In memory of Kauto Star. With love and thanks.

Kauto Star is dead.

Those are four heavy words to write. I never even met the bold beauty, yet, as so many people in racing did, I loved him as if he were my own. There are mighty horses that come along once in a generation, that have a sprinkle of stardust about them, that gallop straight to the heart. Kauto Star was such a horse.

For years, I tried to work out what it was about him that was so thrilling, so visceral, so lovable. I think it was because he had it all. He had dash and power, a supreme natural talent, and, in the early days, a rather terrifying and exhilarating recklessness. He sometimes seemed to be having a little joke with the crowd, ploughing through the last fence, miraculously finding a fifth leg, before picking himself up and storming to the line. He had a lilting exuberance, a dancing stride, a joy in him, as if he really loved his job.

But he had dour courage as well. I’ve seen him win on the bridle, as he liked, leaving good horses floundering in his wake, and I’ve seen him put his head down and scrap through the mud and the rain, straining every sinew to get his nose in front, his will to win gleaming through the gloom and the murk. He could shine like the sun, and he could fight like a tiger.

His partnership with Ruby Walsh was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in racing. They had a harmony and communion and understanding which is rare and glorious. They knew each other and they liked each other. ‘Ah,’ said Ruby, that hardened professional, on live television, to an audience of millions, ‘I love him.’

He was the beating heart of Ditcheat, ridden every day by his devoted Clifford Baker, loved and cherished and honed by a remarkable team, who kept him sound and kept him fresh and kept him loving his job. To bring any horse back, season after season, with all the physical and mental demands on those fragile legs and those sensitive thoroughbred minds, is something. To keep them winning at the highest level is an achievement beyond compare. Paul Nicholls deserves every single superlative in the book.

Kauto Star was as handsome and filled with charisma as an old school film star, and like any great presence, he knew how to please a crowd. He did it in so many different ways, whether it was becoming the first horse to regain a Gold Cup, or dancing to his fourth King George victory by an imperious distance (which means so many lengths that the officials could not be bothered to count), or, in perhaps his most moving and stirring moment, coming back when everyone had written the old boy off to win his fourth Betfair Chase at Haydock. There really was not a dry eye in the house on that grey afternoon.

He had that extra indefinable something which the great ones have, what my mother calls the look of eagles. Arkle had it, and Frankel had it, and Desert Orchid had it. Horses are flight animals, easily alarmed by noise, but when Ruby Walsh would canter Kauto down in front of the stands after a majestic victory, with shouts and cheers ringing out into the winter air, the bonny champion would lift his head and turn his intelligent eye on the roaring thousands as if knowing that it was all for him. Pride is a human word, but I think he felt it.

Very few horses go beyond the racing world. But Kauto Star, with one of those mighty, streaming leaps, the ones when he took off outside the wings and landed as far out the other side, jumped from the back pages to the national headlines. For years, he was the perfect Christmas present, soaring round Kempton as if it were his spiritual home. His relentless, rhythmic gallop rattled into the minds and hearts of many people who hardly knew one end of a horse from another. But they knew brilliance and beauty when they saw it; they knew class and guts and glory. He was a supreme athlete, but he was also a great character, his bright, white face recognisable and beloved the length and breadth of these islands.

Like any storied character, he had his troubles, but he always came back. There seemed something indestructible about him. There were no doubters he could not defy, no fence he could not jump, no record he could not smash, no peak he could not scale.

It turns out, after all, that he was destructible. One freak field accident, and a superlative equine hero is brought to dust.

It was a privilege to have seen him. He gave me more joy than I can express. I loved him with that pure love I always feel in the presence of greatness. It is all sunshine in Scotland today, but it feels as if a light has gone out.

He has gone to run another race, somewhere we cannot follow him. I hope he has springy green turf under his feet and the wind in his mane and the echo of those adoring crowds in his dear old ears, as he passes his final winning post.

 

Today’s pictures:

Just one photograph today. I cannot show you a picture of Kauto, because I am strict about copyright. You can find wonderful shots of him all over the internet, many of them taken by the exceptional Edward Whitaker. Here is a picture of my blue hills instead. These hills are my cathedral. Whenever anyone I love dies, I commit them to the hills. The Scottish mountains were here for millions of years before I was thought of, and shall stand for millions of years after I have gone. I find a curious consolation in that, and a sense of peace and perspective.

PS. As I finished writing this, and was about to press publish, I had to go back to the internet, just to check. My magical mind was saying: it must be a mistake. The big fella cannot possibly be gone. But he is, and so I make my farewell. He will live on in my heart, and in those precious memories which no amount of time can erase.

I dream of Tidal Bay.

Over at Leopardstown today, a late chapter in a long and glorious story will be written. The veteran Tidal Bay is crossing the water to have a pitch at one of Ireland’s best chases.

Old horse runs in race is not the stuff of which headlines or fairy tales are made. But this is not any old horse, nor any old race.

Tidal Bay is one of the most intriguing and idiosyncratic horses in racing. He has a peculiar running style, with his head stuck in the air, star-gazing all the way round. It seems almost as if he defies the laws of physics, for a horse should not be able to travel at velocity whilst making that shape.

He also has very strong ideas about the world and what he wants to do in it. He quite often moseys round at the back, as if he really can’t be fagged, and whilst the rest of the field are getting on with it, he and his jockey (mostly Ruby Walsh, lately Sam Twiston-Davies) will be having what looks like a fairly comprehensive conversation. The chat generally goes on for about three-quarters of the race, and appears to run along the lines of: not sure I want to; yes you do; still not convinced; come on it’s mighty craic; oh, all right.

You cannot tell this horse to do anything. He is stronger and more determined and more cussed than any puny human. Riding him is mostly a matter of nuanced and intelligent persuasion.

Once the conversation is finished, Tidal Bay makes up his mind, starts galloping in earnest, and quite often moves from last to first. In the old days, because of all this head-in-air orneriness, Timeform put the dreaded squiggle next to his name. The squiggle is like the Black Spot. It means unreliable, ungenuine, not to be trusted. But the funny thing is that Tidal Bay, in a tight finish, is all heart and guts. His cussedness comes into its own, as he gets a bugger off look in his eye, and goes from mule to alpha horse in a matter of strides. Suddenly, he damn well is the herd leader, and he’s going to boss the lot of them.

In the Lexus last season, he gave the racing public a finish for the ages. Half a length covered the first four home, and it was Tidal Bay, with a never-say-die surge of speed and guts, pushing his way through an impossible gap between two gallant, fighting horses, who prevailed, to roars of disbelief and joy. I have watched that race ten times, and I still have no idea how he got up.

The squiggle was quietly removed.

This season he has been mighty in victory, and amazingly courageous in defeat. He humped top weight through the mud at Chepstow last time, and finished a running-on third. He still runs with his head in the air, and he still tends to stalk round at the back for the first circuit, but the clever people at the Nicholls stable have found the key to his battling heart.

Today, probably for the last time, he goes up against the best of his peers in a Grade One chase. He is thirteen, which is old, in professional terms. The diamond brilliance usually loses its lustre when racehorses pass eleven. He had a hard race only a month ago, which can take it out of any horse, let alone one of his venerable years. He is up against First Lieutenant, a lovely, talented nine-year-old. First Lieutenant is a favourite of mine; I love his rangy, athletic build and his honest Roman nose. But I shall be shouting for dear Tidal Bay today, although I think the odds are against him.

He will be reunited with his old pal, Ruby Walsh, and who knows what chats they shall have, as they wander along at the back? If anyone can do the improbable, Ruby can.

Tidal Bay is not a horse of ease and grace. He is a horse of character and grit. That is why I love him. I think that is why he is adored by the crowds who come to watch him run. He’s not quite like anything else. And he’s been around so long, and given a huge amount of joy. If the auld fella can pull it out of the bag, there will not be a dry eye in the house. Certainly not in this house.

 

I can’t put a picture of him here, because of copyright. There is the red mare instead, who never won a single thing in her short and undistinguished racing career, but is of course the Grade One champion of my heart. She gave me a canter today of such lightness and delicacy that it was as if we were floating.

Of work and time and great, great mares.

As I go up to HorseBack to do my morning stint, I get put up on a horse. If someone says to me ‘Would you want to ride?’ the only answer is yes. The horses need a last go over the obstacle course in the arena before the first participants arrive next week, and it also means that the HorseBack team who are studying for their UK Coaching Certificate can put in some teaching practice. I get to have fun and feel useful and learn more about the Western riding, which is starting to feel less strange to me now.

As I leave, I get a lovely invitation to lunch. Feeling like an idiot, I have to say no, because I am running back to my desk. The three current projects I am juggling must be juggled, and my time management has not yet caught up, even though I swear I am going to improve it every day. Lunch just now is a thing of moments; fuel from the fridge to get through the rest of the day. This is quite odd, for a greedy person like me, but a great relief for Red the Mare since it means I shall make a nice light weight on her back.

I was reading yesterday about someone going on the notorious 5-2 diet. I thought: I have a diet. It’s the No Diet Diet, which is good for me since I refuse to go on any weight-loss regime for political reasons. I think it would make the Pankhursts sad. The suffragettes did not chain themselves to railings so that I could hate my body. On the other hand, if you are riding a kind thoroughbred mare, it’s only polite not to be too heavy on her.

The No-Diet Diet consists of: taking on absurd amounts of work and being useless at managing your time, which means that you have no space to cook great lunches loaded with olive oil as was my old tradition. Now it’s a ham sandwich and a cup of green soup, which makes the banting effortless. I’m far too busy even to notice I am eating less than usual.

I would like though, when kind people say come and have lunch, to be able to smile and say yes, instead of shaking my head with a wild look of panic in my eyes. I am going to work on order and lists. I am going to make timetables and stick to them. I’ll get there in the end.

All focus today is to finish work in time to settle down and watch the mighty Hurricane Fly in the 5.30 at Punchestown. Yesterday, the great mare Quevega made me cry actual tears of joy and admiration with her dancing brilliance. I hope today my lovely Fly will do the same.

A snatch of poetry suddenly comes into my head. It is from George Whyte Melville, a horseman to his boots, who fought with the Turkish cavalry in the Crimea.

‘I have lived my life -I am nearly done –
I have played the game all round;
But I freely admit that the best of my fun
I owe it to horse and hound.
With a hopeful heart and a conscience clear,
I can laugh in your face, Black Care;
Though you're hovering near, there's not room for you here,
On the back of my good grey mare.’

Ah, I think, a hardened old fellow brought almost to sentimentality by the very thought of his darling girl. Mares do that I think, whether you see them on the racecourse, or mooch with them in the field. At Punchestown, Quevega looked so tiny and plain compared to the great shining strapping geldings she was up against. She has no flashy looks; like the equally brave and brilliant Dawn Run, she is a most ordinary bay mare. Nothing to look at, said the commentators. I don’t mean to be rude, one of them added. Yet it is true; she would never catch the eye in the paddock.

But oh, when she was let loose by Ruby Walsh in the glimmering Irish sun, she was a thing of singing beauty. Poetry in motion is a platitude now, rubbed thin with use, but it could have been minted for her.

As I stood with Red later, in the evening light, feeling her dear head resting on my shoulder, scratching her cheek and telling her the story of the race, I thought: there really is something about the ladies. The mares stop my heart like nothing else.

 

Today’s pictures:

Talking of ladies, here are some splendid ones. The sheep and lambs have come for their annual visit to the south meadow. It is a real sign of spring and makes me smile every time I see them:

Daffs:

Winnie, one of my favourite HorseBack UK mares, who is doing good work this week:

Grinning madly, getting better at the Western, on the supremely relaxed Apollo:

Mr Stanley, with a look which says: don’t mention squirrels unless you really mean it:

My lovely girl:

The hill:

Cheltenham update. Or, sheer joy. Or, the wonderful, glorious luck of the Irish.

 

Would love to tell you the whole story of the day, but I’ve never been so tired in my life. However, just have enough life in my fingers to type the love and delight I felt when my two best beloveds, Hurricane Fly and Quevega, stormed up the hill, defying all statistics.

On paper, in particular, the darling old Hurricane should not have won. No horse has regained the Champion Hurdle for forty years, and, aside from that dark stat, he is really considered too old, at nine, to do the business. But the lucky thing is that no one told that brave fella that everything was against him. He stuck his neck out and lengthened his stride and left brilliant horses in his wake. I backed him in cash, on the course, and I had him in a huge all for love double with the mighty mare, Quevega, and the brilliant Ruby Walsh guided them both home.

I am not ashamed to say that I burst into wild tears of joy. After Quevega, I actually HUGGED a completely strange young man in the Jockey Club stand.

The whole course erupted with joy both times. That’s the difference between being there and watching it on the television. As you stand, in the wonderful roiling cauldron that is Prestbury Park, you hear thousands of people calling RUBY RUBY RUBY, with one joyful voice. You also see the glorious wide smile of that wonderful jockey, and see the pricked ears and gentle preening of the beautiful, clever, good thoroughbreds that he rides.

I’m glad I won money, of course I am. But much more than that, I shall never forget the day I saw two mighty Irish champions smash records and make history. It really was a thing of utmost beauty. Even thinking of it now brings tears to my eyes.

And now, I’m going to have a restorative pint of Guinness and switch on the recording, so I can see on the screen those wonderful horses refuse to be denied.

Cheltenham. There really is nothing like it, in the whole wide world. Best five hundred and fifty miles I ever drove.

Saturday; mostly pictures

I had a whole bushel of words for you today, but the hours rushed away from me and now it is eight o’clock and my brain has turned itself off. So today is mostly pictures.

The loveliest thing of the day was watching Kauto Star parade around Haydock, the place where he stamped his class and his guts and his great, beating heart on four glorious occasions. The old warrior looked better than ever, his head held high, the look of eagles in his eyes. The new stars, coming out to strut their stuff, looked a little mere and ordinary by comparison. The decision to retire the great horse whilst he is still fit and well was a good and honourable one, but there was a sliver of regret in me as I watched him, looking as if he could hack round the three miles in a canter and give the young fellows a run for their money.

There are some very exciting new young horses this season, and some lovely prospects just coming into their pomp, but nothing will thrill me quite like Kauto. He was, truly, a horse in a generation. As Ruby Walsh once said of him, live on British television, to happy, watching millions: ‘Ah, I love him, anyway.’

I shall miss him.

I miss my dogs today, quite a lot. ‘Why do dogs have to die?’ asked the four-year-old cousin, in a spirit of enquiry. I did not really have an awfully good ontological answer to that.

I miss my mare, who is very much alive, but five hundred miles north. I look at pictures, to quench the yearning. ‘Oh,’ says the four-year-old, a dying fall in her voice, ‘she is so beautiful.’ And so she is, and I am lucky to have her.

 

Today’s pictures are a random selection from the last few months. I was going through the files and plucked these out for you. There are some archive shots of the Duchess and the Pigeon too:

Saturday

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Well, the auld fella could not do it. The schooling fall had clearly taken its toll; after stretching at the water, Kauto Star started tying up. His action faltered, he fiddled his jumps, that great joie de vivre of which I have spoken before faded. Ruby Walsh very quickly pulled him up.

He cantered back past the packed stands, whilst the race went on without him.

The Beloved Cousin, who was there, called later that night, as I sat in my room with my disappointment.

'Oh,' she said. 'It was quite extraordinary. People were cheering and throwing their hats in the air. No one was watching the race. They just clapped and clapped for Kauto Star as he came home.'

I was incredibly glad that she told me that. You did not get a sense of it from the television. It made it, somehow, all right.

He did not retire lame; he was not wounded; he returned with his old ears pricked. He could be a bit of a showboat, on his day. I guess that he knew, as much as horses ever know, that the applause was for him.

This morning I went to see my horse. We rode for almost an hour, very steady. She is quite alarmed by some aspects of her new home: woods and mountains, a farmyard with every manner of thing a horse might shy at, from flapping dustbin bags to bright blue pipes. It's that curious mixture you get in the country – a view of the glen so sublime it cannot be described with paltry words, and then all the mess and muddle of a working farm with its outlying cottages.

Interestingly, Red will walk quite calmly past flapping washing on a line, but freak out at a shiny water trough. This was a test. She is not naughty, or mean. She was genuinely alarmed. Horses are prey animals; she probably was looking up at the wooded hills and expecting a mountain lion to leap on her quarters.

There was an interesting moment when she started reversing (in a very impressive straight line, and at speed) down a hill. The shiny water trough was too much for her. I sat tight, stopped her, stood for a moment, turned a small circle, and beaming mental signals of safety at her, got her to walk on. I was not sure if I could do it, but I did. Hands and heels, but mostly, reassurance.

'There are no mountain lions here,' I told her.

Past the terrifying object, I congratulated her with long strokes up the neck, so that she would feel she had done something very clever.

All these are things I had half-forgotten. The ancient instincts, learnt in childhood, come back.We are feeling our way together. It is oddly touching. If I can get her to trust me and rely on me completely than it will be one of the best things I ever did.

A smiling woman in a car made my day. She stopped to let us go past; her window was open, so I paused for some polite conversation. What a lovely day, we are new here, that kind of thing. She beamed up at me. 'What an absolutely beautiful horse,' she said.

That chased away the lingering shadows from yesterday, in one stroke.

In the afternoon, more of the family came up to regard the new addition. She was dozing in her field, in the fine Scottish sun. It was lovely to see her all dopey and relaxed, her eyes half closed. She will settle in soon enough. I think she is being bloody brave, miles away from her old friends in the paddock, and all the familiar landmarks she has known for the last six years.

We shall go along just fine.

I wish I had pictures to show you, but the charger is still absent. 

Here is a little Kauto loveliness for you. He did not have his day yesterday, but nothing can erase the soaring delight of his two unexpected triumphs earlier in the season. He gave us joy, and we loved him well.

Cantering back, ears still pricked:

Wonderful photograph by Tom Jenkins for the Guardian.

And Ruby, a man of courtesy and grace in defeat, tipping his hat to the crowd, as they salute the great champion:

Photograph by Reuters.

Cheltenham, day four. The glory of Big Buck's; the hopes for Kauto Star.

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Well, he did it.

HE DID IT.

I know I told you of the fears and strains and nerves yesterday, but I’m not sure I quite realised how wound up I had been until I found myself bursting into shouting tears of joy and relief as Big Buck's flashed past the post.

It was a completely disproportionate reaction to a horse race. Funnily enough, I remember having the exact same thing when Desert Orchid won his Gold Cup, and Kauto Star regained his. It is what my old Irish godmother used to call ‘tears coming out at right angles’.

It’s a bit primal, I suppose. It’s about watching something above the rest, something so pure and true. It’s the sight of greatness and grit, brilliance and cussedness, glory and guts. It’s the thing when something is so far above what is normal.

Humans are used to normal; to muddle and compromise and all the little chips and scratches of which daily life is made. We don’t get perfect, hardly ever, and that is just as it should be. I don’t think life was made to be perfect, and whenever I see someone who has one which looks like that on the outside, I get a bit suspicious.

But, every so often, it’s not bad to have a fleeting glimpse of perfection.

Yesterday, Big Buck’s did something perfect.

All the superlatives and clichés may come out to dance. It was poetry in motion. It was a far, far better thing.

After the race, I went up to see Red the Mare, who had arrived from the south. The World Traveller brought the great-nieces up as a welcoming committee, and they fed her apples, which she ate graciously, from their tiny, flat palms. ‘This is your new family,’ I told her. She looked very relaxed, and very happy.

This morning, I got up at half past seven and went up to ride her for the first time in her new glen. She looked about all over the shop; the other horses galloped round the hill to greet her. She was a little startled, in this alien environment, and I was babying her a bit to start with.

Then, with the firm encouragement of the very strict Riding Expert, I kicked on and decided to take charge. Horses do not need any kind of aggression or bullying, but they do crave firmness. It makes them feel safe to know they have a boss. I suddenly realised I was not thinking like a boss, so I switched my mind-set, Red sensed it at once, and by the end, we were walking about in the shadow of the blue hills as if we had been together for ever.

I had one finger on the buckle of the reins, and she stretched her neck out, and ambled on, calm and docile as an old dog. The Pigeon scampered alongside, still a bit confused about what she clearly regards as a vast red canine.

‘Let’s just pretend you are Kauto Star,’ I said to the mare. I looked down at her little, golden neck. (She is only just 15.1, which is small in horse terms, and quite delicate, with all her thoroughbred breeding.) ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘you are more like Kauto Stone, his slightly less talented brother.’

All the same, she is a champion to me.

And now, finally, the huge day comes. I have been so keyed up for this, for so long, that I thought I would be quite hysterical by now. Oddly, the great victory of Big Buck’s yesterday has calmed me. It was as if I had my fairy tale moment; I can’t expect any more. And there is something very soothing about being able to go up and see my own lady.

I’ve gone fatalistic, now. I don’t expect miracles. You can’t dismiss statistics, especially at Cheltenham. Big race stats tend to play out, pretty accurately. No twelve-year old has won the Gold Cup for forty years. There is a reason for that. The Gold Cup is three and a quarter miles of hard, undulating gallop, over big, unforgiving fences. Kempton, where Kauto won last time, is a sharp, flat track. It finds out horses in a different way, because it is so fast, but it does not quite ask the same, searching questions.

There are a lot of very, very good horses in this race. Long Run runs on like a steam train and stays all day. Burton Port is a smart, improving type. Dear old Midnight Chase, on whom I have a tiny each way bet of love, will jump and stay until every last cow is home, and adores this course. Weird Al is very talented. Diamond Harry can’t be discounted, if he is back to his best. I think Synchronised might need softer ground, but Jonjo O’Neill’s horses are running out of their skin.

I try to put emotion aside and think rationally, and forensically. Kauto Star has looked, this term, as if he is as good as he has ever been. When he is at his best, there is nothing to touch him. There are mutters about him not being so good around Cheltenham, that perhaps he won’t quite stay the extra two furlongs. This completely ignores the remarkable fact that he has run in five Gold Cups, won two, been second once, and third once. I don’t think you can say he does not stay, or act on this track.

The two worries are the old legs, and the schooling fall three weeks ago. Kauto was brought to his peak for the Betfair Chase in November; to maintain such a high level of fitness into March is a major training feat. Having said that, he looked in sparkling form on his last racecourse canter at Wincanton. Reports are that his latest school was foot perfect. Only time will tell whether there are any lingering effects from his tumble, which reportedly left him bruised and sore.

The thing that has won him his last two races, apart from his blazing talent and his relentless galloping and his mighty jumping, is his joy. This sounds absurdly sentimental, madly vague, fatally anthropomorphic. But I’m not sure I ever saw a horse loving his work so much as Kauto Star was loving his on Boxing Day, when he notched up his record-smashing fifth King George. If he brings that joy today, then the lightning could strike.

The head says, the form book says, the logical self says: the young legs of Long Run will prevail. The always unpredictable nature of Cheltenham makes one think that something quite else could roar out of the pack, and beat the both of them – Burton Port, or Synchronised. Hot favourites have been overturned this week; nothing is certain in racing.

My aching, yearning heart says, hopes, whispers, that if the auld fella has that extra dash of magic still in him, the miraculous something extra that has fired him to an extraordinary sixteen Grade One wins, from two miles to three and a quarter, then the dream might come true.

If it does, I shall shout and cry like I have never shouted and cried before.

But the rationalist in me thinks of his age. It is the toughest class race of the racing calendar. I’m not sure history can be made again.

All I want now, actually, is for him to stand up. I want him to get round safe, and come home happy to his box. I don’t want to see him disgraced. I’d hate for him to be pulled up.

But he owes us nothing, not one thing. No horse I know has tried so hard, and produced so much, season in, and season out. He does not just have a once-in-a-lifetime talent, he has toughness, and a great, big, bottomless heart. He might skip around on good ground, but I have seen him battle through rain and mud to win by a nose. He has been described as a prince, but there is something in him of the yeoman’s heart.

In a way, asking him to win today is too much. If he even makes the frame, it will be an outrageous achievement. The fairy tale might strike, and I have money that says it will, because my money must always be where my mouth is, but the likelihood is a little more prosaic. The odds are against. But the heart still beats a little faster at the very thought of what could happen.

No horse gets to be this good, for so long, without a remarkable team around him. It’s not just the brilliant trainer, Paul Nicholls, but the assistants, the head lad, the lass who looks after him. Clifford Baker, who rides him each morning, and Rose Loxton, who looks after him, have done amazing work, and deserve a sincere tip of the hat.

And then there is Ruby Walsh.

RUBY, RUBY, RUBEE roared the crowd yesterday, as Walsh paraded Big Buck’s past the stands after his World Hurdle triumph. His name is hymned for a reason. He might be the most complete jockey I’ve ever seen.

Over the years, he has developed an almost telepathic sympathy with Kauto Star. The old warrior gives more for Ruby than for anyone else. Watch them, going into a fence; Walsh sits quiet and still, seeing the perfect stride a mile out, getting the horse to take off almost by osmosis. There is no hassling, no kicking and booting; just perfect harmony, between man and horse.

After the remarkable 2009 Gold Cup, when Kauto regained his crown, Ruby, smiling all over his face, his eyes alight, made a lovely, simple, declarative sentence. He told a nation, on live television, of his bold horse: ‘Ah, I love him anyway.’

Ah, I love him anyway, too.

Big Buck's, his big old ears pricked, and Ruby Walsh, passing the post ahead of the gutsy mare, Voler La Vedette:

Photograph by Reuters.

Kauto with his trainer, Paul Nicholls:

Photograph by Getty.

And at full stretch:

Photograph uncredited.

Cheltenham, Day Three. In which it all gets too much.

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Here is the thing I forget, every damn year: the agony. For something that is supposed to give so much pleasure, a thing I anticipate with so much impatience and excitement, Cheltenham is curiously painful. It’s not just when horses take brutes of falls, which I find harder and harder to watch as I get older and softer, it’s actually more that the ones I love, I love so much. I want them to win not because I have had a tenner on, or because it will fulfil some double or treble, but for sheer, undilute love.

This is perfectly ridiculous. I am forty-five years old. I spent my early years with a rough, tough old racing father. He wept like a baby over horses, but he would be out booting them over fences the next day. When he was betting, he was flinty as a Russian oil billionaire. He had no sentiment at all when it came to his wallet.

I think he greatly admired a really good horse; I remember watching Moscow Flyer with him, and seeing the pleasure light up his face, but I could not tell whether it was because he really loved the horse, or whether he had had a huge punt. Perhaps he knew that, after a lifetime spent watching horses, he could not allow himself to get emotionally involved with animals that were not his responsibility.

I, on the other hand, am a Saturday afternoon observer. I know and understand racing because it’s where I came from, but I also carry the fan-like tendency of the outsider. When I see a really good horse, jumping round for fun, I see aesthetics, and emotion, and high narrative. I get carried away by the guts and the glory. There are some horses that are really, really brave. They are the ones that will go for the gap, that will give their jockey that extra, magical something on the run-in, when it seems there is nothing left to give, when they are running on fumes. You sometimes see a horse win a race through sheer heart.

Even hardened racing people will say, with admiration, of one of those, ‘he’s a real trier’. On the excellent Channel Four, you will often hear John Francome, who is not a sentimentalist at all, say: ‘he runs his heart out, every time'.

Sheer talent is very thrilling too, in quite another way. When Sprinter Sacre won on Tuesday, it was because he was so stellar that he could simply stroll over his fences, never getting out of second gear. He has not yet had to show his heart, because he is so much better than his cohort. Watching him is like observing some freakish natural phenomenon; you can see the wild in him, his ancestral herd heritage. He was meant to run, very, very fast, and that is what he does.

In the first race yesterday, quite another kind of horse gave me a different kind of thrill. Teaforthree is a lovely, old-fashioned kind of chaser, a big, bonny, bold staying horse. He is honest as the day is long. He does not have that blinding brilliance of the really top class, but he is very, very good at what he does. Most of all, he seems to love it. He hunts round, with his ears pricked, absolutely at home on the racecourse.

He was running in a four mile chase, which is absurdly long, jumping twenty-four of those vast Cheltenham fences. He went off in the lead, leaping over the obstacles with a delightful combination of poetry and accuracy. I wanted him to win for love, because he is such a fine gentleman, and because he comes from a small yard which deserves its day in the sun, and for money too, because I had a tenner on him at 8-1.

He can’t stay in front the whole way round, I thought, not for four miles. He can’t go on jumping like that.

But you know what? He just did. He never put a foot wrong, and when his smiling Irish amateur rider asked him the question after the last, he lengthened his stride like the good old fella he is, and cantered gloriously up the hill. I shouted and roared and danced for joy. It was all jubilee, for that moment, in my house.

But the problem with all this is that I care far, far too much. When the bright novice Grand Crus got beat, I took it personally. When the brilliant and brave Sizing Europe could only finish second, after a very messy Champion Chase, I felt a raging fury. This was only compounded by a horrid cavalry charge of a hurdle race where there were three hideous falls. I suddenly felt disgusted with the whole business.

This idiot level of caring makes the beautiful victories much keener and sweeter. The other side of the coin is that when the one I love gets beat, or has no luck in running, or just does not run his race, as horses sometimes do not, I have a crushing, crashing sense of disappointment, which can linger for the rest of the day.

Today, Big Buck’s lines up for the World Hurdle. I want him to win so much that I can hardly speak. The wanting is so acute it is actually making me grumpy. I think: I’m not sure I can even watch the race. It will be too terrifying, too much agony. This is supposed to be a lovely afternoon at the races. Yet I shall be pacing about, literally or metaphorically hiding behind the sofa. I shall be quite tempted to leave the house altogether, and go for a nice walk with the Pigeon until the race is over.

The whole thing is too absurd for words. I cannot explain it. A shrink would probably have a field day with it. I sometimes wonder what it must be like to be one of those sanguine, calm people, who can let life roll off them. I know they exist. (It’s like the Organised People, whom I also observe with awe and wonder.)

On days like this, I rather yearn to know how they do it. A shrug of the shoulders, a wry smile, a philosophical sigh, and the thing is done. How very, very lovely that must be.

 

The wonderfully collected Teaforthree, on the far side, by Mark Cranham for the Racing Post:

And with a very happy JT McNamara, coming into the winning enclosure, by Getty Images:

The power and the glory that is Big Buck's, photograph uncredited:

If you are new to the blog, and have no idea about that mighty horse, and would like to know more, I have written about him before, here and here.

And now I really am stopping.

I should not give you any tips at all, after the drubbing I took yesterday, and today is such a difficult betting day that I am mostly going to keep my cash in my pocket. But I really do like Noble Prince for the very competitive Ryanair at 2.40. Although you could make a really good case for any one of eight of them. I'd love to see Somersby run a big race for Henrietta Knight too.

I have a tiny feeling for Cristal Bonus in the Jewson, but only a five quid at 5-1 feeling. Donald McCain's horses are on fire, and the favourite, Peddler's Cross, will run well.

Big Buck's is not a betting thing. He is 2-1 on. This means you have to put two pounds on to win one. Also, this is the toughest opposition he has faced yet, strength and depth. The Willie Mullins' horses are fancied, and Oscar Whisky, trained by the on fire Nicky Henderson, who had FOUR winners yesterday, is a terrifying danger. Just hope, and watch, and enjoy the brilliance.

If he does win, I shall cry shameless tears of joy.