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Horse racing's oldest winners including 18-year-old Sonny Somers
Tony McFadden highlights the achievements of some of racing's golden oldies ahead of the Veterans' Final at Sandown on Saturday.
Four teenagers feature among the 18 runners in the eighth edition of the Veterans' Final and they will be bidding to emulate Seeyouatmidnight (2021) and Pete The Feat (2017) who both took the prize at 13.
Pete The Feat also went close the following season when runner-up to Buywise as a 14-year-old, more than a decade after he had made his debut. However, at 14 he was a relative youngster compared to some of racing's most famous golden oldies.
The oldest horse to win a race in the post-war era is Sonny Somers, who won handicap chases at Southwell and Lingfield in February 1980 at the age of 18. The remarkable feat was commemorated with a short essay in Timeform's Chasers & Hurdlers 1979/80 which noted "he was afforded the sort of reception usually reserved for a Grand National winner or a big-race winner at the Cheltenham Festival".
Sonny Somers, who was trained by Fred Winter for the bulk of his career, won 25 races - 16 over fences and nine over hurdles - from 109 races across 12 seasons; in only two of those campaigns did he fail to win.
The 1979/80 season was a notable one for racing's grand servants as, in addition to Sonny Somers' exploits, Mac Vidi was placed in the Cheltenham Gold Cup at the age of 15, doing something no horse aged older than 13 had done before or since.
Mac Vidi passed the post third at Cheltenham behind Tied Cottage, but after that horse was disqualified he inherited the runner-up spot. It represented the highlight of a remarkable campaign that saw him, despite his advanced age, show much-improved form and win on seven occasions, including a sequence of six handicaps in succession.
He was trained at that stage of his career by owner-breeder Pam Neal whose unconventional approach was highlighted in Chasers & Hurdlers and credited with helping to keep Mac Vidi so sweet.
"The horse acts on any going, jumps well and races with great enthusiasm. Perhaps in this great enthusiasm, his zest for jumping and his heart for a fight, lies the clue to discovering why he blossomed in the extraordinary way he did.
"He may well be what he is largely as a result of the individual and unconventional care given him in the last few years by his owner-breeder-trainer, who has a guest house to run in addition to looking after her very useful old chaser.
"Mac Vidi is turned out in a field on Dartmoor for a large part of the day, by all accounts, and has probably thrived more on that than he would have done if he'd been left as one of the string of either of his former trainers, D. Barons or H. Handel."
The oldest winner in Britain or Ireland this century was the Ronan McNally-trained See Double You who won a handicap hurdle at Roscommon the age of 16 in 2019.
Victory Gunner, whose last success came as a 15-year-old at Chepstow in 2013, is perhaps unlucky not to hold the record for oldest winner in Britain or Ireland this century as he was carried out at the final fence at Ffos Las when staying on in a close third on what proved to be his penultimate start. He was 17 at the time.
Victory Gunner was trained towards the end of his career by Richard Lee, who also sent out Marked Man to win at the age of 15 at Towcester in 2011.
The most significant success by a 15-year-old was the one posted by Megalala in a mile-and-a-quarter handicap at Lingfield in 2016, which made him the oldest winner on the Flat in the post-war era.
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One discipline in which the older brigade have enjoyed notable success - perhaps in part due to the lesser competition - is in cross-country chases and Ballyboker Bridge was 15 when he won the latest edition of the La Touche Cup at Punchestown in April. Uncle Junior won that prize as a 14-year-old in 2015, while Spot Thedifference was also 14 when successful in 2007.
Recent winners of the Becher Chase, contested over Aintree's unique fences, have also been won by teenagers as Oscar Time was 13 rising 14 when he won in 2014, while Hello Bud was approaching his 15th birthday when successful for a second time in 2012.
That proved to be a glorious swansong for Hello Bud, who also won the Southern National, Somerset National and Scottish National in the 2008/09 season and twice completed in the Grand National. Few would have predicted such an illustrious career when he was still a maiden turning ten!
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