Category: Questions

By his own admission, Martin Pipe ‘never, ever, wanted to be a trainer.’ However, with his brief, less-than-prolific career as an amateur rider cut short by a broken thigh in 1972, Pipe did, indeed, turn his attention to training at a then-derelict farm in Nicholashayne, near Wellington, Somerset two years later. Reflecting on those early days, he once told the ‘Racing Post’, ‘I didn’t know anything about training when I started, I didn’t have a clue.’

After a slow, nay tortoiselike, start, Pipe first attracted the attention of the wider racing public when, in 1981, he saddled his first Cheltenham Festival winner, Baron Blakeney, ridden by Paul Leach, in the Triumph Hurdle. Belying odds of 66/1, Baron Blakeney made relentless progress from the final flight to collar the 7/4 favourite, Broadsword, trained by David Nicholson and ridden by Peter Scudamore, in the closing stages, landing a gamble in the process.

The rest, as they say, is history. Pipe would win the National Hunt Trainers’ Championship for the first in 1988/89, with an eye-watering 208 winners. In the next 17 seasons until his retirement, due to ill health, in April, 2006, he would relinquish the trainers’ title just three times, to David Nicholson in 1993/94 and 1994/95 and to Paul Nicholls (who was winning his first title) in 2005/06.

Unremarkably, Pipe still holds the record for the most trainers’ titles (15) and the most consecutive titles (10) in National Hunt history.

Indeed, his revolutionary, scientific approach to training, coupled with a knack for placing his horses, led Pipe to a career total of 4,191 winners, including several high-profile winners on the Flat. It is difficult to argue with former stable jockey Peter Scudamore, who once said of Pipe, ‘Quite simply, he was a genius of his time.’

Dunkirk remains the seventh highest-rated steeplechaser in the history of Timeform, adjudged just 1lb inferior to Desert Orchid and 2lb superior to Burrough Hill Lad. Yet, when it comes to a discussion of the truly great steeplechasers of the twentieth century, his name is rarely mentioned. That is, perhaps, because he was a direct contemporary of Arkle, Flyingbolt and Mill House, but as ‘one of the most exhilarating sights in racing’, according to Timeform, Dunkirk deserves recognition.

Owned by Bill Whitbread and trained by Peter Cazalet, Dunkirk is probably best remembered for winning what is now the Queen Mother Champion Chase by 20 lengths in 1965. However, the following season, he also beat Mill House by 15 lengths, at level weights, in the Frogmore Chase at Ascot and won what is now the Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham under 12st 7lb.

Dunkirk never did beat Arkle, but did, quite literally, die trying. The pair met for the one and only time in the King George VI Chase at Kempton in December, 1966, for which Arkle was sent off 1/7 favourite in a field of four. Despite attempting three miles for the first time, Dunkirk jumped spectacularly at the head of affairs and was, at one stage, nearly a fence clear of his rivals. However, as his stamina waned, he was gradually reeled in by Arkle. At the final open ditch, five fences from home, Dunkirk failed to take off at all, breaking his neck in a fatal fall; he was subsequently found to have suffered a lung haemorrhage.

 

Harry Whittington, who is based at Hill Barn Stables in Sparsholt Firs, near Wantage, Oxfordshire, overlooking Lambourn, first took out a training licence in 2012. He enjoyed his most successful season, numerically and fiscally, in 2019/20, when he trained 30 winners from 160 runners, at a strike rate of 19%, and amassed over £450,000 in prize money. His biggest payday that season came on March 12, 2020, at the Cheltenham Festival, when Simply The Betts, ridden by Gavin Sheehan, justified favouritism in the Grade 3 Brown Advisory & Merriebelle Stable Plate, worth nearly £62,000 to winning connections.

By that stage of his career, Whittington had long since saddled his one and only Grade 1 winner, Arzal, in the Manifesto Novices’ Chase at Aintree on April 7, 2016. Tragically, Arzal was put down shortly afterwards due to complications arising from a minor leg injury, but the form was franked by the second and third horses, L’Ami Serge and Sizing John, who won the Grande Course de Haies d’Auteuil and the Cheltenham Gold Cup the following year!

In March, 2023, Whittington announced that he would be reliquishing his training licence at the end of the 2022/23 National Hunt season, in favour of a return breaking-in and pre-training young horses, something he had done successfully for the likes of Nicky Henderson and Tom Dascombe before turning his hand to training. He told the Racing Post, ‘I have always loved pre-training horses. It’s something I get a real kick out of, and it was something we have always considered doing again.’ Whittington duly saddled his final runner, Docpickedme, who was pulled up, in a handicap hurdle at Warwick on April 27, 2023. All told, he trained over 180 winners, including a handful on the Flat, which was a fair return for someone who once told ‘Trainer’ magazine, ‘I actually had no aspirations to be a trainer whatsoever.’

For readers unfamiliar with the name, Sprinter Sacre was the outstanding two-mile steeplechaser of his generation who, between February, 2010 and April, 2016, won 18 of his 24 races and earned in excess of £1.1 in prize money. Owned by Caroline Mould and trained by Nicky Henderson at Seven Barrows in Upper Lambourn, Berkshire, the Network gelding was sent over fences in December, 2011 and duly embarked on a winning streak of 10 races, the last seven of which were all at the highest, Grade 1 level and included the Arkle Challenge Trophy and the Queen Mother Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival.

Indeed, his performance in the latter race in 2013, when he started at odds of 1/4, was never off the bridle and sauntered clear in the closing stages to beat the 2011 winner, Sizing Europe, was described by Timeform as ‘one of the greatest in the history of National Hunt racing’. At that stage, he was awarded a Timeform rating of 192p – the ‘p’ indicating he was ‘ likely to make more than normal progress and to improve on his rating’ – which remains the third highest awarded to a steeplechaser, behind only Arkle and Flyingbolt.

On his reappearance at Kempton Park in December, 2013, Sprinter Sacre was pulled up and subsequently diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat, from which he recovered, but nonetheless did not race again until January, 2015. On his return, he was beaten, at odds-on, by Dodging Bullets, trained by Paul Nicholls, in the Clarence House Chase at Ascot and pulled up, when favourite, behind the same horse in in the Queen Mother Champion Chase two months later.

The last horse to beat Sprinter Sacre, though, was Special Tiara, trained by Henry De Bromhead, who did so in the Celebration Chase at Sandown Park in April, 2015. Although never quite the force of old, Sprinter Sacre returned to something approaching his best in 2015/16, winning all four starts, including a second Queen Mother Champion Chase, before suffering a tendon injury and being retired in November, 2016.

Nowadays, Michael Anthony ‘Mick’ Fitzgerald is best known as a television presenter, most recently with ITV Racing. However, until forced into retirement in August, 2008, aged 38, Fitzgerald was one of the most successful National Hunt jockeys of all time. All told, he rode a total of 1,310 winners in Britain and Ireland, all bar 15 of which came on British soil, but his riding career was effectively brought to an end when he smashed four vertebrae in his neck during a second-fence fall from L’Ami in the Grand National on April 5, 2008. He recovered sufficiently to return to the saddle but, faced with the threat of paralysis in the event of another fall, he took medical advice and hung up his boots.

Fitzgerald rode his first winner, Lover’s Secret, trained by Richard Tucker, in a conditional jockeys’ selling hurdle at Ludlow on December 20, 1988. In the early nineties, he became stable jockey to Nicky Henderson at Seven Barrows in Lambourn, Berkshire, where he would spend the remainder of his riding career. As far as the Cheltenham Festival is concerned, Fitzgerald rode a total of 14 winners at the March showpiece, the first of which was Ramylette, trained by Henderson, in the now-defunct Cathcart Challenge Cup in 1994.

In 1996, Fizgerald won the Grand National on Rough Quest, trained by Terry Casey and, in 1999, the Cheltenham Gold Cup on See More Business, trained by Paul Nicholls. Rather ironically, though, granted that Nicky Henderson has since become the most successful trainer in the history of the Champion Hurdle, the two-mile hurdling championship was the one major race to elude his long-serving stable jockey. Henderson has saddled See You Then (1985, 1986 and 1987) and, since Fitzgerald retired, Punjabi (2009), Binocular (2010), Buveur D’Air (2017 and 2018), Epatante (2020) and Constitution Hill (2023).