Did Paul Carberry ever win the Grand National?

The short answer is yes, he did. On April 10, 1999, Paul Carberry won the Grand National on the 9-year-old Bobbyjo, owned by Robert Burke and trained by his father, Tommy. Of course, Tommy Carberry had ridden L’Escargot, the last Irish-trained horse to win the Grand National before Bobbyjo, in 1975, so victory for Bobbyjo was especially memorable for the Carberry family.

Bobbyjo had won the Irish National at Fairyhouse, under Carberry, a year earlier, but his only win since had come in his preparatory race for the Grand National, a two-mile handicap hurdle at Down Royal in March, under Carberry’s younger brother, Philip. At Aintree, Bobbyjo was 14lb out of the handicap but, in the face of sustained market support, was sent off 10/1 co-third favourite of three, behing Fiddling The Facts, trained by Nicky Henderson, and Double Thriller, trained by Paul Nicholls.

The market support proved to be justified because, having tracked the leaders for much of the way, Bobbyjo was switched to the outside to deliver his challenge at the final fence and was driven clear on the run-in to beat Blue Charm by 25 lengths. Bobbyjo never won again and was humanely euthanised, as an 11-year-old, in 2001. Reflecting on his career, Paul Carberry said, ‘He was a very easy horse to ride. He would settle for you and you could do anything you wanted with him. He was also very genuine and he jumped brilliantly.’

How does Sea The Stars rate in Timeform’s historical pecking order?

Currently standing at the Aga Khan’s Gilltown Stud, in Co. Kildare, for a stud fee of €150,000, Sea The Stars is rightly billed as ‘One of the all-time greats’. In an exceptional three-year-old campaign, in 2009, Sea The Stars carried all before him, winning all six starts, all at Group 1 level and including the 2,000 Guineas, Derby and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Timeform described his three-year-old campaign as ‘one of unparalleled, sustained excellence over a variety of trips.’ However, Sea The Stars achieved a Timeform Annual Rating of just 140 which, while the equivalent of that achieved by Shergar and Dancing Brave, among others, is only joint-eighth in the all-time list since Timeform ratings were first published in 1948. The horses rated higher than Sea The Stars in that list are Frankel, Sea-Bird, Brigadier Gerard, Tudor Minstrel, Abernant, Ribot and Mill Reef.

Few would argue that Timeform ratings are as accurate a measure as any of comparing one generation of racehorses with another. However, the ‘problem’ with Sea The Stars, as acknowledged by Timeform, wass that he was too far ahead of the rest of his generation for his own good. Trainer John Oxx said of him, ‘He always won comfortably [never by more than 2½ lengths] and had plenty of gas left as he didn’t exert himself too hard.’ The lack of ‘yardstick’ horses, by which to measure his performance, or any wide-margin victories, ultimately counted against Sea The Stars as far as his Timeform rating was concerned.

 

How is ‘starting price’ determined?

Traditionally, the starting price (SP) of any horse was determined by sampling the prices available, to ‘good’ money – or, in other words, to lose at least £500 in a single bet – from a selection of on-course bookmakers at the scheduled off time. Having compiled a list of prices, typically from a sample of between six and 24 bookmakers, SP reporters would order that list from longest to shortest, divide it in two and return the shortest price in the top half as the official SP. Thus, the SP, or a longer price, would have been available from at least half the bookmakers sampled.

However, having considered the decision ‘long and hard’, according to its chairman, Lord Donoghue, the Starting Price Regulatory Commission (SPRC) announced, in March, 2021, that it was moving away from the traditional SP system. With horse racing forced behind closed doors, as the result of the Covid-19 pandemic, on-course betting has dwindled away to almost negligible proportions, prompting the introduction of an SP system using mainly off-course odds. As and when bookmakers return to racecourses, on-course prices are expected to contribute between 10% and 12.5% to the overall sample.

Was the Coral-Eclipse named after a horse?

Was the Coral-Eclipse named after a horse? The race commonly known as the Coral-Eclipse is a Group One 1 contest open to horses aged three years and upwards and run over a mile and a quarter at Sandown Park in July each year. Since 1976, the race has been sponsored by bookmaker Coral, nowadays owned by Entain plc, formerly GVC Holdings, and is often referred to by its sponsored title.

However, the history of the race dates back to 1886, when it was inaugurated, as the Eclipse Stakes, under the auspices of British banker and thoroughbred racehorse breeder Leopold de Rothschild. Indeed, at the time of its inauguration, the Eclipse Stakes was worth 10,000 sovereigns to the winner, making it the most valuable race ever run in Britain.

The Eclipse Stakes is, indeed, named after a horse. Between May, 1769 and October, 1770, Eclipse won all ten races in which he actually competed, all bar one at odds-on, and another eight by walkover, such that he retired from racing officially unbeaten in 18 starts. Fittingly, the Eclipse Stakes has always attracted horses of the highest calibre; its roll of honour includes such luminaries of the sport as Mill Reef, Brigadier Gerard, Dancing Brave, Sea The Stars and Enable, to name but a handful.

1 … 63 64 65 66 67 … 148