Timeform: The Great Essays - Native River
Following Native River's retirement, we revisit his essay from Chasers & Hurdlers 2017/18 which focused on his memorable Cheltenham Gold Cup triumph.
Which was the greatest Cheltenham Gold Cup? The biography of five-times winner Golden Miller by Gregory Blaxland, first published in 1972, has a chapter entitled The greatest Gold Cup which recounts the legendary battle between Golden Miller and Thomond II in 1935, the year after Golden Miller had completed the Gold Cup/Grand National double (he had won all his races since). The 1935 Gold Cup was moved to the last day of the National Hunt meeting as the grand climax and was widely expected to provide a comfortable fourth win in the race for Golden Miller until the very late decision to run Thomond (after his American owner’s intended runner was reportedly injured). Thomond had beaten Golden Miller over two and a half miles at Kempton’s Christmas meeting fifteen months before their meeting in the 1935 Gold Cup and had lost just once since (when third to Golden Miller in the Grand National under 12-4).
The prospect of the `clash of the giants’ drew a crowd of 16,367, far exceeding the expectations of the Cheltenham management (the situation on the roads around Cheltenham was chaotic and there was `a fearsome scrimmage’ at Paddington station for places on the special trains from London, while race cards were sold out long before the first race, despite twice the normal number being printed). The Gold Cup programme opened with a selling chase and a selling hurdle before the Gold Cup, and cars were still trying to park and the last of the pedestrians making their way from the station when the second race was run. The Gold Cup had a field of five in which Golden Miller was sent off at 2/1-on and Thomond at 5/2, with 100/7 bar. Southern Hero led the field out on to the second circuit `as if they were heading for home in a two-mile chase’ and Golden Miller and Thomond moved through at the third from home and had the race between them from that point, two `incredible battlers hurling themselves [over the last two fences], still in perfect unison.’ For thirty yards or so after the final fence, Thomond’s head was in front but Golden Miller got up to win by three quarters of a length (beating Easter Hero’s course record by 27 seconds). Pandemonium broke out as racegoers jockeyed for positions to obtain a close-up view of the pair as they returned.
Among those at Cheltenham on hand to congratulate Golden Miller’s connections was The Honourable George Lambton, one of the greatest trainers in the era that bridged the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (his long partnership with the 16th and 17th Earls of Derby was one of the most significant in the history of Flat racing, and he also purchased the yearlings on which the then-Aga Khan’s successful racing empire was founded). Lambton spoke to the trainers of both Golden Miller and Thomond after the Gold Cup and told them that he had witnessed no finer race.
Lambton wrote racing’s most famous memoir Men and Horses I Have Known which is quoted in the biography of Golden Miller in the context of a comment made to Lambton by Fred Archer after Ormonde had beaten Minting by two lengths in the 1886 Two Thousand Guineas, the pair having drawn right away from their rivals until Minting gave best halfway up the final hill. It had been Archer’s contention that `when you get two smashing good horses trying to cut each other down over the Rowley Mile the pressure is so great that one or the other is sure to crack; it may be just a toss up which gives way first, but the one who does will have no struggle left.’ In Men and Horses I Have Known, George Lambton also recalled the `race of the century’ between Ard Patrick and Sceptre in the 1903 Eclipse, which represented his perfect race – ‘about the best thing in racing is when two good horses single themselves out from the rest of the field and have a long drawn-out struggle.’
The Cheltenham Gold Cup has produced such occasions in its long history, including, for example, Arkle’s victory over an outstanding reigning champion in Mill House in the 1964 edition. There were only four runners but the race didn’t disappoint with Mill House, as expected, attempting to nullify Arkle’s superior turn of foot by forcing the pace. Mill House stretched into a three-length lead from the start and, with half a mile to go, showed no sign of stopping. By the second last, however, Arkle was upsides, with both horses still full of running. Arkle was just in front over the last and went on to win by five lengths, Mill House’s effort to renew his challenge proving to no avail.
Arkle’s amazing career did much to put National Hunt racing on a par with the Flat in popularity, something which could also be said over two decades later of Desert Orchid whose gritty victory in the 1989 Gold Cup was voted the greatest race of all time in a Racing Post poll in 2005. Hours of rain turned the going heavy – conditions were atrocious – and, with snow falling in the morning, the Gold Cup-day programme was given the go-ahead only after the course passed a midday inspection. The race was marred by the fatal fall of Ten Plus who was in the lead, still travelling strongly, when he came down three out. The 25/1-shot Yahoo looked all over the winner after taking over approaching the second last where Desert Orchid gave the impression of having little left; but Desert Orchid refused to give up and he was back almost upsides Yahoo crossing the last before forging ahead halfway up the run-in to win by a length and a half.
The four Gold Cups between 2008 and 2011 provided another glorious spell in the history of steeplechasing’s most important championship. Those races featured four meetings between stablemates Kauto Star and Denman, neither any longer with us after Denman had to be put down in June 2018 after his health worsened. The popularity of the pair was amplified by their rivalry and by their different racing styles, Denman’s relentless galloping instrumental in a never-to-be-forgotten triumph in the 2008 Gold Cup over Kauto Star, the versatile chaser with speed who was the reigning champion.
Denman was an exhilarating sight that day, out in front jumping superbly, and the game was up for Kauto Star some way out. The much-hyped pulsating head-to-head encounter between Kauto Star and Denman never really came to fruition, the biggest disappointment in that regard being the 2010 Gold Cup, billed as `The Decider’ between the two Gold Cup winners, after Kauto Star had won his second Gold Cup by thirteen lengths from Denman in 2009. The 2010 Gold Cup was supported by a huge public relations campaign, but the race saw Imperial Commander win from Denman after Kauto Star had fallen. The final meeting of Denman and Kauto Star in the 2011 Gold Cup did look for two hundred yards, as the pair threatened to pull away rounding the home bend, as if it might deliver the head-to-head encounter that had been hoped for in previous years (Long Run ran them down in the home straight, Denman finishing second in the race for the third time and taking his match score with third-placed Kauto Star to three-one).
The Kauto Star/Denman era provided ample evidence of the truism that great occasions don’t always generate the races that might be anticipated. Close, compelling encounters can’t be produced to order. That said, there were those who firmly predicted a nip-and-tuck Gold Cup duel in the latest season between two of the market leaders, the King George VI Chase winner Might Bite and the previous year’s Gold Cup third Native River, for whom the very testing conditions provided the sort of stamina test he relishes.
Back in 2010, Racing for Change (now renamed Great British Racing) hired a `battle bus’ to tour the country, and arranged a photo-shoot with heavy weight boxing champion David Haye, as part of the promotion for Kauto Star v Denman: The Decider which also involved the distribution of rosettes and scarves in the racing colours carried by the pair. It was rare to see so many racing fans adopting such obvious partisanship and, perhaps because the clash was hyped so much beforehand, it produced feelings of let-down and disappointment when neither group of supporters had a winner to cheer. `Two-horse races’ have a habit of failing to live up to their billing anyway, though it is perhaps stretching things to say that the latest Gold Cup was viewed beforehand by everyone as a head-to-head between Might Bite and Native River. The pair started at 4/1 and 5/1 respectively, separated in the betting market by the main Irish-trained challenger Our Duke, a stablemate of the previous year’s winner Sizing John who couldn’t defend his title because of injury. Native River had made a smooth winning comeback in the Denman Chase at Newbury in February after coming back late into training because of jarring in the previous year’s Gold Cup which caused Native River some ligament trouble.
Native River shaped as if he was as good as ever at Newbury and, when Sizing John defected from the Gold Cup, Native River was left as the main challenger on form to Might Bite. Our Duke, winner of the Irish Grand National by fourteen lengths as a novice, looked on the up again, after suffering a back problem, when winning the Red Mills Chase at Gowran (the runner-up Presenting Percy had made that form look all the better when winning the RSA Chase earlier in the meeting). Ireland supplied nine of the fifteen who went to post for the latest Timico Cheltenham Gold Cup (there were three late withdrawals on account of the worsening going), the challenge from across the water also including Killultagh Vic who had looked set to win the Irish Gold Cup when departing at the final fence at Leopardstown. Edwulf, the beneficiary of Killultagh Vic’s misfortune, was also in the Cheltenham Gold Cup line-up, as was Road To Respect, winner of the Leopardstown Christmas Chase (from Balko des Flos who had gone on to win the Ryanair Chase twenty-four hours before the Gold Cup). Djakadam was back for a fourth crack at the race while Total Recall was out to emulate Mandarin, Arkle, Bregawn, Denman and Bobs Worth by winning the Hennessy (now the Ladbrokes Trophy) and the Gold Cup in the same season. Of the British-trained Gold Cup runners backing up Might Bite and Native River, only the Cotswold Chase winner Definitly Red – a rare northern challenger for the blue riband nowadays – started at shorter than 25/1.
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With the prevailing heavy going ensuring that the emphasis was going to be on stamina, Native River’s jockey Richard Johnson set out to force the pace, and make full use of his mount’s fast and accurate jumping. Might Bite kept tabs on Native River from early on, also jumping splendidly in the main, and the pair gradually piled the pressure on their rivals from the water jump on the final circuit. They made the race almost entirely their own from a long way out, holding an advantage of five or six lengths at the final open ditch, six from home. Native River’s bold jumping had continually taken the eye, but Might Bite was always poised just behind him and, as they swung into the home straight with two to jump, there was very little between them. Might Bite had his nose in front at the second last, looking to be travelling just the better, but Native River fought back under strong pressure and was back in front again jumping the final fence, although Might Bite’s jockey still hadn’t asked for everything from his mount. When push came to shove, however, Native River proved too strong, finding plenty up the steep climb to the finish and outstaying Might Bite who cracked with a hundred yards to go and was beaten four and a half lengths in the end (having `no struggle left’, to use Fred Archer’s words quoted earlier).
The winning margin flattered Native River and was hardly fair to Might Bite who had looked the best horse for so much of the race (Might Bite’s trainer pointed out that the worst of the ground was after the last, where the surface was chewed up and the fresh ground reserved for the Gold Cup ran out). Take nothing away, however, from Native River who took his golden chance under conditions that played very much to his four greatest strengths, stamina, tenacity, fine jumping and the ability to produce his best in very testing ground. What would have happened on good ground can only be guessed at, though Might Bite’s trainer wasn’t alone in thinking Might Bite would have won. Native River’s winning time of 7m 2.6sec was testament to the gruelling underfoot conditions, which were reminiscent of some of the Gold Cups in the ’seventies and early-’eighties. Native River and Bobs Worth (7m 1.70sec in 2013) are the only Gold Cup winners to exceed seven minutes since Desert Orchid won in that notorious mud bath in 1989. Desert Orchid’s winning time was 7m 17.84sec, and was the slowest since Ten Up’s 7m 51.4sec in 1975.
L’Escargot’s 8m 0.7sec in 1971 is the slowest time since the Gold Cup was switched from the Old Course to the New Course in 1967, after which the Gold Cup course remained more or less unaltered until the introduction of the four-day Festival in 2005. The line of the chase course on the New Course is now moved in seven yards on the Friday to provide fresh ground, in effect reducing the distance of Gold Cups run since 2004 by about eighty-four yards, equating to around six seconds. The drawn-out duel between Native River and Might Bite deserves to go down in history as an enthralling encounter that produced one of the finest sights in modern racing, as the pair stretched further clear of their field racing down the hill and turned for home together before fighting out a thrilling climax in the home straight. For the record, Irish-trained 33/1-shot Anibale Fly ran the race of his life to take third, staying on well from mid-division to finish only four lengths behind Might Bite, with Road To Respect, one of the few in the main bunch to look at any stage as if he might get involved in the battle up ahead, completing the frame a further four lengths adrift. Djakadam came fifth and Definitly Red, in trouble a long way out, sixth. There were nine finishers, with Tea For Two, Edwulf and American bringing up the rear. Total Recall was running well when he departed at the third last, in sixth place and only just behind Anibale Fly at the time. Killultagh Vic and Our Duke were both let down by their jumping on the day.
Native River’s triumph was the first in the Gold Cup for trainer Colin Tizzard whose stable did not enjoy the smoothest of runs with its potential Gold Cup horses in the latest season, Thistlecrack having to miss the race for the second successive year because of injury, while the veteran Cue Card, who like Thistlecrack is a King George VI Chase winner, eventually missed the Gold Cup in favour of the Ryanair Chase, in which he was pulled up. Native River provided Richard Johnson with his second Gold Cup, eighteen years after the success of Looks Like Trouble. Johnson broke the rules on Native River, using his whip above the permitted level, which resulted in his being suspended for seven days and being fined £6,550 (around a fifth of his prize money). `He answered every call,’ said Johnson of Native River. `It is disappointing but I broke the rules. Hopefully it will take nothing away from him and his performance.’ Johnson’s excessive use of the whip on this occasion – one of six whip suspensions imposed at the Festival (five of them winning rides) – exposed the reality that the whip rules will continue to be broken because they put jockeys in a dilemma, one which is even greater in a big race like the Gold Cup, of having to choose between incurring a suspension (and sometimes a fine) or possibly losing a race.
Racing is about finding the best horses and the whip has always been very much part of the game. Used correctly and skilfully, the whip is not a welfare issue in racing but, when a jockey is found guilty of a whip offence in a big race, it is nearly always overplayed in media reports. Today’s society is ultra-sensitive and such reports tend to give racing a bad name (until the last decade, racecourses did not routinely relay to the crowd the results of stewards inquiries into whip offences, but it would be impossible to keep such basic information from the race-going public nowadays). In truth, the current whip rules are not fair to jockeys, who are put in the cauldron of a big occasion, with so much at stake, but then expected, in the heat of battle at the end of the race, to behave as if they were at a vicarage tea party!
The debate about the whip remains as heated as ever and, perhaps if the authorities were really serious about moving the subject down the agenda, they might consider the admittedly draconian solution of applying suspensions at big meetings, in extreme cases, to the next big meeting. If a jockey is banned for three days at the Cheltenham Festival, he misses the Grand National meeting. That would be a greater deterrent even than banning jockeys, in extreme cases, from riding the horse on whom the suspension has been occurred in its next race, an earlier solution suggested in these pages. The rules are the rules and racecourse stewards have shown time and again that they do not exercise discretion, even on the major occasions when racing is in the spotlight. In that situation, increasing the penalties for riding indiscretions and whip offences in big races is the only practical way to stop such offences and to counter the negative publicity that is often created by them.
The well-made Native River has had his pedigree examined in the last two editions of Chasers & Hurdlers and there is very little to add. He is by Indian River, a stallion bred and raced in France, and his dam has a traditional Irish jumping background. Native Mo never ran but has bred three winners, the others being the winning hurdler/useful chaser Orpheus Valley (by Beneficial) and the useful hurdler Mahler Ten (by Mahler). She was also represented on the racecourse in the latest season by One Night In Milan (by Milan) who ran three times without success in bumpers and a novice hurdle for Paul Nicholls and should do better in time. Native River’s grandam Milford Run was a bumper winner (half-sister to the very smart Minella Lad, third in the 1994 Stayers’ Hurdle) and his great grandam Belle of The West was a useful chaser.
Native River went through the sale-ring cheaply at Fairyhouse as a foal and found his way to the Tizzard stable and owners Brocade Racing after unseating his rider at the last in an Irish maiden point for Cork trainer Denis Ahern in March 2014 as a four-year-old. He reportedly changed hands privately for less than six figures, slipping through the radar of Ireland’s biggest owners. It was a similar story with the Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Altior who was bought as a store for €60,000 from the Land Rover Sale. Along with French-bred Buveur d’Air, the Irish-breds Native River and Altior kept the Cheltenham Festival’s three most valuable and prestigious races in Britain, some consolation for the 17-11 thrashing that Irish trainers gave their British counterparts at the meeting. Native River should be back to defend his crown in the next season when further clashes between him and Might Bite will be worth going a long way to see.
A thorough stayer who is in his element forcing the pace – he goes really well for Richard Johnson – Native River will get the Grand National trip, though his owners are said to be reluctant to run him in that race, despite him looking a natural for it. The ground was good when he won the Hennessy (now the Ladbrokes Trophy) as a six-year-old, and when he was third in the 2017 Gold Cup, so he doesn’t need the mud, although he handles testing conditions extremely well. He wears cheekpieces (he had a lazy streak when younger) but is thoroughly game and genuine.