Steve Cauthen, BC Winner Pebbles To Be Inducted Into British Hall of Fame

American jockey Steve Cauthen and the outstanding turf mare Pebbles (GB) (Sharpen Up {GB}) will be inducted into the QIPCO British Champions Series Hall of Fame, the official Hall of Fame for Flat racing in Britain. The newest inductees will be recognized on QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot on Oct. 21, with Cauthen making a rare trip over from the US.

Cauthen becomes just the fifth rider to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, while Pebbles becomes the first of her gender to be inducted alongside the likes of Frankel (GB) and his legendary late sire Galileo (Ire). Cauthen and Pebbles teamed to win the 1985 Eclipse S. at Sandown.

Now 63, Cauthen is the only jockey in history to have ridden the winners of both the Derby and Kentucky Derby and is the youngest to have ever won the US Triple Crown aboard Affirmed in 1978. He is the only jockey to appear on the cover of TIME magazine, which he did alongside the late boxer Muhammad Ali. Cauthen was Britain's champion jockey on three occasions and rode the winners of 10 English Classics, all but one for trainer Sir Henry Cecil, including Derby winners Slip Anchor and Reference Point.

“I'm grateful to have had so many brilliant opportunities on both sides of the pond and to still be recognised for my achievements is really quite special to me.

“Having been inducted into America's Hall of Fame some years back, it's an honour to now celebrate my induction into Great Britain's Hall of Fame, and I'm looking forward to marking this moment with family and friends on QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot later this month.”

 

 

Trained by Clive Brittain, Pebbles overcame quirkiness and a variety of setbacks and became the first British-conditioned winner of a Breeders' Cup race when successful in the 1985 Turf at Aqueduct. She had previous won the G1 1000 Guineas and the G1 Champion S. at Newmarket prior to her American conquest.

Said Brittain, “I still think about her today and can see her fresh in my mind, particularly with her boyfriend, Come On The Blues. Theirs was a great love story and he accompanied her wherever she went–even travelling out to America with her for the Breeders' Cup Turf. That day was the only time that I've been racing and felt nervous, but I just did the same as we'd have done at home and it all worked out.”

Speaking on behalf of Godolphin, the racing operation owned by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed, Pebbles's owner, managing director Hugh Anderson added, “Pebbles was a uniquely talented and very tough racehorse with an outstanding race record. She truly was one of the best racehorses of the 1980s and a flagbearer for His Highness Sheikh Mohammed's racing operation at the time. She is a very deserving inductee to the Hall of Fame and His Highness is delighted to see her achievements recognised in this way.”

 

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Cecil, Carson to be Inducted into QIPCO British Champions Series HOF

QIPCO British Champions Series announced the late Sir Henry Cecil and William 'Willie' Carson will be formally inducted into the QIPCO British Champions Series Hall of Fame, the official Hall of Fame for British Flat racing, with a special induction ceremony due to take place on QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot Saturday Oct. 15.

Carson, who turns 80 next month, becomes the fourth jockey to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, after Lester Piggott, Pat Eddery and Frankie Dettori.

Willie Carson was crowned Champion Jockey in Britain five times and his 3,828 winners in the UK included 17 Classic triumphs, four of them in the Derby. Only three other greats have bettered his overall tally: Sir Gordon Richards (4870), Pat Eddery (4633) and Lester Piggott (4493).

He was associated with a bevy of champions, including Troy, Nashwan and Dayjur. He has enjoyed notable success as a breeder, and had the distinction of guiding Minster Son, who he himself bred, to victory in the 1988 St. Leger, making him the first jockey to breed and ride a Classic winner. He served as a broadcaster career following his retirement from the saddle, hosting the BBC's racing coverage following a stint as a captain on Question of Sport.

“It's very humbling because of where I've come from, but here I am, an ex-Champion Jockey, having ridden British Classic winners for Her Majesty the Queen and with four Derby winners,” said Carson. “I have done a few things in my life but being awarded into the Hall of Fame is one of the biggest. It is a big deal to be invited.”

“I am getting old, but I am still enjoying life. I've got the horses to keep me amused, I have the stud (Minster House); it keeps me amused, busy and working. I am still enjoying life because of the horse–the horse keeps me going.”

Also joining a very exclusive club, Cecil becomes just the second trainer to be inducted following Vincent O'Brien.

In 1976, Cecil was crowned champion for the first time, thanks in no small part to Wollow, who won the 2000 Guineas, Eclipse, Sussex S. and Juddmonte International. Cecil won the title again in 1978, 1979, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1990 and 1993. Only Alec Taylor, who won the championship a dozen times between 1907 and 1925, has ever been champion on more occasions.

It was 10 years ago to the week that Cecil's most illustrious pupil–Frankel–concluded his undefeated 14-race career with victory in the QIPCO Champion S. on QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot. “He's the best I've ever had, the best I've ever seen,” he said. “I'd be very surprised if there's ever been anything better.”

Eight months after Frankel's career finale, Cecil died at the age of 70.

“He was modest, and he would have been surprised to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, but he would also have felt very honoured,” said Lady Cecil, Sir Henry's widow, who played a key role in the latter part of Sir Henry's career. “I'm delighted as I think he's a very worthy inductee. I hope he will prove to be a popular choice.”

“Henry never understood why or how he was popular. When he had a runner at Newmarket, the reception he got was always amazing. I remember after he died, I was lucky enough to have a winner at Newmarket. The crowd used to come and cheer, and I knew it was for Henry. He was so popular–when I do the Discover Newmarket tours to raise money for the East Anglian Children's Hospice, they come to see Frankel but invariably they talk about Henry. They have so many stories about how Henry chatted to them, the kindness he showed. He was very special.”

Lady Cecil and Willie Carson, who will both attend QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot this weekend, will be presented with a prestigious medal in recognition of the inductions into the Hall of Fame.

Unique to British racing the medals, which were hand-crafted by Asprey, can also be viewed during the day as part of a special Hall of Fame display which will be held within the Grandstand at Ascot. For more information, click here.

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Lord Grimthorpe: Witnessing Greatness From Within

Following a year in the racing world when all has changed, if not utterly, then significantly, a further adjustment to the norm is brought about by the departure of Lord Grimthorpe as Juddmonte's racing manager.

Royal Ascot 2021 will mark the end of a 22-year stint in the role which has seen him closely allied to some of the greatest names in the sport's modern history as the public face of the operation which is as admired as much as it is successful. That admiration extends to Grimthorpe himself, better and more informally known as Teddy. He was Teddy Beckett when he was first appointed to his role by Prince Khalid Abdullah in 1998, and he later succeeded his father as the 5th Baron Grimthorpe in 2003. 

Racing was in the blood of this Yorkshireman. His grandfather owned the 1947 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Fortina (Fr), while his father brought him closer to the sphere which would come to dominate these past two decades of his working life as the breeder of Mrs McArdy (GB), winner of the 1000 Guineas in 1977.

Twenty-two years later that same race would provide the first Classic winner overseen by Grimthorpe for Juddmonte when the Henry Cecil-trained Wince (GB) (Selkirk) triumphed in the season that both Guineas were run on Newmarket's July Course.

“I was brought up in a sort of fairly horsey fashion. I rode out–I don't think he would call it that–but I did ride out for Jimmy FitzGerald, I think when I was still at school,” Grimthorpe recalls with typical modesty.

Stints at Lindsay Park Stud in South Australia and Nydrie Stud in Virginia, as well as completion of the National Stud course, gave way to another decent term of 22 years with the British Bloodstock Agency (BBA) before Grant Pritchard-Gordon's imminent departure from Juddmonte presented an opportunity to relish.

He continues, “I went to meet the Prince in the middle Sunday of the December sales. I didn't know if he was interviewing lots of other people. But anyway, he welcomed me into his office and said, 'I'm just here to welcome you to the club'. So I thought that was a pretty good job interview, really, but it was typical of Prince Khalid. Of course he had done a little bit of research on me, or I imagine he had.”

 

 

When his impending departure was first announced in April, Grimthorpe recalled with some amusement in a TV interview the time he was asked by a racegoer if his job was merely to collect cups. Pleasingly, there have been many trophies to gather during Juddmonte's 40 years, but Grimthorpe's responsibilities have naturally run far deeper. 

After all, this is an operation where no detail is overlooked–from planning a mating, through to conception, foaling, nurturing, training, racing, and often back to stud. An in-depth knowledge of the Juddmonte families is a pre-requisite, and an understanding of the traits and foibles associated with certain bloodlines essential when helping in the decision-making of assigning horses to trainers.

“Of course, the racing is the end product and a vital one,” he says. “I think from an enjoyment point of view [what I have enjoyed most] is the development. It's knowing the stallions, knowing the mares–generations of mares. I mean when Lucid Dreamer (GB) won her maiden, she was a sixth generation Juddmonte-bred. So those sorts of things–knowing the families, and growing up with the families, and seeing what they produce and what sort of horses, and what sort of temperaments, what sort of types. They then would go to France and Ireland to be broken in there. You just sort of saw them on a regular basis throughout summer and autumn, to see how they develop and then really you're in a good position to advise, in my case, Prince Khalid and, of course, latterly the family where they might be best suited. That was a decision on the whole that Prince Khalid always took. He took a huge amount of trouble in trying to allocate his horses to where he wanted them to go. So it was my job to give him the background and the facts to help him make these decisions.”

As important as knowing the bloodstock was forming good relationships with trainers, and in Grimthorpe's tenure he has worked with some of the legendary names in world racing. And as the eighth anniversary of the death of Sir Henry Cecil  has passed this week, he is remembered still with fondness and admiration.

“Henry was not what I'd call a 'stand by your beds' man,” Grimthorpe says. “But he slightly pretended to be a bit more informal than he actually was. Originally [head lad] Paddy Rudkin told me that they thought that he was sort of daydreaming around the yard. Actually they soon realised that he wasn't daydreaming, he was just taking in all the rhythms. He had an extraordinary eye.”

He continues, “So he was very different to John Gosden, who is utterly brilliant. Andre [Fabre], his CV is second to none. On the American side, Bobby Frankel, he was a unique man and had a great depth of thought about the game, and how it was run and what the horses wanted. He had quite a gruff outside, but he had a very soft inside, Bobby.

“Prince Khalid chose his trainers very, very carefully. Really it was slotting the right horses to the right person. I think good horses on the whole are going to be good horses with good trainers. I think if you get to the likes of Frankel, it's hard to think that Frankel wouldn't have been a very, very good horse, but I don't think the story would have been so fantastic without that sort of combination, and likewise Enable and Frankie [Dettori] really, and of course John. It's those sort of dynamics that make it all interesting.”

With such a wealth of equine talent to draw from, Grimthorpe is understandably reluctant to nominate one individual as a personal favourite. “Like Andre said, I don't rate my friends,” he says with a smile. “I always thought that was such a good get out, because many of them really had fantastic stories and great, great histories.”

He is, however, happy to compile his own version of Juddmonte's greatest hits from the last two decades.

“From the early days, Dansili (GB) was the first of Hasili's progeny to hit the racecourse. I was always incredibly fond of him. Prince Khalid certainly had huge faith in him. He always said that probably if he'd been better managed he would have won at least two Grade Is. He covered the last quarter-mile in the Breeders' Cup Mile in twenty-one and change, and still finished third. I mean a half a nose past the post, he was a length clear practically. So it was always frustrating. Prince Khalid said, 'We're going to treat him like a Group 1 winner', so he came back to the stud.”

He adds, “I went through a barren period when I started the job. We had no winners at all. Wince, when she won the Fred Darling, was the first winner in England that I'd managed. She of course went on to win a Classic. 

“I always loved Twice Over (GB) because he was such a gent. He was the most mild-mannered, honest, straightforward, wonderful horse. He really was. And of course, Famous Name (GB), that Dermot [Weld] trained, won 21 Pattern races.”

He reflects on 2003 as a particularly special year for the organisation worldwide.

“Prince Khalid had Nebraska Tornado, who won the Prix De Diane, Oasis Dream (GB), who was a champion sprinter, and [Belmont S. winner] Empire Maker, all in three different jurisdictions, almost outstanding horses of their particular generation. So that was exciting,” he says. “Then there's the likes of Midday (GB) winning a Breeders' Cup and Kingman (GB)–we still can't work out how he got beaten in the 2000 Guineas. Of course, he had redemption, especially at Ascot, but more so, I thought, in the Sussex Stakes.”

In the minds of many racing fans, two Juddmonte horses tower above all others during Grimthorpe's tenure: Frankel (GB) and Enable (GB). It is nine years since Frankel's final appearance at Royal Ascot for his imperious romp in the Queen Anne S. and, unusually, he has remained almost as much in the public eye as he was in his racing days since his retirement to Banstead Manor Stud. For not only has he shown himself to be a high-calibre stallion in the time but he has also taken part in endless photo calls with visitors to the stud as well as acting as an important fundraiser as an equine ambassador for the East Anglian Children's Hospice.

“I think everyone from Prince Khalid downwards in Juddmonte was pretty much aware that Frankel had the potential to be something special from a pretty early stage,” Grimthorpe notes. ” When we put a saddle on him and he started moving, you know, he made the heart skip a beat, no question about that. Then he started running, and you're thinking, 'Oh, this could be good'. It kept on going up the scale. I think he then grew in the public's minds because he kept on winning. Therefore, it sort of snowballed and he was able to jump outside the the back part of the sporting pages.”

He continues, “Henry at that stage was undergoing his cancer treatment and so was mentally unbelievably strong, but physically quite frail. Prince Khalid said to me, 'I want you to take this on. I don't want Henry to be under any pressure in terms of the press and the publicity and all that'. Then, of course, we talked about Frankel often and endlessly. I did say to him once, 'You do realise you're going to have to share this horse now with the wider world'. 

“He was a very private person, Prince Khalid. He'd always kept it like that with his horses but he certainly understood that this was going to have to happen. He was fully on board because he realised what a phenomenon Frankel was for the whole racing business. He was a great major story of an alpha male. The story of Henry and him, obviously with two great stories individually, but together they made for a massive story.”

If Frankel sustained his trainer through his own torrid battle with cancer, so did Enable for her owner/breeder. The great mare last set foot on a racecourse on Oct. 4 last year when attempting to win her third Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. A little over three months later Prince Khalid died at the age of 84. Frankel may have been his 'alpha male' crowning glory as a breeder, but Enable, unusually and specially kept in training as a 6-year-old, was Juddmonte's queen.

“I always felt that when helping to make the decisions on whether they stay in training, I think there's always the same questions you ask yourself,” explains Grimthorpe. “Is she sound? Is she happy? Has she got targets? What's the programme? Most importantly, what does the owner want to do?

“Enable she was the most extraordinary lady. She wanted to do it. I mean she really wanted to know why she wasn't being fed first in the morning. Why she wasn't going out first thing, or why she wasn't cantering first, or why she wasn't galloping. She was the most vociferous, extraordinary person like that. So she pretty much told us what she wanted to do. She told John first, obviously. So from that point of view, it was something that Prince Khalid and the family really enjoyed.”

He adds, “I think the target of a third Arc was a big enough carrot to try. I think if you have horses of the calibre of Enable, to try and test them as much as you can is not unreasonable.”

If no favourite horse can be named, then a favourite moment from many memorable occasions during the 22 years is easy to come by, particularly for the man who all but grew up on the Knavesmire.

“There's no doubt that on the racecourse, the 22nd August 2012 was it for me for so many reasons,” he says of Frankel's seven-length victory in the Juddmonte International S. when asked to race beyond a mile for the first time.

“Obviously Frankel stepping up to the mile and a quarter for Prince Khalid's flagship race. I was chairman of York racecourse, so I did think if things went badly I could lose the only two jobs I had. But it was an extraordinary day in every possible way. The great Yorkshire crowd came in droves, people were sitting around the paddock from the first race onwards. People kept coming up to me from arrival onwards, [there was] the excitement, the buzz.”

Cecil, too, had a strong attachment to Yorkshire, and made the trip to watch his star pupil make his penultimate start despite his failing health. 

Grimthorpe recalls, “Prince Khalid came. Henry was determined to come, even though Prince Khalid had said he didn't need to. He said, 'I'm coming'. He looked very frail that day, but he was determined to come and and the horse delivered.”

The Prince and Sir Henry are now sadly departed. Frankel continues in his pomp, heaping reflected glory on the Juddmonte operation through his first Derby winner, Adayar (Ire), for their rival team of Godolphin. As the final day of Royal Ascot gives way to a Classic Sunday in France–a regular pilgrimage for Grimthorpe through the last 22 seasons–so a new chapter will begin. The man who had the privilege of watching this extraordinary story unfurl from the inside, and who remains the epitome of the discreet and diplomatic racing manager, will hand over that title to Barry Mahon from June 21.

As deputy senior steward of the Jockey Club, Lord Grimthorpe will not be lost to racing, or indeed to his beloved York, where he remains on the board of the racecourse. Indeed, the sport could not ask for a more passionate advocate in all it is currently trying to achieve in Britain.

“The ethos is that we want people to come racing,” he says of York in particular but in a manner that should be extended nationally. 

“Therefore, if you want people to come racing, you've got to deliver it. First and foremost, a very friendly face at the first gate you walk into. Good facilities so people actually are happy to eat and drink what's on offer. To get fantastic horses, you've got to have fantastic prize-money. To have fantastic prize-money you have to have fantastic crowds, and so it goes on. So from that point of view, York embodies that very much. Equally so, if you fall down in one of those, then you fall down in the whole lot, and people understand that. I mean, everybody at York understands that. So it is getting the collective to buy into everything that we're trying to do. Trying to make it better, improve everything: it's a never-ending process.”

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This Side Up: Manners Maketh Mandaloun

How ironic, that a man with a nearly anguished instinct for self-effacement should have left so indelible an impression on our walk of life–one he strolled so quietly that he insisted on registering his silks, with The Jockey Club in Britain, simply in the name of Mr. K. Abdullah. How many others who covet the Turf’s great prizes, in contrast, elbow their way through the crowd in preening advertisement of their wealth and acuity?

If we learn much about such people from their presumption of some deeper dignity, from a status they cannot sustain even by a royal title, so we can surmise something of those human qualities–generally so inscrutable–that were extinguished with the loss of Prince Khalid this week. For he plainly considered “Mr.” an ample prompt to our general obligation of mutual civility; above all, perhaps, among those who constantly witness the egalitarianism that persists between Thoroughbreds themselves. Whatever advantages we seek in pedigree–the foundation, after all, of his entire Juddmonte empire–even the Prince will have seen the most regal foals reduced to the claiming ranks, or denied the throne by blue-collar upstarts.

Admittedly the courteous lineaments of his public appearances so confined his inner nature that we should perhaps hesitate before discovering some third dimension barely exposed even to those in our community who spent years in his service. For their tributes have been in much the same register as those made from a more superficial vantage. Even from the outside, any of us might ascribe to him attributes of ‘the perfect gentleman’. First and foremost, precisely that freedom from self-importance; but also his distaste for the kind of hiring and firing that we see in the Turf’s coarser patrons.

So perhaps we actually knew him better than we realized. Certainly his striking fidelities suggest an unshakable respect for those qualities that abide within those who might not appear, to more fickle judgements, in a deserving state of grace. He was just about the last man standing when Sir Henry Cecil paid with the contempt of fashion for a human brittleness in the face of adversity. And while Bobby Frankel never lost professional esteem in the same way, you suspect that few who share the Prince’s antecedents would have become quite so devoted to a cantankerous Jewish gambler from Brooklyn.

The Prince with Sir Henry Cecil in 2011 | Racing Post

The sheer breadth of humanity encompassed by those two trainers, their wildly divergent personalities united by a slender strand of genius, attested to a tolerance and empathy in the Prince that would serve us all well, not least in these rancorous times. A tragic destiny, of course, reserved for Frankel and Cecil a cruel extra bond, in their premature loss to cancer. But a happier clause in the unforgiving terms of fate was the arrival of a champion, named in memory of one, to redeem the darkest hour of the other.

Arguably the Prince surrendered something even of Juddmonte’s defining achievement to the needs of his suffering trainer. Even with his own time probably short, he delayed Frankel’s retirement as the apogee of his breeding program so that Cecil would retain a spur to his fortitude every time he went out onto the gallops. And the Prince also indulged the rather parochial priorities that somewhat hampered Cecil even in his pomp, never mind at a time when personal travel had become impractical.

The Prince must surely have asked himself, as did some of us mere bystanders, what capacities remained unexplored in Frankel as Cecil kept him, almost to the end, in the same domestic pool of outclassed milers. Constantly compared with specters of the past, Frankel was never given the chance to measure himself even against his contemporaries overseas. The Prince had a mansion just beside the Bois de Boulogne, and first became enchanted by the Turf when taken by friends to Longchamp in 1956. And he adored the Breeders’ Cup. Hopefully his enjoyment of Frankel’s wonderful start at stud was not too poignantly tempered by the reflection that the speed-carrying capacity he imparts to his stock really should have been examined either in the Arc or at the Breeders’ Cup.

A trifling quibble, by now, in a legacy that has long been secure–and will long continue to evolve. Indeed, just as Juddmonte once gave a cherished friend a critical transfusion of vitality, perhaps those grieving the Prince now will themselves find some timely succour from its bloodlines.

Mandaloun | Coady

Because none of us, surely, will be able to resist a frisson that some benign force may assist the Juddmonte colt who finds himself, on this of all weekends, dipping a toe into the Triple Crown water in the GIII Lecomte S.

The Kentucky Derby was one of the few great ambitions to elude the Prince, albeit he managed two seconds (Aptitude and Empire Maker) from only five starters. Mandaloun is by the same extraordinary sire that has just settled any doubt as to his competence to stretch his trademark speed, with the improvement in his mares, to the demands of the Derby.

The upgrading of Into Mischief‘s books was aptly measured when the Prince favored him with a visit from Mandaloun’s dam, Empire Maker’s daughter Brooch, a Group 2 and 3 winner in Ireland. Judicious introduction of external blood has been key to the constant invigoration of the Prince’s families. In this case, however, the first three dams are all by homebred stallions: Empire Maker, Dansili (GB) and Distant View. But the fourth dam is Queen of Song (His Majesty), a sister to Cormorant added to the expanding Juddmonte band for $700,000 at the 1989 Keeneland November Sale.

Brad Cox also saddles an exciting sophomore filly for Juddmonte in the Silverbulletday S. Already No. 2 in colleague Bill Finley’s TDN Oaks Top 10, Sun Path is by another commercial stallion in Munnings. In her case, however, her first three dams are all by other outside sires: Tapit, Nureyev and Nijinsky. The third is champion Chris Evert’s daughter Nijinsky Star, acquired (from the Carl Rosen dispersal) in the same ring as Queen of Song, and for the same price, two years previously.

Whereas Queen Of Song had won 14 of 58 starts for Parrish Hill Farm, Nijinsky Star appeared a very different proposition: in fact, she had a tube exiting a lung, draining fluid from a bout of pleurisy in her younger days. But that did not put off the Prince and his team, and his investment paid off with Nijinsky Star’s emergence as foundation mare. Two daughters by Nureyev did especially well: Viviana produced multiple Grade I winners Sightseek (Distant View) and Tates Creek (Rahy), while Willstar gave us not only Group 1 winner Etoile Montante (Miswaki) but Touch the Star, who has already produced Bonny South by Tapit to win the GII Fair Grounds Oaks last year; and now Sun Path.

Sun Path | Hodges Photography

So both these Classic prospects exemplify the Prince’s patient refinement of families, an artistry and precision spanning three decades. Though their breeder actually started out by breaking the European record for a yearling almost immediately–giving 264,000gns for a Grundy colt at the 1978 Houghton Sale, ultimately to little avail–he showed great discrimination in his choice of talent, both human and equine, once deciding to build up his own program. It might seem easy for a member of the Saudi royal family to buy the right quality, but it’s worth recording that wealthy rivals spent even more on 37 other mares at the sale where the Prince bought Nijinsky Star. Needless to say, few proved anything like as good an investment.

In recent times the Prince had become frail, rather than just elegantly slender, and was rarely seen even as his last champion Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) prolonged her exuberant reign. But he had already long guaranteed a vibrant legacy to generations of horsemen to come.

For whenever they pore over pedigrees–renewing the perennial puzzle of what works and why–they will find themselves clinging gratefully to the footholds chiselled by this dignified, recessive figure. He will loom over the 21st Century breed much as Federico Tesio or the 17th Earl of Derby did before, paradoxically dragged by his own, understated passion into the applause of posterity from the anonymity he cherished.

Frankel | Juddmonte photo

Tesio’s exotic personality and beliefs were vividly chronicled, both by his own pen and others; while Derby’s public career in wartime gave him much wider profile. But this temperate Prince we respected, as much as anything, for the respect he exuded: whether in his personal bearing, or in the things he did (or, more importantly, the things he didn’t do) with the horses and horsemen in his service. In the old axiom, ‘manners maketh man’.

Sometimes a man becomes most truly distinguished by camouflage. I love to think of the young Prince, not yet 20, at Longchamp in 1956. People must have looked straight through him then, immaculately dapper though he surely must have been, unwitting of the transformational ambitions stirring in this captivated young Arab. That must have suited him just fine. But however little we really knew ‘the Prince’, and whatever complicated shades of humanity remained ever beyond our reach, we bid farewell to ‘Mr. Abdullah’ with much respect. And we will all duly celebrate success for Mandaloun, or Sun Path, simply as an immediate assurance that his bequest to the breed, whatever happens to Juddmonte now, will outlive us all.

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