grand National under 12st, and his warm-up for each of his three Gold Cups was in the Leopardstown Handicap Chase, carrying 12st on the first occasion and 12st 7lb on the other two.
He was never asked to emulate Golden Miller's unique Gold Cup-Grand National double in 1934. His owner, Anne Duchess of Westminster, said: “I will never let my Arkle run in the National, because I adore him, because he is one of the family, and because he is much too precious to me.”
The stress of repeatedly carrying so much weight may well have caused his career-ending injury when he was aged only nine. Arkle won his penultimate race, the SGB Chase at Ascot in December 1966, by 15 lengths under 12st 7lb but, in jumping to his left, may have been feeling the onset of the injury that caused his defeat in the King George VI Chase 13 days later. On that occasion he fractured the pedal bone of his off-fore hoof, but his courageous battle to the finish would still have resulted in victory had the conditions of the race not required him to give 21lb to Dormant.
Flyingbolt, two years younger than Arkle, struggled to forge an identity of his own and never received the credit he deserved. This was not only because any horse would have been overshadowed by the supreme champion, but also because he had the same trainer, the same jockey and even the same groom, Johnny Lumley.
Having been the champion novice hurdler of 1963-64 and top novice chaser the following season, Flyingbolt proved himself a colossus with a spectacular runaway victory under 12st 6lb in the Massey-Ferguson Gold Cup at Cheltenham in 1965.
The Irish Field reported: “There are many who thought that before the big race Flyingbolt was a little behind Arkle; while after his resounding victory they are in no doubt that he is as good.”
The two giants had different owners but their paths were kept separate, which is why Flyingbolt, in the colours of Jean Wilkinson, attempted an almost impossible double at the Cheltenham Festival in 1966 instead of running in the Gold Cup. He cantered home by 15 lengths in the Two Mile (now Queen Mother) Champion Chase, and the next day came third in the Champion Hurdle.
The versatile Flyingbolt then triumphed in the Irish Grand National under 12st 7lb, giving Dreaper a seventh consecutive success in the race. This prompted the Irish Field to opine: “We are faced with the amazing and inescapable conclusion that, in theory, he is no more than a pound behind Arkle, and, depending on weather conditions, might even be slightly superior if they met.”
While Timeform rated Arkle 2lb superior, the official British handicappers put the difference at only 1lb in the original handicaps for the Gallaher, Mackeson (now Paddy Power) and Massey-Ferguson Gold Cups in the autumn of 1966.
Sadly, just before Arkle's injury could give Flyingbolt the chance to take centre stage, he developed brucellosis, a debilitating blood disease that kept him off the course for nearly a year. On his return he was only a shadow of his former self.
Taaffe said: “In character, they were the night and the day. A small child could walk into Arkle's box in absolute safety. No child, no man would ever willingly step into Flyingbolt's . . . at least, not twice. He'd kick the eye out of your head.”
Arkle became a folk hero celebrated in song, poetry, drama and legend, so it is hard to believe he had a stablemate who was his equal – but a strict assessment of their form, crucially forged in handicaps, suggests that may have been true.
How the Pattern changed everything
Arkle and Flyingbolt had it tough, running mainly in handicaps, and most of the other top steeplechasers of that era also showed the full extent of their greatness when carrying 12st or more to victory in big handicaps.
They included not only Mill House in the Hennessy, but also Fortria (Mackeson twice and Irish Grand National), Pas Seul (Whitbread), Dunkirk (Mackeson), Tingle Creek in the Sandown handicap that is now the Grade 1 named after him, and Pendil in both that handicap and the Massey-Ferguson.
Burrough Hill Lad won the Hennessy under 12st in 1984, and Desert Orchid was the last great champion to run regularly in handicaps, achieving his peak rating when landing Kempton's Racing Post Chase (now Coral Trophy) under 12st 3lb in 1990.
More recent champion jumpers have not run in handicaps regularly, or at all, for one basic reason: the introduction of the jumps Pattern in the early 1990s.
The Tingle Creek and Victor Chandler (now Clarence House) Chases metamorphosed from handicaps to Grade 1 events, and the introduction of new British Grade 1s like the Betfair, Ascot, Ryanair, Melling and Celebration Chases, plus several in Ireland, has meant that Desert Orchid's successors have seldom needed to exert themselves in handicaps.
Even Kauto Star, the closest throwback to that age and highest-rated steeplechaser since Arkle and Flyingbolt whose exploits will be remembered in Friday’s Racing Post, ran only three times in a handicap, each time in a Grade 2 with a limited weight range, winning Aintree's Old Roan Chase in 2006.
Among the other great steeplechasers of the last 30 years, Moscow Flyer, Sprinter Sacre and Altior never ran in a handicap. On the other hand, Denman (twice) and One Man won the Hennessy, while Best Mate won the limited-handicap Haldon Gold Cup when receiving weight and Master Minded won a minor handicap at Sandown.
Before the 1990s, options for the top hurdlers outside handicaps were just as limited as they were for the top steeplechasers. The Champion Hurdle was first run in 1927, but not until after World War II did it replace the Imperial Cup as the most important hurdle race of the season, and handicaps remained dominant in the hurdling programme for many years after that.
In 1968 Persian War won the most valuable handicap hurdle of the season, the Schweppes Gold Trophy (now Betfair Hurdle) at Newbury, under a record 11st 13lb as a prelude to the first of his Champion Hurdle victories.
Persian War won only one of his seven races in 1969-70 and that was when completing his Champion Hurdle hat-trick. In his other races, both handicaps and conditions events, he was beaten by the weight he had to concede to his rivals.
Nearly all the other stars of that golden age of hurdling also won big handicaps, including Night Nurse, Monksfield, Sea Pigeon and Birds Nest. They lined up for the inaugural Royal Doulton Handicap Hurdle at Haydock in 1978 but were all eclipsed by 20-1 bottomweight Royal Gaye. Monksfield (12st) was beaten only three-quarters of a length into second place in one of his 13 races that calendar year.
The jumps Pattern transformed the landscape for the top hurdlers just as it did for their steeplechasing counterparts. The Royal Doulton is now the Swinton Hurdle and, with so many easier options available, champions soon stopped taking part in it.
The two greatest hurdlers according to Racing Post Ratings – ie since 1987 – have been Istabraq (181), who never ran in a handicap over hurdles, and Big Buck's (178), who won a Cheltenham handicap at the start of his world record run of 18 consecutive wins over hurdles but was then confined to Grade 1 and 2 events. Hurricane Fly won a world-record 22 Grade 1 races and never ran in a handicap.
The modern jumps scene would be almost unrecognisable to a time-travelling racegoer from the 1960s who saw the two greatest steeplechasers of all time, stablemates Arkle and Flyingbolt.
This week's When Horses Raced series has established that champion jumpers of the past were campaigned very differently to those of today, often in the number of races they were asked to contest, but the achievements of Arkle and Flyingbolt show an even more striking contrast in the severity of their tasks, specifically in handicaps.
Luca Cumani once said that handicaps were a form of communism, yet they dominated jumps racing until the creation of the current Pattern in the early 1990s. Triple Cheltenham Gold Cup hero Arkle and Champion Chase winner Flyingbolt had to run in handicaps, under crushing burdens of up to 12st 10lb and giving lumps of weight to top-class rivals, because there was no alternative if their connections wanted to pick up a reasonable amount of prize-money.
Trained by Tom Dreaper and ridden by Pat Taaffe, those two paragons were the highest-rated steeplechasers of all time, with Arkle achieving an annual Timeform rating of 212 and Flyingbolt 210, both in 1965-66. The official handicappers put the difference at only 1lb. On Racing Post Ratings – created in 1987 and calculated on a similar scale – the highest-rated steeplechasers have been Kauto Star (191), Sprinter Sacre (190) and Desert Orchid (189).
Some have questioned the validity of the Dreaper pair's sky-high ratings but the reason for them is simple: they were forced to demonstrate the full extent of their greatness by conceding up to three stone (42lb) in handicaps to rivals who were of normal Gold Cup standard. Modern champions do not run in handicaps, and are therefore not tested to that extent.
Historic champions habitually ran in handicaps because the championship races at Cheltenham were the only worthwhile targets to be run at level weights. Even the King George VI Chase had hefty penalty clauses. In the four seasons after Arkle's novice-chase campaign, he ran in 21 races and 16 of them were handicaps, in which he carried an average of 12st 4lb and triumphed 13 times.
He received 5lb and a beating from reigning champion Mill House in the 1963 Hennessy (now Coral) Gold Cup at Newbury, but took handsome revenge over that steeplechasing great in all their four subsequent meetings, most famously in their second clash, in the 1964 Gold Cup at Cheltenham.
Arkle ran away with the next two Hennessys under 12st 7lb, but the biggest prize of his career was £8,230 in the 1965 Whitbread (now bet365) Gold Cup at Sandown, when he defied 12st 7lb and conceded at least 35lb all round.
In November 1965, on his seasonal reappearance in Sandown's Gallaher Gold Cup – those were the bad old days of tobacco sponsorship – ‘Himself’ put up perhaps his greatest performance by carrying 12st 7lb to a 20-length victory over the high-class Rondetto (10st 9lb). Mill House (11st 5lb) finished third, with his own record time for the course and distance smashed.
Inside the final mile Mill House had been clear and looking back to his glorious best but, in his definitive biography of Arkle, Ivor Herbert wrote: “Literally in twelve swinging strides Arkle shot up to Mill House and caught him like a monitor catching a naughty boy. And on the bend for the Pond Fence away he came. From that moment and home over the last two fences a greater roar than any ever heard on any British racecourse surged like a typhoon over Sandown.”
Three weeks later Arkle scored his second wide-margin Hennessy victory, starting at odds of 1-6. By this time he had earned a rating of 220 in Timeform's weekly black books, although that was adjusted to 212 at the end of the season.
When he attempted a Hennessy hat-trick in 1966, it needed a superbly opportunistic ride by Stan Mellor to enable Stalbridge Colonist to beat him in a driving finish. Stalbridge Colonist was receiving 35lb and, in Arkle's absence, nearly won that season's Gold Cup. The close third, What A Myth, received 33lb and did win the Gold Cup in 1969.
Arkle's other defeat in a handicap chase came in the Massey-Ferguson (now December) Gold Cup at Cheltenham in 1964, when even he found 12st 10lb too much; he finished a close third.
Arkle won the Irish Grand National under 12st, and his warm-up for each of his three Gold Cups was in the Leopardstown Handicap Chase, carrying 12st on the first occasion and 12st 7lb on the other two.
He was never asked to emulate Golden Miller's unique Gold Cup-Grand National double in 1934. His owner, Anne Duchess of Westminster, said: “I will never let my Arkle run in the National, because I adore him, because he is one of the family, and because he is much too precious to me.”
The stress of repeatedly carrying so much weight may well have caused his career-ending injury when he was aged only nine. Arkle won his penultimate race, the SGB Chase at Ascot in December 1966, by 15 lengths under 12st 7lb but, in jumping to his left, may have been feeling the onset of the injury that caused his defeat in the King George VI Chase 13 days later. On that occasion he fractured the pedal bone of his off-fore hoof, but his courageous battle to the finish would still have resulted in victory had the conditions of the race not required him to give 21lb to Dormant.
Flyingbolt, two years younger than Arkle, struggled to forge an identity of his own and never received the credit he deserved. This was not only because any horse would have been overshadowed by the supreme champion, but also because he had the same trainer, the same jockey and even the same groom, Johnny Lumley.
Having been the champion novice hurdler of 1963-64 and top novice chaser the following season, Flyingbolt proved himself a colossus with a spectacular runaway victory under 12st 6lb in the Massey-Ferguson Gold Cup at Cheltenham in 1965.
The Irish Field reported: “There are many who thought that before the big race Flyingbolt was a little behind Arkle; while after his resounding victory they are in no doubt that he is as good.”
The two giants had different owners but their paths were kept separate, which is why Flyingbolt, in the colours of Jean Wilkinson, attempted an almost impossible double at the Cheltenham Festival in 1966 instead of running in the Gold Cup. He cantered home by 15 lengths in the Two Mile (now Queen Mother) Champion Chase, and the next day came third in the Champion Hurdle.
The versatile Flyingbolt then triumphed in the Irish Grand National under 12st 7lb, giving Dreaper a seventh consecutive success in the race. This prompted the Irish Field to opine: “We are faced with the amazing and inescapable conclusion that, in theory, he is no more than a pound behind Arkle, and, depending on weather conditions, might even be slightly superior if they met.”
While Timeform rated Arkle 2lb superior, the official British handicappers put the difference at only 1lb in the original handicaps for the Gallaher, Mackeson (now Paddy Power) and Massey-Ferguson Gold Cups in the autumn of 1966.
Sadly, just before Arkle's injury could give Flyingbolt the chance to take centre stage, he developed brucellosis, a debilitating blood disease that kept him off the course for nearly a year. On his return he was only a shadow of his former self.
Taaffe said: “In character, they were the night and the day. A small child could walk into Arkle's box in absolute safety. No child, no man would ever willingly step into Flyingbolt's . . . at least, not twice. He'd kick the eye out of your head.”
Arkle became a folk hero celebrated in song, poetry, drama and legend, so it is hard to believe he had a stablemate who was his equal – but a strict assessment of their form, crucially forged in handicaps, suggests that may have been true.
How the Pattern changed everything
Arkle and Flyingbolt had it tough, running mainly in handicaps, and most of the other top steeplechasers of that era also showed the full extent of their greatness when carrying 12st or more to victory in big handicaps.
They included not only Mill House in the Hennessy, but also Fortria (Mackeson twice and Irish Grand National), Pas Seul (Whitbread), Dunkirk (Mackeson), Tingle Creek in the Sandown handicap that is now the Grade 1 named after him, and Pendil in both that handicap and the Massey-Ferguson.
Burrough Hill Lad won the Hennessy under 12st in 1984, and Desert Orchid was the last great champion to run regularly in handicaps, achieving his peak rating when landing Kempton's Racing Post Chase (now Coral Trophy) under 12st 3lb in 1990.
More recent champion jumpers have not run in handicaps regularly, or at all, for one basic reason: the introduction of the jumps Pattern in the early 1990s.
The Tingle Creek and Victor Chandler (now Clarence House) Chases metamorphosed from handicaps to Grade 1 events, and the introduction of new British Grade 1s like the Betfair, Ascot, Ryanair, Melling and Celebration Chases, plus several in Ireland, has meant that Desert Orchid's successors have seldom needed to exert themselves in handicaps.
Even Kauto Star, the closest throwback to that age and highest-rated steeplechaser since Arkle and Flyingbolt whose exploits will be remembered in Friday’s Racing Post, ran only three times in a handicap, each time in a Grade 2 with a limited weight range, winning Aintree's Old Roan Chase in 2006.
Among the other great steeplechasers of the last 30 years, Moscow Flyer, Sprinter Sacre and Altior never ran in a handicap. On the other hand, Denman (twice) and One Man won the Hennessy, while Best Mate won the limited-handicap Haldon Gold Cup when receiving weight and Master Minded won a minor handicap at Sandown.
Before the 1990s, options for the top hurdlers outside handicaps were just as limited as they were for the top steeplechasers. The Champion Hurdle was first run in 1927, but not until after World War II did it replace the Imperial Cup as the most important hurdle race of the season, and handicaps remained dominant in the hurdling programme for many years after that.
In 1968 Persian War won the most valuable handicap hurdle of the season, the Schweppes Gold Trophy (now Betfair Hurdle) at Newbury, under a record 11st 13lb as a prelude to the first of his Champion Hurdle victories.
Persian War won only one of his seven races in 1969-70 and that was when completing his Champion Hurdle hat-trick. In his other races, both handicaps and conditions events, he was beaten by the weight he had to concede to his rivals.
Nearly all the other stars of that golden age of hurdling also won big handicaps, including Night Nurse, Monksfield, Sea Pigeon and Birds Nest. They lined up for the inaugural Royal Doulton Handicap Hurdle at Haydock in 1978 but were all eclipsed by 20-1 bottomweight Royal Gaye. Monksfield (12st) was beaten only three-quarters of a length into second place in one of his 13 races that calendar year.
The jumps Pattern transformed the landscape for the top hurdlers just as it did for their steeplechasing counterparts. The Royal Doulton is now the Swinton Hurdle and, with so many easier options available, champions soon stopped taking part in it.
The two greatest hurdlers according to Racing Post Ratings – ie since 1987 – have been Istabraq (181), who never ran in a handicap over hurdles, and Big Buck's (178), who won a Cheltenham handicap at the start of his world record run of 18 consecutive wins over hurdles but was then confined to Grade 1 and 2 events. Hurricane Fly won a world-record 22 Grade 1 races and never ran in a handicap.
