A Fine Place to Daydream

by Bill Barich

  I settled on Martinstown, yet another McManus horse, who had won his only two starts in Ireland and been saved for this race since November. Martinstown couldn’t keep himself warm. He finished fourteenth and cost me another fifty. Total Enjoyment, a five-year-old mare, stole the show. Her trainer Tom Cooper, a part-timer from Tralee in County Kerry, had a winner on his first trip to the Festival, a regular Vincent O’Brien. Cooper seemed to have alerted all of Kerry to the mare’s promise, too, so the bookies lost more than a million dollars. Jim Culloty, a Kerryman, was in the irons, and the horse’s owners—the It Will Never Last Syndicate, composed mostly of Kerrymen—were so pumped up (and newly wealthy) they carried Cooper around on their shoulders, while they serenaded him with “The Rose of Tralee.”

  AHEAD LOOM ED another lonely, studious evening at the Twigworth, a prospect I couldn’t abide, so I boarded a shuttle bus for the city center, determined to do St. Patrick’s Day in style. I sat next to a mailman from Coventry, who looked the way I felt, half-elated and half-wrecked, a function of violent mood swings. When I mentioned the Gold Cup, he frowned. He wouldn’t be coming back on Thursday. “Too exhausting,” he said. I understood his dismay. I’d lost touch with ordinary life, too. In town, I was astonished to see people doing normal things—they were buying shoes! They had an existence apart from horses and racing, and I envied them, almost.

  On both sides of the Promenade in Cheltenham, race-goers in little groups, some dazed and some chirpy, were being drawn as if by pan pipes to the Queens Hotel, a grand old structure with columns out front and a pair of bouncers possibly on loan from the World Wrestling Federation guarding the door. In the lobby, an overtaxed gent dozed in an armchair, with a wilted shamrock curled in his lapel. Surely he intended to go to the track, but the undertow of alcohol was too strong. He was the only victim so far. The night was young, after all, and a band was just setting up in a ballroom, but I heard Irish tunes playing on tape at a small bar off the lobby, where I found a vacant table, my first good break since Fundamentalist.

  Here I held court for a while. I had two empty chairs and could have rented them by the hour, so intense was the demand. First to join me were Harold and Ginger, locals as evidenced by their tweeds. They’d never been to the Festival before and were exhilarated to have lived through it. Gambling, drinking, and so on. This stop at the Queens would cap and certify their racecourse experience (never to be repeated), although Ginger seemed tempted. She had three paying guests at her house, gentlemen from Ireland, and thought they were “interesting.” Harold knocked back his beer so fast I offered another round, but that was a bridge too far for him, so he grabbed Ginger and split.

  Next came a captain of industry, an Irishman in exile forced to earn his fortune outside London, which he’d done. The smell of money was all over him. He marched in whistling along to “McNamara’s Band” and asked to borrow my Racing Post, so he could check why all his bets had been losers. That should have endeared him to me, but it didn’t. He was a bully. The Queens had been his base forever, so he felt privy to its secrets and entitled to do as he pleased. He was in no rush to finish his drink. Instead, he’d pace himself—instinct control!—and change to vintage wine with dinner, before moving on to brandy and a cigar. Bastard!

  The captain’s wife was more friendly. She loved racing and had traveled the world in pursuit of it. She’d been to Australia, New York, Kentucky, and even Hong Kong, she said—I drifted, thinking of the stickers on old luggage trunks—but I was also glaring at the captain as he read the Post and whistled “The Wild Colonial Boy.” Why did I have an urge to strangle him? It was a low thing to feel, but I couldn’t stand the guy, so I surrendered my table and joined the crush at the bar, where a giant from Kerry was holding forth. He offered a toast to Total Enjoyment, Tom Cooper, and Kerry itself, and though I had a pint in hand, he bought me another. “God’s country,” he mumbled, listing toward me like a building about to collapse. I bought him a pint, and he bought me a pint, and I bought him a pint, and he tried to buy me a pint, but I escaped.

  The bar was jammed now. I saw two working girls among the customers, one a busty redhead in a miniskirt. Hookers had fared poorly with the Irish at Cheltenham in the old days. “They’re only interested in cards and horses,” ran the apocryphal quote. It’s even money the redhead will flash her knickers tonight, I said to myself, my brain in Paddy Power mode. The drink was getting to me, and I was still fuming about the captain, who lorded it over the room. He’d invite a chum to rest for a few minutes in a precious chair (my chair!), then dismiss him and summon the next jester. His losing bets were my only solace. “May they haunt you forever, captain,” I said, hoping he’d hear me.

  In search of some breathing room, I struggled to the lobby. The band was so loud the hotel had the feel of a deafening echo chamber, but nobody seemed to mind—quite the opposite, in fact. All the noise, palaver, and marginal behavior were part of a more general release the Festival encouraged, a chance to forget ordinary cares and sink them in a sea of booze. At the Queens, judges and CEOs clinked glasses with farmers, burglars, and dope dealers. There were no class distinctions, no banal conversations about mortgages or orthodontia, and especially no imperative to better yourself. Here you could let it all hang out. For many of the revelers, this was as good as it got.

  Hunger spared me from total ruin. On the brink of being excessively tipsy, I excused myself (though nobody noticed), located an Italian café nearby, and ordered some pasta. I was desperate, though, because I had nothing to read. The menu was no help, either, being short on digestible prose. The captain had my Post, damn it, and I imagined it had gone that way for him since birth, every momentary desire satisfied. A kindly waitress, registering my distress, brought me a wrinkled, sauce-stained paper. The sports pages were missing—they’re always missing, everywhere on earth—but in the news section I found a feature on Best Mate, who would soon have his “appointment with destiny,” as the overwrought reporter put it.

  A LIGHT RAIN SPATTERED against my window on Gold Cup morning. The guests were sleeping in at the Twigworth. On most doorknobs, I saw signs that read HANGOVER RECOVERY IN PROGRESS, the hotels semi-clever version of DO NOT DISTURB. The breakfast room was quiet, the staff subdued. On the bus ride to the track, our mood was somber, even respectful. We had a sense of occasion, I suppose, knowing we were part of something unique. If the day went well and Best Mate won again, we’d be telling our grandchildren about it in years to come, and if we didn’t have any grandchildren, we’d rent some to bend their ears.

  The coach dropped us at the gates around noon. I stepped over some puddles as deep as little ponds. Though it was dry and cool now, the rain had done its work and softened the ground considerably. The official going was “good (good to soft in places),” an advantage for the Irish horses, although also for Best Mate. Despite the dull weather, the fans came in droves—57,463 people, a new Cheltenham record. I looked around for the Manchester United guerrillas, but a mild scolding from Sir Alex had nipped their rebellion in the bud.

  We arrived early enough that I could beat the crowd to the Arkle Bar. I ordered a much-needed coffee, wistfully recalling when I was so far ahead of the game, but I’d returned most of my profit to the bookies on Wednesday. I was almost even now, an unacceptably wishy-washy state, the province of pinched souls who store pennies in jars and never cross a street against the light. Better to win or lose big than go home untouched or even unscarred by the experience, I thought, but once more I’d neglected to study the form, having lingered too long at the Queens. Always an excuse, as my teachers used to say.

  The JCB Hurdle, the afternoon’s opener, was a devilish affair for twenty-three lightly raced four-year-old novices. So much depended on racing luck I was going to stay away from the JCB until I saw Hasanpour’s name on the card—Hasanpour, my newsagent’s tip, an enticing echo from Dublin! Charlie Swan told the Post he liked his horse’s chances, too, and explained that a virus had affected his last outing, a p
itiful one. I had to grip my left wrist with my right hand to block access to my wallet, but it worked, and I was glad, because Hasanpour was pulled up. The first five finishers were all long shots, with Phillip Hobbs’s Made In Japan the winner at 20–1.

  The Stayers’ Hurdle was another race to avoid, although for a different reason—the presence of Baracouda, already a champion twice at the Festival. French-bred, out of Peche Aubar by Alesso, a U.S. stallion, Baracouda was among J. P. McManus’s most prized possessions. McManus had purchased the gelding and also First Gold from the Marquesa de Moratalla after meeting her at a London dinner party in 2001, according to a report in the Times of London. The Marquesa recognized a kindred soul who’d treat her horses humanely, it was said, but the estimated six-figure price tag must have had some influence on her willingness to sell.

  Finding a flaw in Baracouda’s armor was a thankless task. His overall record was formidable, with sixteen wins and four seconds from twenty-one starts. Only two things counted against him, a tendency to stall when he was in front and his age. In the past eleven years, sixty-four eight-year-olds had tried the race, but only three had won, and Baracouda was nine. The competition would come from Iris’s Gift, a close second to him last year, losing by just three-quarters of a length, but Iris’s Gift had question marks, too. Niggling problems had affected him all winter, so the horse’s preparation had been less than ideal. He’d had only one run before the Festival.

  Statistics and form aside, it would be another factor that affected the race—the wiliness of the Irish, Barry Geraghty in particular. He’d ridden Iris’s Gift in the last Stayers’ Hurdle and had learned that Baracouda thrived on a fast pace, letting the other horses burn out before firing, so he warned Gary Hutchinson on Solerina—a speedy front-runner—to take it easy, or he’d be handing the race to Baracouda. Since Hutchinson was already doubtful about Solerina’s ability to last for three miles, he agreed to conserve the mare (if he could) for a late sprint. By keeping a tight hold, he slowed the pace and left Geraghty with plenty of horse. When Iris’s Gift skipped past Solerina two hurdles out, Thierry Doumen on Baracouda released the brake. Baracouda closed with a predatory swoop, as if on the scent of blood, but Geraghty’s intrigue paid a dividend, and his horse drew clear over the last fifty yards.

  EVERY FESTIVAL DEVELOPS its own thread of meaning, a strand of occurrences that ultimately define it, and ours might well be called the Graveyard of Champions with Rooster Booster, Baracouda, and Moscow Flyer all defeated. Only Best Mate still held his title, and we’d know soon if Matey would be the exception to the rule. No horse could have been nurtured toward his goal with more care or patience, each in infinite supply thanks to Henrietta Knight and her devoted crew, who had fine-tuned Best Mate so minutely he might have been an instrument for detecting tiny disturbances in the atmosphere.

  The Gold Cup in 2002 came seventy-eight days after Matey’s last race, for instance. The spread was seventy-seven days in 2003, and this year it was eighty-one days, an extraordinary degree of precision. Again the horse had just three prep races, the same as last year, with the Ericsson substituted for the King George. A skilled squad of specialists saw to his every need, as well. He had a physiotherapist to massage his back muscles, and a dentist to repair his teeth. Jackie Jenner was almost saintly in her devotions. As if that weren’t enough, Best Mate had the public’s support. Admirers had sent him more than eight hundred cards, often with sprigs of heather or clover enclosed, to wish him good luck.

  For Knight, the detail work didn’t stop with her horse. Every human movement had to be plotted, too, and made as identical as possible to other Gold Cup days. She wore the same blue suit as before—the same blouse and hat, of course, and her lucky pearls—while Terry Biddlecombe retrieved his lucky hat, a bashed-in trilby, from the cupboard where it gathered dust between its annual appearances. Their houseguest, Andrew Coonan, head of the Irish Jockeys’ Association, had gone home to Kildare on Wednesday, just as he’d done in the past, and Knight would watch the race on TV (if she could bear to) in a press tent behind the weighing room, where she had watched it last year.

  Whatever you thought about Knight’s precautions (and who dared to judge her, after the infuriated fates had capsized Moscow Flyer?), Best Mate deserved his spot at the head of the market. He did look like a lion in the paddock, possessed of a vital nobility. Where was the threat, I wondered? Beef Or Salmon was too green, while Harbour Pilot was too risky. A high-strung type, he had lost some weight on the ferry, plus Beef Or Salmon had beaten him twice. What about First Gold? In my opinion, he was over the hill. First Gold had won only a single race in England, the King George VI in 2000, prompting McManus to buy him, and had run just once this season, again in the King George, where he trailed in third.

  Keen Leader, Barry Geraghty’s mount, had attracted some money. The horse had class, but his record was too in-and-out for my taste. As for Truckers Tavern, second in 2003, he’d blown every race since then. No, the only two outsiders who appealed to me were Therealbandit and Sir Rembrandt. With Therealbandit, Martin Pipe was rolling the dice. His horse liked Cheltenham, having won two novice chases there, and would have an easier trip among veteran horses than he would have had among the sloppy novices in the Royal and Sun Alliance Chase. Yet only one novice had ever won the Gold Cup, and that was Captain Christy in 1974.

  The punters liked Therealbandit, though, and made him second favorite to the odds-on Best Mate—wishful thinking, maybe. But as I studied Sir Rembrandt, I became convinced he had an outside chance. True, you’d doubt it on his recent form, since his last good run was in the Welsh National in December. After that, he’d been pulled up in the Pillar Property Chase and had weakened disastrously in the race after that. Robert Alner couldn’t account for his decline, but Sir Rembrandt had put it behind him, at least by the look of him. He, too, had an animal vigor, along with a magnificent aura of well-being, so I tossed a fast fifty on him to win.

  For the Gold Cup I had an invitation to the HRI box, high up among the corporate and members’ boxes in the privileged precincts of the grandstand. I could see the full panorama of the racecourse without battling the crowd, and I felt a very potentate to be hobnobbing with such dignitaries as Paddy Mullins and Father Breen. As I helped myself to some lunch from a buffet, a young waiter tapped me on the shoulder. He was still a teenager and bore the normal burdens of adolescence. He had braces on his teeth, blotches on his face, and a crop of unruly hair that spiked up in weird cowlicks. On a crumpled napkin, he’d written, “First Gold, Two Pounds.” Would I place the bet for him? Servers couldn’t gamble while on duty, he explained.

  Of course, I agreed. Why not facilitate the dreams of a fellow dreamer? But I was curious why he chose me from so many eligibles. I attributed it first to my gentle nature, only to realize a second later that he took me for the only fall guy in the room. Whatever the reason, I did his bidding and put ten dollars on First Gold myself, because the napkin had to be an omen—even though First Gold was eleven, and no horse older than ten had won the Gold Cup since 1969. What pits of deception can swallow us! Anyway, I took it on the chin, topped up my wineglass, and gave the kid his ticket. Good luck, kid, you’ll need it.

  We moved onto a balcony for the race. The sky provided an operatic backdrop, thundery purple above the deep-green grass of the course. The air, too, had a stinging bite, as sharp as a wake-up call. A team of red-coated huntsmen led the field onto the track, and the horses acquired a shimmery grace in the fine mist. Utterly beautiful, they must have been aware of a heightened moment. They’d recognize it from the intensity of the crowd, I thought, and from a sound most of them had never heard before, the slightly altered breathing of nearly sixty thousand human beings in a rapturous state of suspense, on the cusp of every mystery.

  All the hype, all the boozing and carousing, even the slot-machine frenzy of the Centaur, they were swept aside by a cosmic broom, and we were delivered to the heart of the matter and understood our purpose again
. It went that way at every major sporting event, be it the Super Bowl or the World Cup final, because the event itself was often buried under so many layers of commerce that its essence was obscured. But there always came a revelatory moment such as this, when everyone remembered the why of it and snapped to attention, ready to witness the impossible forward pass, the amazing penalty kick, or the making—or unmaking—of a champion.

  For the jockeys, it was all business. They said as much themselves. Any anxiety they might feel about the importance of the Gold Cup, or the big payday involved, vanished once the race was on. They were caught in a rush of synapses that obliterated any individual details, except those that pertained to winning. They could have been at Thurles, so little did the externals concern them. Their only injunction was to ride the best race they were capable of, according to plan. For Jim Culloty, who’d walked the course with Terry Biddlecombe, that meant clinging to the inside rail where the ground was slightly better—although that was dangerous because a horse can get pinned on the rail. For Paul Carberry, the assignment was to “sit and suffer,” as Noel Meade put it. Harbour Pilot could be finicky and frustrated when asked for a jump or a run, so Paul’s instructions were to let the horse dictate.

  From the start, First Gold took the lead. He set a good pace, too, tracked by Harbour Pilot. Beef Or Salmon and Therealbandit were held up, while Sir Rembrandt, to my distress, was slow away. Best Mate stayed inside as intended, a few lengths back of the pacesetter. What a joy it was to see him jump! His sloppy performance in the Peterborough was a distant memory, eclipsed by his return to form. He jumped each fence in the same measured way, hitting it dead right, with the middle of his body poised over it. It was a classic display of prowess. Sleek and streamlined, he never wasted any energy, nor did Culloty have to whisper a single word to encourage him. Matey was a natural—a true “lepper,” as the Irish say.