2025

Seabiscuit

admin March 17, 2025

If ever there was a ‘rags-to-riches’ story in the history of horse racing, it is that of Seabiscuit. Foaled in Lexington, Kentucky on May 3, 1933, the diminutive colt was originally owned by Gladys Mills Phipps and her brother, Ogden Livingston Mills, under the Wheatley Stable banner, and trained by

James Edward ‘Sunny Jim’ Fitzsimmons. Despite powerful connections, Seabiscuit was still a maiden after 17 starts but, having won handful of run-of-the-mill races, eventually caught the eye

Robert Thomas ‘Silent Tom’ Smith at Suffolk Downs in East Boston, Massachusetts, as a three-year-old, in late June 1936. The grandson of Man o’ War was duly sold to businessman Charles Stewart Howard and so embarked on a journey that would make him an unlikely champion in his own right.

In his four-year-old campaign, in 1937, Seabiscuit won 11 of his 15 starts and was the leading money-earner in North America. The following season, as a five-year-old, by popular demand, he took on the 1937 Triple Crown winner, and Horse of the Year, War Admiral in a highly-anticipated match race for the newly-inaugurated Pimlico Special, billed as the ‘Race of the Century’, over 9½ furlongs at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. Ridden by George ‘The Iceman’ Woolf, Seabiscuit made the early running and, although joined by his younger rival in the back straight, drew away again in the closing stages to win by four lengths. He was voted Horse of the Year in 1938.

Seabiscuit died of a suspected heart attack on May 17, 1947 and was buried at Ridgewood Ranch, California, where his stud barn was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014. His story has been told many times, most recently in ‘Seabiscuit: An American Legend’, written by Laura Hillenbrand and published in 1999, and its film adaptation, ‘Seabiscuit’, released in 2003; the latter was nominated for seven Academy Awards.

Black Beauty

admin March 17, 2025

Black Beauty is, of course, the main protagonist, and narrator, of the children’s classic “Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse” by English author Anna Sewell. Having spent the last seven or eight years of her life writing the novel, Sewell sadly died on April 25, 1878, just five months after its publication. Nevertheless, Black Beauty remains in print 150 years later and, indeed, has sold over 50 million copies worldwide, thereby achieving one of her stated goals, which was “to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses.”

Although beloved of younger readers, the novel paints an unflinching portrait of the many misguided, and downright cruel, practices involved in the treatment of horses in Victorian England, devoid of sugar coating. It is essentially a morality tale, which teaches the value of kindness, sympathy and understanding, but nonetheless contains accurate, carefully-observed descriptions of equine behaviour and plenty of practical information on the right way to care for horses. Consequently, Black Book was enthusiatically endorsed by animal welfare organisations, including the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA).

As the full title suggests, Black Beauty is the fictional autobiography of a handome, well-bred horse, who passes through the hands of several owners, some kind, some less so, but maintains a gentle, dignified voice as he strives to do his best, regardless of his circumstances. The story ends on a happy, if slightly bittersweet note when, after a lifetime of hardship and mistreatment finds a loving, permanent home which to spend the rest of his days. Black Beauty is reunited with Joe Green, whom he knew as a boy in his younger days, but is now coachman to his new owners. He says, “My troubles are all over, and I am at home.”

Frankel

admin March 17, 2025

Frankel was retired, unbeaten in 14 races, following a convincing 1¾-length victory over Cirrus Des Aigles in the Champion Stakes at Ascot on October 20, 2012. At that point, his trainer, the late Sir Henry Cecil, said, “He’s the best I’ve ever had, the best I’ve ever seen.” Nowadays, Frankel stands at Banstead Manor Stud in Cheveley, near Newmarket, where he commands a fee of £350,000, befitting a stallion who was leading sire in Europe, by prize money, in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Bred by Juddmonte Farms, Frankel raced in the famous pink, green and white colours of the late Prince Khalid bin Abdullah, the founder of that enterprise. Awarded a Timeform Annual Rating of 147, he remains the highest-rated horse in the history of that organisation, 2lb ahead of the 1965 Derby winner Sea-Bird and 3lb ahead of the likes of Brigadier Gerard and Tudor Minstrel.

Ridden throughout his career by Tom Queally, Frankel won 10 races at the highest, Group 1 level, starting with the Dewhurst Stakes, over seven furlongs, at Newmarket on October 20, 2010 and ending with the aforementioned Champion Stakes, over a mile and a quarter, two years later. In between times, he won the 2,000 Guineas, St. James’s Palace Stakes, Sussex Stakes and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes in 2011 and the Lockinge Stakes, Queen Anne Stakes, Sussex Stakes (again) and Juddmonte International Stakes in 2012.

Frankel started favourite on all 14 starts and was sent off at odds-against just once, on his debut in a maiden stakes race at Newmarket on August 13, 2010. Indeed, on his last four starts, he was returned at hugely prohibitive odds of 1/10, 1/20, 1/10 and 2/11. In his career as a whole, he accumulated an aggregate winning distance of 76¼ lengths and fractionally shy of £3 million in prize money.

Desert Orchid

admin March 17, 2025

Owned by Richard Burridge and trained by David Elsworth at Whitsbury Manor Racing Stables, in Fordingbridge, Wiltshire, Desert Orchid achieved iconic status in National Hunt racing in the eighties and early nineties. All told, the aptly-named grey gelding, by Grey Mirage out of Flower Child, won 34 of his 70 races over hurdles and fences and amassed just over £650,000 in prize money. In 1983/84, his second season over hurdles, he won six of his eight starts, including the Grade 1 Tolworth Hurdle at Sandown Park and, although ultimately well beaten, was actually sent off second favourite for the 1984 Champion Hurdle, behind the redoubtable racemare Dawn Run.

However, it was as a steeplechaser that Desert Orchid was to find lasting fame and, three decades after his retirement, in December 1991, remains the sixth highest-rated steeplechaser since the early sixties, according to Timeform. A sturdy, handsome grey, whose coat turned almost white with age, Desert Orchid was undoubtedly a better horse going right-handed – “a stone better”, according to one of his regular jockeys, Simon Sherwood – but that didn’t stop him from winning a memorable renewal of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Away from Prestbury Park, his bold, front-running style served him well over distances ranging from two miles to three miles and five furlongs.

Desert Orchid won the King George VI Chase, over three miles, at Kempton four times, in 1986, 1988, 1989 and 1990, thereby setting a record that has only been surpassed by a more recent superstar of modern times, Kauto Star. In 1988, he also won the Tingle Creek Chase, over two miles, and the Whitbread Gold Cup (now the Bet365 Gold Cup), over three miles and five furlongs, both at Sandown and, in 1990, Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse, again over three miles and five furlongs. He died peacefully in his stable in November 2006 at the age of 27.

Trigger

admin March 17, 2025

Foaled in San Diego, California on Independence Day, 1934, and originally named Golden Cloud, Trigger was a horse owned and ridden by ‘King of the Cowboys’, Roy Rodgers. Rogers, born Leonard Skye, starred in 82 Westerns between 1938 and 1951, often alongside George ‘Gabby’ Hayes as his sidekick and his wife, Dale Evans, as his leading lady. A palomino horse – that is, characterised by a golden-coloured and a white mane and coat – Trigger was ridden by Rogers in many of his films and in the Roy Rodgers Show, a television series that ran ran for six seasons between 1951 and 1957.

Although a stallion, Golden Cloud was never bred, but was understudied as ‘Trigger’ by several other palaminos, notably ‘Little Trigger’ and ‘Trigger Jr.’, although the latter only ever appeared in one film, the aptly-title Trigger Jr. in 1950, and was mainly employed for Rogers’ personal appearances around the country. Little Trigger, too, was used as a personal appearance horse, but was trained extensively and could perform dozens of tricks, routines and dressage moves; in fact, he doubled for ‘Trigger’ in every one of Rogers’ films after 1940. In his various incarnations, ‘Trigger’ became the most famous horse in the film industry and, in his heyday, appeared in his own comic book series, Roy Rogers’ Trigger, published by Dell.

Golden Cloud died in at Rogers’ ranch in Apple Valley, California in 1965 and his hide was mounted and put on display at the original Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum, as was that of Trigger Jr., following his death in 1969. Rogers himself died in 1998, Dale Evans in 2001, and the museum closed its doors for good in 2009. Nowadays, the taxidermied remains of Golden Cloud are on display at the John Wayne: An American Experience in Fort Worth, Texas, as are those of Rogers’ dog, Bullet.