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These 185 comments are related to the topic:
My Problem With Arkle
My Problem With Arkle
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Replies: 185
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Do you mean Quinag? and yes, the Duchess did own Ben Stack - won at two separate festivals I think. One might have been the NH Chase.
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Yes I am pretty sure she did or had.
Ben Stack was the same age as Arkle,Mill House and a 2 miler called Irish Imp,who like Mill House was trained by Walwyn. It's practically forgotten now but their clash in the Champion Chase was looked forward to almost as much as The Big One as both looked exceptional. Ben Stack won that for Ireland as well but neither did much afterwards and their memory has been eclipsed by Dunkirk ( yet another one of the same vintage ) who won it by 20L the following year. |
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No way ben stack won the NH Chase blackbarn. He was a two miler.
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Found it.Creag Dionard(2554 feet),Arkle(2580) and Foinaven(2980),for whom I got the spelling wrong in my original post.Ben Stack(2364) is the closest of the lot to the Duchess's home but my excuse is that it was about 25 years since I last was there and half of the time I can't remember what I did yesterday.
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Correct Salmon! - won the Champion Chase and the Cotswold as it was then.
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Ben Stack was part of one of the recent quiz questions of Arkle winners to go on and win the Champion Chase, the years were 1963 & 1964
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Wasn't the Arkle in 1963,but I know what you mean.
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blackbarn said it earlier, was the Cotswold
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Right. I was getting the Cotswold mixed up with the Cathcart tbh
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Salmon - re your earlier post. I am sure I saw Makaldar win at Plumpton. Seems surprising, before the days of bonus races of course. Queen Mothers horse wasn't it
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Robin Cook was climbing Ben Stack when he had a heart attack and died.
I had a go at scrambling up the side of Foinaven - it wasn't pleasant - very loose rock. Arkle's slopes are almost pure scree from some angles, though I think there is a winding walk to the top. Wainwright produced a book with drawings of the mountains - probably from photgraphs - he writes in it that "Arkle was the better horse, but Foinaven was the better mountain". It's very wild country - there are lots a little lochans round about. I saw a couple of red-throated divers on one of them once. There used to be someone called 'Assessor' on here, who knew the area well - I think he worked on the estate. The name Arkle may mean either 'ark mountain' or 'whale mountain', from old Scandinavian words. Foinavon was bought by Tom Dreaper for the Duchess as a 3yo. He ran 22 times for her, winning three. He really was a plodder. He was sent to the sales, where John Kempton bouught him. He ran in Arkle's final race, and finished 4th, a long way behind. |
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Did the Duchess also own Ben More?
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Not sure Makaldar was the QM's. Laffy certainly was.
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Ooops,looks like I've got my Foinaven and Foinavon mixed up.
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Makaldar was the QM's. He used to have battles with Sempervivum.
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Sempervivum separated me and Flyingbolt in the 1966 CH. Was trained by Walwyn as I think somebody said earlier.
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Yes he was a favourite of mine when I was a kid. Never quite managed to win one of the big hurdle prizes, but went close several times. He ran in in the 1961 St Leger when trained in France, and was still going over hurdles age 10, so he was a tough little thing.
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He headed the weights for the Schweppes Hurdle in 1968, as a 10yo, with 12-2. Persian War (5yo) won it with 11-13.
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and Makaldar was second to Saucy Kit in the following years Champion Hurdle on a disq. I think
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Sempervivum ran 3rd in that Schweppes. Persian War's 11-13 is still a record weight for the winner of that race. There were some grand old names further down the big field that day (there were 34 down to run in the morning) - Hill House (carrying 12-1), Major Rose (2nd, carrying 11-8)), Kirriemuir (11-8), Even Keel (11-9), Indamelia, 5yo Spanish Steps, Specify, and the WA pair Celtic Gold and Supermaster.
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Better than most Champion Hurdles. At least 4 became good class STAYING chasers btw.
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Hi Ged, interesting stuff. My Dad sent me a text from Ben Stack, it can only have been minutes before he died, saying: "Am at top of Ben Stack. Arkle and Foinaven can't be seen for mist - weather foul. Wish you were here"
FWIW, it was m'colleague Greg Wood who made that point about Arkle and Flyingbolt: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2009/dec/28/arkle-timeform-rating-phil-smith |
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I should add that, unlike me, Dad would undoubtedly have spelt Foinavon right at the first attempt
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blimey - thanks for that. Sorry about your dad - a great loss to many. And apologies for mixing you up with Greg Wood, who I usually find myself strongly agreeing with.
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Some of Phil Smith's comments amaze me. I presume the King George he referred to was the race he beat Madison de Berlais and Barbers Shop. MDB never won another race and Barbers only won a couple of hunter chases ffs. The Hennessy MDB won he beat Air Force One who gave him weight and the only race he won subsequently was a handicap off 120. Of course KS did beat Long Run in the KG by less than 2 lengths and he is rated in the 160's now. How KS was awarded 193 is a mystery to me. He was beaten by Imperial Commander who won a handicap off 130 odd then went up 4 stone in the ratings. It is proof that the handicappers blind faith is always upwards. If a 120 horse beats a 140 horse they raise the 120 horse where in fact the 140 horse is over rated in the first place.
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I'd be a bit suspicious so many great sport stars came along at the dawn of the television age. You had Arkle, Ali, Pele, the great Brazil team, Mick O'Connell, etc. I think the availability of these guys in people's sitting rooms added a little bit of romance to their story.
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^ an excellent observation - and point well made - SeeYouThink
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Quite the opposite. It probably only proves there may have been better before TV whereas every man and his dog can now stand up and be counted by everyone. Ali was and is the greatest boxer. Pele was brilliant and that was at a time when footballers had no problem playing the man, not like the namby pamby's of today. (Personally I preferred George Best btw). And I'm certain the Brazilian football team didn't win their matches only because they were on TV. I suggest you look at the TV coverage and then try saying who was better than any of the above.
I hadn't heard of Mick O'Connell until today. |
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I don't think there is a problem with Arkle. Like I said he still holds the 3m 1/2f record over the difficult Sandown course. Just think of all the good horses in the past 47 years that have not matched his time. Even those that go close would not have carried 12 7. Also timing was accurate enough in those days so there is no issue there. And they made the railway fences easier since. the thing is its difficult to accept that an animal from 50 years ago being the best so far, but its true. The improvement in performance in the animal kingdom is not as fast as we like to think. For example look up when the first sub 10 sec 100m was run. the record now is about 9.6 so its gone down 0.1 sec about every 10 years. Its no that there won't be another Arkle its just that we have not seen it yet.
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It is a good point Engineer but you must remember how much the 100m scene has changed. The huge introduction of African and Afro/Americans to start with has transformed it. Added to that Roger Bannister was an amateur running in spikes on a cinder track. Now everyone in the world runs in it yet I think the two fastest both come from Jamaica.
Horses have been slower to improve, if they have, and the courses and course management has been much better. Racing is much more parochial and you may find that introducing more non Group 1 horses into the gene pool would weaken the breed. Apparently the Americans are having hug problems in soundness etc for that reason. I think it was Vincent O'Brien who warned about these issues many years ago. I believe Arkle's rating is far more likely to be correct than Kauto Stars. Timeform were able to test their ratings in almost every big race because they were handicaps. If they rated a hose too highly it would quickly become apparent. There is no way KS's rating could be tested because PN wouldn't run him in a handicap off his rating. That tells me he didn't think he could win off it. Arkle had to do just that every season and more than once. |
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ged post 17 march 09.22 is spot on
the problem with Arkle he was a freak . the likes we will never see again he was the only horse in the history of the game .. too have 2 handicaps one if he ran and another if he did not run Why he was 3 stone better than the rest at that time |
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It seems so obvious now but why didn't they have a single handicap and the raising the weights system that we have now? I can recall Freddie carrying the top weight of 10.04 in the Great Yorkshire Chase(one of the major handicaps in those days)after Arkle wasn't declared to run.
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engineer
By your inference, Jezki is the best 2 mile hurdler ever, closely followed by MTOY - Vatour even held that spot for just over an hour. |
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It seems so obvious now but why didn't they have a single handicap and the raising the weights system that we have now?
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Oops.
It seems so obvious now but why didn't they have a single handicap and the raising the weights system that we have now? Perhaps it was rare to have such a gulf in ability that it mattered. Remember too there are problems with the current system. What we have now is a centralised, running, free handicap whereas back then the weights would be set on a race by race basis by an individual handicapper. (And this is separate from the question of the long handicap.) The "free" part (ie not tied to any particular race) might be the biggest problem with that, since it means a horse would run off the same mark regardless of the distance -- a problem only officially recognised in the Grand National (and unofficially exploited by Sir Mark Prescott). |
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having read the whole of this thread (some excellent observations throughout) a real defining moment was the 1965 Whitbread(Gallagher) when Arkle gave 16lbs and a 24 length beating to a 193 rated Gold Cup winner (who earlier was been touted as the best ever)
Now you may consider Mill House was in decline (but won a Whitbread after) - but it is possible Arkle was progressing - 212 is possibly short on what he achieved that day. |
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Arkle won the Whitbread and the Gallagher in 1965 but they were different races in different seasons. It was the Gallagher run in late 1965 where he beat Mill House by the distance given above ( Rondetto was 2nd 20L behind Arkle ).Mill House didn't run in the 1965 Whitbread. In 1964 he finished 2nd trying to give 3st to the very useful Dormant. If anything that was the race that broke him rather than his clashes with Arkle.
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Ok you guys old enough a least 70 years young it could be true and it could be Irish Blaney ..
Tom Dreaper had both Arkle and The unbeatean Flying Bolt ..on his death bed some wag asked why did you not run Flying Bolt against the Mighty Arkle to see who was the best Tom said well i did not want to see Arkle Beat ..  |
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There is no way KS's rating could be tested because PN wouldn't run him in a handicap off his rating. That tells me he didn't think he could win off it. Arkle had to do just that every season and more than once.
Sorry this is just pushing at the edge of reason. The pure and simple reason for not running Kauto in a handicap is "what would be the point" when he can collect £100k for winning the betfair, £1m bonus etc. He had no need to run in handicaps, apart from the Hennessey all the money for his distance is in Grade 1s of which there are plenty. |
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Paul Nicholls said many times that Kauto Star is not big enough to give away weight, and contrasted him with Desert Orchid and Denman.
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