For Barbara and Alick Richmond, Living Legend’s game 12-1 victory in Kempton’s 1m 2f Magnolia Stakes last Saturday was their first in a Listed race and it showed. Living Legend had been driven to the front two furlongs out and held on bravely to prevail by a nose. ‘Come here you,’ said Barbara to the treasured Joe Fanning, the veteran jockey who had judged his finish perfectly, and enveloped him in a huge affectionate hug. You felt that if she could she would have picked him up, tucked him under an arm and carted him home to sit on the mantelpiece as a trophy. Of Living Legend, a lightly raced six-year-old who has had injury problems since running in the Dee Stakes at three, she declared proudly: ‘What more could you ask for in a racehorse? He just kept going – he wasn’t going to lose. He’s a real gentleman and he hates horses passing him.’
Kempton’s all-weather track is a far cry from the Cheltenham Festival but I was immediately reminded of my favourite Festival winner, Evan Williams’s 2m 4f chaser Coole Cody who took the Craft Irish Whiskey Plate handicap chase despite being baulked on the final corner. Said jockey Adam Wedge: ‘He’s an absolute warrior. He got cut up on the bend. For a moment I thought: “That’s me done,” but I pulled him out, gave him a crack and I could feel the fire in his belly. He’s an angry horse but that made him angrier.’ Anthropomorphism in both cases? Maybe. But horses can’t talk and if we can’t indulge in a bit of anthropomorphism there’s no point in writing about our glorious sport.
It was wonderful to see the crowds back at the Festival and despite fears that the 23-5 drubbing of British-trained horses by the Irish contingent last year could be repeated, the result was a more respectable 18-10 in favour of the Irish.
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