Tag: John Berry

Letter To The Editor: Gunnar Nordqvist

I think we must thank Mr. Berry for his  long and exhaustive writing about The Queen, and not only as a breeder and racehorse owner, but also as a monarch who had, via the horses, a unique way of influencing politics, without “doing” politics. Her long and varied travels globally had always a hint of the horses. Whilst maintaining her staunch support of being politically correct, she did manage to convey to the greater public the importance of uniting people rather than dividing. Mr Berry's writing in the TDN today should be read by all the journalists and chroniclers who are today and will forever be totally unaware of her unstinting, perennial work to find a common ground with all peoples.

Mr. Berry is as always an extremely knowledgeable writer and has seen and understood the greater picture of what Queen Elizabeth II managed to achieve over her 70 years of reign.

 

Sincerely,
Gunnar Nordqvist

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Seventy Glorious Years: Part III

In the concluding part of the series reflecting on the Queen's long attachment to thoroughbred racing and breeding, John Berry considers the prospect of a royal Derby runner in the year of the Platinum Jubilee

The most significant addition to the royal roster of trainers came in the autumn of 1966, when some of that year's yearlings were sent to the West Ilsley stable of Major Dick Hern. This was the start of a wonderful partnership, which in time saw Hern become as synonymous with the royal string as formerly Captain (later Sir) Cecil Boyd-Rochford had been. The Queen's numbers of horses in training began to drop after the decision in 1964 that the National Stud would cease to breed horses and instead become primarily a base for stallions, which meant that the source of leased horses dried up.  From a royal string of just over 30 in the mid 1960s, she had only 20 horses in training a decade later. However, Major Hern had a wonderful knack of unearthing and developing high-class horses.

Ian Balding, too, proved to be an excellent trainer for Her Majesty. Among the first good horses whom he trained for her was the Charlottesville horse Magna Carta, a son of Almeria. Magna Carta enjoyed a tremendous campaign as a 4-year-old in 1970, highlighted by his wins in the Ascot S. (thus completing a race-to-race double for Balding and his jockey Geoff Lewis, initiated by Mill Reef's victory in the Coventry S.) and the Doncaster Cup. Tragically, Magna Carta, who appealed as an obvious Gold Cup candidate, died early the next year after an accident in his stable. The Queen still had a runner in that Gold Cup, but its extreme distance proved too far for the Dick Hern-trained Charlton, another son of Charlottesville, who went into the race in good form after a win in the Henry VII S. at Sandown. In Magna Carta's absence, Example, a grand-daughter of Doutelle, became the star of the royal horses at Kingsclere in 1971, winning the Park Hill S. at Doncaster followed by a pair of big races in France, the Prix de Royallieu at Longchamp and (the following year) the Prix Jean de Chaudenay at Saint-Cloud.

The brightest star whom Hern trained for Her Majesty at West Ilsley was the aptly-named Highclere, a daughter of the Highclere Stud-based Queen's Hussar whose exploits lit up the spring and summer of 1974. Throughout the decades, the family descending from Feola, a daughter of the influential stallion Friar Marcus who had been bred at Sandringham by King George V, proved to be worth its weight in gold as it was developed under the guidance of Captain Charles Moore, as good a servant and friend to the Royal Studs as there ever could be. Feola was a high-class filly who became an outstanding broodmare, with many of her descendants playing starring roles for firstly King George VI and subsequently Queen Elizabeth II. Feola was 19 when the Queen inherited the Royal Studs in 1952 and already boasted an outstanding record as a broodmare, most notably as the dam of King George VI's 1946 1,000 Guineas heroine Hypericum. Highclere was a grand-daughter (via Highlight) of Hypericum, and she emulated her grandmother by taking the 1,000 Guineas in 1974. An even greater triumph followed six weeks later when she completed a Classic double by taking the Prix de Diane at Chantilly. The following month she finished second to Dahlia in the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Diamond S. at Ascot.

Highclere was not the only top-class 3-year-old filly raced by the Queen in 1974. Ian Balding had care of Escorial, a daughter of Royal Palace whose grand-dam Spanish Court was a half-sister to Almeria. Ridden by Piggott, Escorial won the G3 Musidora S. at the York May Meeting with her head in her chest, but sadly was unable to reproduce the excellence of that effort in the Oaks, for which she started second favourite.

Highclere herself subsequently extended further the family's influence, breeding the high-class Bustino filly Height Of Fashion, successful in the Princess Of Wales's S. at Newmarket in 1982, when she broke the track record.  Unfortunately, she and her Busted half-sister Burghclere were subsequently sold to finance the Queen's purchase of West Ilsley from Sir Michael Sobell. Bought by Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum, Height Of Fashion became a mainstay of the Shadwell broodmare band, launching a stream of Group 1 winners starting with the 1989 2,000 Guineas and Derby winner Nashwan and most recently including the 2021 G1 Queen Elizabeth II S. hero Baaeed (GB).  As the grand-dam of Deep Impact (Jpn), Burghclere has turned out to have had at least as great an influence of the breed.

Three years after Highclere's splendid 3-year-old season, Major Hern prepared another dual Classic-winning filly for Her Majesty. Dunfermline (GB) (Royal Palace {GB}) provided a wonderful occasion when her triumph in the Oaks in 1977 coincided with the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations. An even classier performance followed in the St. Leger when she outstayed the favourite Alleged, form which was endorsed when the runner-up won the next two runnings of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. Two years later the Queen looked to have a live chance in the Derby. The beautifully-bred and well-named Milford (Highclere's first foal, by Mill Reef, named after the house at Highclere in which Lord and Lady Porchester lived) was an easy winner of the Lingfield Derby Trial and went to Epsom as one of two contenders from West Ilsley, both at single-figure odds. Stable jockey Willie Carson, though, opted for the other (leaving Milford for Lester Piggott) and he was proved correct, winning by seven lengths on Sir Michael Sobell's Troy, with Milford unplaced.  Milford, incidentally, was one of two high-class 3-year-old stayers owned by the Queen in West Ilsley that year, along with Queen's Vase hero Buttress (GB) (Busted {GB}).

All good things have to come to an end, and after a hunting accident which left him in a wheelchair, Dick Hern finally had to leave West Ilsley after his Derby-winning season of 1989. Lord Huntingdon moved from Newmarket to fill the void, and while there he extended his great record at Royal Ascot, at which meeting he had first scored when Greenland Park (Ire) had won the Queen Mary S. in 1978 under the Australian jockey Harry White. Lord Huntingdon's greatest achievement was to train the winner of the Gold Cup three years running (1991 to '93). The Queen did not own the two horses involved (Indian Queen and Drum Taps) but he did prepare both Colour Sergeant (Royal Hunt Cup, 1992) and Phantom Gold (Ribblesdale S., 1995) to win at the meeting for her. Phantom Gold subsequently landed the G3 St. Simon S. and the G2 Geoffrey Freer S., both at Newbury. He also secured a notable royal victory in the USA when sending Unknown Quantity (a son of the Hyperion-line stallion Young Generation, from Example's good daughter Pas De Deux, by Nijinsky) from Newmarket to Arlington Park to win the Arlington H. in 1989. After Lord Huntingdon's retirement from the training ranks at the end of 1998, the Queen sold the property at West Ilsley to its current resident, Mick Channon.

The Queen's final Royal Ascot winner of the 20th century came from a trainer new to the royal fold, when Sir Michael Stoute sent out Blueprint (GB) to win the Duke Of Edinburgh H. Blueprint (a son of Generous from Highbrow, by Shirley Heights out of Highclere) subsequently graduated to black-type glory by taking the Fred Archer S. on Newmarket's July Course the following month and then the G2 Jockey Club S. on the Rowley Mile the next spring. His Royal Ascot triumph was particularly well timed as only that year the former Bessborough H. had been re-named in honour of the Queen's husband.  Furthermore, Stoute's presence on the royal roster is very appropriate as he is the current incumbent of Freemason Lodge, whence Sir Cecil Boyd-Rochford previously sent out so many royal winners over the decades.

As the changing face of racehorse ownership came to mean that those not racing vast strings find it hard to come up with high-class horses with any regularity, the Queen had to endure a few barren years at the start of the current century at her favourite meeting, Royal Ascot, notwithstanding that Sir Michael Stoute sent out Flight Of Fancy (GB), a daughter of Sadler's Wells from Phantom Gold, to finish second in the Oaks at Epsom in 2001. Happily, the short Ascot drought changed in thrilling style in 2008 when Free Agent (GB) (Dr Fong) won the Chesham S., much to the delight not only of his owner/breeder and her team, but also of the entire racing public. He was trained by Richard Hannon Snr, who had been added to the royal roster after gaining some great victories with fillies owned by the Earl of Carnarvon.

In recent years, the royal string has benefitted from the generosity of two of the world's most powerful owner/breeders, Sheikh Mohammed and the Aga Khan. The most notable gift from Sheikh Mohammed to the Queen was a son of Street Cry (Ire) from the 1993 Sun Chariot S. winner Talented (GB) (Bustino {GB}).  Bred by Darley and born in 2008, this colt was given the to Queen as a yearling and, curiously, she chose a name for him which she had used previously: Carlton House.

The first Carlton House, a son Pall Mall from Almeria's full-sister Alesia, had been good, winning the Fenwolf S. at Ascot in 1974 when trained by Major Hern; but the second one, trained by Sir Michael Stoute, was even better. In the spring of 2011, he won the G2 Dante S. at York and then, as the nation prepared to celebrate the Queen's 85th birthday, he started favourite for the Derby. Unfortunately, he couldn't quite produce the result for which the nation wished, but he still ran well, finishing third to Pour Moi (Ire), beaten less than a length. He was subsequently transferred to Gai Waterhouse's stable in Australia where he performed well for the Queen in Group 1 races, including finishing third in, appropriately, the G1 Queen Elizabeth S. at Randwick in 2014.

A subsequent gift from Sheikh Mohammed was Dartmouth (Ire), a Darley-bred son of Dubawi. From 2014 to 2017 he proved to be a redoubtable campaigner, winning eight of his 20 races including, in 2016, the G3 John Porter S., the G3 Ormonde S. and the G2 Hardwicke S. at Royal Ascot. He then finished third in the G1 King George VI And Queen Elizabeth S.  The following year he won the G2 Yorkshire Cup.

From the Aga Khan's kindness came even greater glory. The Darshaan mare Ebaziya (Ire) was one of the stars of the stud of HH Aga Khan IV, with several high-class offspring headed by the 1997 Irish Oaks victrix Ebadiyla (Ire) and the 1999 Gold Cup winner Enzeli (Ire). When Ebaziya was aged 20 in 2009, HH Aga Khan IV gave her Monsun filly foal to the Queen, echoing his grandfather's wedding present of Astrakhan to the young princess 62 years previously. This proved to a bountiful gift. The filly, named Estimate (Ire) and trained by Sir Michael Stoute, won twice at Royal Ascot, in 2012 taking the Queen's Vase and the following year emulating her half-brother Enzeli when carrying the royal colours to victory in the meeting's centrepiece, the Gold Cup. Estimate thus became the first Gold Cup winner owned by the Monarch, and the first winner of Ascot's greatest race owned by a member of the Royal Family since her great-grandfather Edward VII had won it (while Prince of Wales) in 1897 with Persimmon. Estimate is now happily ensconced at Sandringham and has bred two winners to date.

Looking back over the past 70 years, royal racing memories come flooding back.  Aureole came so close to a royal Derby victory in Coronation Week, while Dunfermline's Silver Jubilee Oaks triumph was perfectly timed. Looking ahead, we can dream that the Queen's Reach For The Moon (GB), a Sea The Stars (Ire) grandson of Phantom Gold, can win this year's Derby. Trained by John and Thady Gosden, he may well be able to do just that, judged on his win in the G3 Solario S. at Sandown last September. He is currently fourth favourite for the race.

We shall leave the last word on Her Majesty's place in the sport to the Aga Khan III, taken from his forward to Cope's Royal Cavalcade of the Turf: “Racing has been fortunate to have Royal Patronage from the time of the Stuarts down to today, but never has it been so fortunate as at present in having a Monarch who is not only interested in, but has knowledge of racing, horse breeding and the history of the sport and great industry into which it has developed.” Those words were very true when they were written in 1953. They are even more true today.

Click here to read Part I and Part II of this feature.

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Seventy Glorious Years 

A significant milestone in British history is reached on Sunday as the Queen becomes the country's first monarch to reign for 70 years. Throughout that time, Her Majesty has remained a fervent supporter of the Turf. In the first of a three-part series, John Berry looks back at the Queen's strong ties to horseracing.

Racing, the king of sports, has been the sport of kings and queens since the dawn of time. In Great Britain, the monarch's love of the sport can be traced back at least 500 years to the passion which the Stuart kings brought to Newmarket and thus established the town and its Heath as the centre of the racing world. King Charles II famously rode in races on the Heath, while the following century Queen Anne's love of the sport resulted in a racecourse being founded on Ascot Heath in 1711, a short carriage-ride from Windsor Castle. Racegoers at Royal Ascot are reminded of her creation every year when the meeting starts with the G1 Queen Anne S.

No monarch, though, has given a greater commitment to the sport over a longer period than Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, whose 70 years on the throne represent seven decades as the greatest, most passionate, unwavering and knowledgeable patron any sport could ever have.

Queen Elizabeth II has followed perfectly in the footsteps of her great-grandfather King Edward VII. He, though, only spent a relatively short time (nine years) on the throne, having already reached the age of 59 by the time that his mother Queen Victoria passed away on Jan. 22, 1901, aged 81. She remained famously unamused by the sport, but he was as passionate as she was uninterested. Many of his greatest years as an owner (including 1896 when the homebred Persimmon landed the Derby and St Leger; 1897 when Persimmon won the Gold Cup and the Eclipse S.; and 1900 when he raced not only his homebred Triple Crown winner Diamond Jubilee but also the Grand National winner Ambush II) came while he was still Prince of Wales, but he remained an equally enthusiastic and successful patron of the sport after ascending to the throne. Most notably, he won the Derby for a third time when Minoru took the great race in 1909, the first time that the Derby winner had been owned by the monarch.

King Edward VII's focus on racing remained steadfast to the very end. His dying words, on May 6, 1910, came after his son, who was about to become King George V, had informed him of the victory that afternoon of his horse Witch Of The Air in the 4.15 at Kempton Park: “Yes, I have heard of it.  I am very glad.”

Arguably King Edward VII's most significant act as regards the development of the royal racing enterprise was to create a stud at Sandringham in Norfolk in 1886. A stream of royal winners started to flow from Sandringham Stud almost immediately, and they still do to this day.

King George V had inherited his father's passion for the sport and he in turn passed it on to his sons. He also did plenty to light the flame in the heart of his young grand-daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth II. In the spring of 1928 he became the first monarch to win the 1000 Guineas as both owner and breeder with the victory of Scuttle, trained by William Jarvis in the royal stables at Egerton House on the western edge of Newmarket Heath. That evening he wrote in his diary, “I am very proud to win my first Classic and that I bred her at Sandringham”. He later enthralled his favourite grand-daughter with the tale of how the filly, ridden by Joe Childs, played up at the barrier and dwelt as the tapes went up but ultimately came off best at the end of a thrilling duel with Gordon Richards' mount Jurisdiction.

King George V's elder son, the future King Edward VIII, while Prince of Wales threw himself into the sport with such enthusiasm that questions were asked in Parliament by disapproving MPs about whether it was satisfactory that the future king was risking his neck riding in races and point-to-points. Once he had become the monarch, though, King Edward VIII became more famous for triggering constitutional debates on considerably more serious subjects, the upshot of which was his abdication in favour of his younger brother, who thus became King George VI, on Dec. 11, 1936.

King George VI, the father of our current monarch, thus was not born to be the king, but had the crown unexpectedly thrust upon him. He did not let this abrupt and unexpected turn of events interfere with his love of racing. Far from it: the royal colours flourished while in his possession, as is confirmed by the famous photograph of him, wearing his military uniform, leading Sun Chariot into the winner's enclosure at Newmarket's July Course after her triumph in the wartime substitute Oaks in 1942. She had previously won the 1000 Guineas and subsequently completed the Triple Crown by taking the St Leger. Furthermore, Big Game took that year's 2000 Guineas, giving the King victory in four of the five Classics. After the end of the war, he won the 1000 Guineas again when Hypericum scored in 1946, with Princess Elizabeth present to welcome the daughter of Hyperion back to scale.

The elder of King George VI's two daughters, Queen Elizabeth II was aged only 25 when her father died on Feb. 6, 1952. Thus began the longest and arguably most successful reign in British history, a reign during which, leading by example, she has steered the country through the enormous changes which society has undergone since the Second World War. It has also been a reign in which her never-diminishing love of racing has seen the sport immeasurably enriched by the passion of its greatest patron.

As regards her father, from a racing man's point of view he could have had no better epitaph than that which appeared in Cope's Royal Cavalcade of the Turf, published in 1953. King George VI's last top-class horse had been Hypericum's Straight Deal half-sister Above Board, who enjoyed a splendid season in 1950, winning the Yorkshire Oaks, Park Hill S. and Cesarewitch H. Reflecting on that magnificent six-length Cesarewitch triumph, Alfred Cope wrote, “With the cheers for that splendid Royal victory ringing in our ears, it is perhaps a suitable moment to take our leave of a King who, of all the Kings and Queens of the Turf, will be remembered in years to come as one who, by his example, raised the Crown to undreamed-of popularity and respect, while his Turf career brought back to not a few of the older generation some trace of those golden hours they had known when Edward VII was King.”

Having become Queen aged 25 on the death of her father in 1952, Queen Elizabeth II was not crowned until the following year when a splendid ceremony was held in Westminster Abbey–a ceremony which the world was able to enjoy as it was the first coronation to be televised. That, though, was not The Queen's only major event that week. Fittingly, the sport of kings loomed large in her consciousness even during that momentous period. The Coronation took place on Tuesday, June 2 and when the Derby was run four days later she had the thrill of owning one of the leading chances: the Hyperion colt Aureole, a close relative of Hypericum, who had won the Lingfield Derby Trial the previous month.

Queen Elizabeth II had taken over ownership of the royal string on the death of her father the previous year. She had previously owned one Flat winner: Astrakhan, who had been given to her as a wedding present by the Aga Khan III in 1947 and who won a maiden race at Hurst Park in her own colours of 'scarlet, purple hooped sleeves, black cap'. Her first winner as Queen was the 3-year-old Hyperion colt Choir Boy at Newmarket in the spring of 1952, but he did not race that day in the royal livery: while the court was in mourning it was decided that any royal runners carry the colours of the Duke of Norfolk. The period of mourning had finished by the time that the Lancashire Oaks was run at Manchester, and the victory in that race by Stream Of Light provided the Queen with her first success with the royal colours. Her best horse in 1952, though, was the 2-year-old Aureole, who made a winning debut in the Acomb S. at York's Ebor Meeting before finishing unplaced in the Middle Park S. at Newmarket in the autumn.

Aureole's second place in the 1953 Derby behind Pinza (whose jockey Gordon Richards had just been awarded a knighthood in the Coronation honours) was wonderful. The magical spell continued at Royal Ascot where Choir Boy, who had had to miss the remainder of the previous season after splitting a pastern, completed a great comeback from injury by taking the Royal Hunt Cup. Another special event that week came when the Queen appointed her trainer Cecil Boyd-Rochfort a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, investing him at Ascot. A further thrill came in the autumn when Aureole took the Cumberland Lodge S. at Ascot.

The first foal of Hypericum's Donatello half-sister Angelola (who had won the Lingfield Oaks Trial, Yorkshire Oaks and Newmarket Oaks in 1948 for King George VI and finished second in the Oaks), Aureole did even better at four. In the summer of 1954 he won three feature races: at Epsom in the Coronation Cup, at Royal Ascot in the Hardwicke S. and at Ascot in the race named after The Queen's parents, the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth S. At Royal Ascot he was part of a double for The Queen on the final day of the meeting, with the impeccably-bred Landau (who was by the 1945 Derby winner Dante from Sun Chariot) taking the Rous Memorial S. under Gordon Richards. Later in the summer Landau, who was leased from the National Stud as his dam had been, won the Sussex S. at Goodwood.

At the end of the year, The Queen became champion owner for the first time, with a prize-money total of £40,993 (three quarters of which was won by Aureole) from her 19 wins. Second place, with roughly £1,000 less, was taken by Sterling Clark, whose 25 wins included the Derby triumph of Never Say Die, the first Kentucky-bred to win the greatest race of all. The Queen thus emulated the achievement of her great-grandfather King Edward VII who (while Prince of Wales) had been champion owner in 1900 and of her father King George VI, who had been champion owner in 1942.

Tomorrow: A second championship and a first homebred Classic winner

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Remembering Roy Rocket

Roy Rocket, the one time co-record holder for the most number of wins at Brighton, has died. He was 11.

That's the style in which I would normally start an obituary, for a horse or human who has left their mark on the racing world. I wouldn't normally be writing an obituary for a middle-of-the-road handicapper. And I wouldn't normally be writing at four o'clock in the morning, but Roy wasn't normal, he was special, and he died yesterday. And when something terrible has happened, for days afterwards my brain wakes me at the hour of dread, always at ten to four, and after that it seems pointless to lie in bed fretting.

In a few hours Jana, Abbie, Ivona and Vendi will arrive at the yard and the daily routine will begin again. They left yesterday in tears after Roy didn't return from first lot. This morning none of us will want to walk past his empty box but there's no avoiding it. It's the one right next to the tack room and feed room, the one closest to our house, the one which, once the sun is up, I can see from the window next to me as I type.

Roy was born in France, 11 years and one week ago. He was bred by John, his trainer, who co-owned him with our dear friends Iris and Larry McCarthy. Iris's late husband Joe had been like a father to John, and he had been a lucky and loyal owner for this yard. Every horse Joe raced in his yellow and navy silks had won, and after he died in 2006 we were touched that Iris and Larry wanted to keep the colours going. With Roy, however, at first it seemed as if the McCarthy luck had run out.

Roy started racing in the October of his two-year-old season but it took him 16 starts and two and a half years to win. That first one came at Brighton almost six years ago on April 21 and, clearly delighted with himself, he decided to win there again the following week. So began a love affair with the quirky seaside track. In return, the Brighton faithful loved him back. He ran there 31 times for nine wins, two seconds and six third-place finishes.

But those are just the statistics. Roy's trips to Brighton became like high days and holidays. I spend much of my time writing about the top horses, and I fully support the racing and breeding ethos of striving for and rewarding the very best. To be among the best, of course, is to be in rarefied company, meaning that those we regard in that bracket every year number into the low hundreds at most. There are more than 14,000 horses in training in Britain alone. They can't all be great, or even good, and plenty of horses may never even win a race.

Roy won nine, once rising to the lofty mark of 74 but more usually plying his trade in the 50s. But to go to the races with him, to Brighton especially, was to remember that racing, as much as it is about deciding who's best, is also about entertainment. Without people enjoying it, and continuing to support the sport or perhaps even becoming an owner or breeder, we would have nothing.

In the later years, Roy's arrival at Brighton would start with a cheery call from the road crossing attendant as he was unloaded from the lorry and walked across to the stables. “Here he is, the Brighton legend,” he would say without fail.

That Roy was almost white by the time he was five made him easy to spot, and plenty of his followers would make a point of finding a place on the parade ring rail to watch him go out and, win or lose, cheer him back in. As he went to post, Iris, now 86 and no more than 5ft tall, would produce from one of her many voluminous handbags a flask of gin and tonic and insist that John took a swig for luck. It sometimes worked.

Roy won all his races by being dropped out last before coming with a rattling run up that hill for home. At the festival-like August meetings especially, you could hear people start to shout for him. “Here he comes,” the cry would go up, along with the volume.

Brighton, toppling high on the chalky South Downs, suited him perfectly as the easy-draining ground there is often fairly quick, allowing Roy to scuttle across it in his strange, short, low action. He couldn't really cope with soft ground, which is what made his final win all the more special.

“Roy Rocket, he's getting up, it's a ninth course win. He's done it. Roy's the boy at Brighton,” shouted commentator Simon Holt as our horse crossed the line, seemingly as thrilled and surprised as we all were that soggy day.

That year, Roy's growing status as a bit of a cult hero was acknowledged at the ROA Awards. In an open vote of members for the Flat Special Achievement Award, he beat the 1,000 Guineas winner among others. It was the only time he could hold his own in Group 1 company, but the people had voted for a horse who made lots of them happy.

He made us happy too, even when he was up to his antics, which included helping himself in the feed room if left unguarded while he was having his morning wander round the yard post-exercise. As much as the saying 'horses for courses' can often hold true, especially in Roy's case, I also believe, up to a point, that there are horses for trainers, or vice versa.

Roy was every bit as singular as the man who trained him. John runs something of a free-range racing stable, which wouldn't be at all eyebrow-raising if he trained on a farm in the middle of nowhere, but in Newmarket, alongside the vast strings of bluebloods, his methods can be viewed as unusual. John's maxim of being a benevolent dictator towards his horses didn't really cut much ice with Roy, who decided from quite an early age that he would be the one who decided on his regime.

Hence, you could never travel him to the races with another horse: he needed the full two-box, with all partitions removed, to himself. There were certain parts of the Heath John would never dare take him for fear of Roy being held up behind a big string and turning cartwheels in frustration at being made to wait. Warren Hill was out, but he would bowl happily up Long Hill, head down low, as long as he was allowed the freedom of the yard and an afternoon in the field, coating himself in mud, in return.

That John gladly gave him, and he gave us some of the best days of our racing lives. The pandemic has scuppered many plans for many people and, with Brighton shuttered for all of last season, Roy had only two underwhelming runs elsewhere before John decided to give him a proper break in the hope of a return to his favourite place this year.

As spring emerged from the bleakness of a lockdown winter, Roy had been his usual ebullient self until on Friday morning he went out to work and didn't come back. Realising early in the gallop that something was amiss, John managed to pull him up and dismount. Seconds later, Roy took his last breath with the person who loved him best at his side and sank to the turf.

When Roy went to the races for the first time in October 2012, we walked him over to the Rowley Mile with his stable-mate Many Levels, who was making his debut in the same maiden. John's blog post that night was titled 'All my sons', which is how he regards the horses in this stable. This, in part, was his assessment of that day, which marked John's first experience of training a horse that he owned and bred:

“They beat a few, which in an ordinary race wouldn't be much of an achievement, but in Newmarket maidens at this time of year is fine because all the horses in the field tend to be nice horses, so cutting not significantly less ice than the bulk of the others is fine. It's early days yet – but when horses go to the races for their debut, behave impeccably, run adequately and come home clearly having enjoyed the outing, then you feel as if you've had a winner. Especially when one of them is one whose life you've been overseeing since a long time before he was conceived, never mind born.

“If I can ever achieve any amount of success in this three-fold role, however small that amount can be, that that would be a really lovely thing.”

It was a lovely thing indeed, and 68 races and almost nine years later, Roy's record stands testament not just to his own great zest for life, but to his trainer's patience, care and indulgence.

We mourn him today and we will miss him forever. But now there's light in the sky and work to be done. Life goes on, just more unhappily than before.

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