There was a brief debate on ITV Racing today about people being emotionally involved with those horses that turn up season after season, al la the NH sport. I remembered Raise You Ten as (in my mind) being one of those, so I did a bit of digging. In fact he only raced for two seasons, 1963 and 1964 yet obviously made an impression on a young Reebs. He raced in an era with a couple of staying stars, namely Grey Of Falloden trained by Dick Hern and the legendary Trelawny, trained by George Todd. Raise You Ten himself was trained by Cecil Boyd-Rochford. However, looking more closely at RYT's stakes races, I noted some very odd race placing. In 1963 he was second in the Dante (10.5f) then he won the Doncaster Cup (18f) his next win was the Royal Stakes over 10f, then second to Trelawny over 21f!!! It seems bonkers now - maybe it was bonkers then too, although I don't recall any particular discussion about it They must have decided staying was his true game, and 1964 saw him win the Goodwood Cup, the Yorkshire Cup and finish second to Grey Of Falloden in the Doncaster Cup. As far as I know, he never did beat Trelawny, although he did have GOF back in third when he won the Yorkshire Cup. He was packed off to stud in 1965 and although he had a fair few wives, he only produced one stakes winner, he died in 1984. There is no record of him having tried fences!
When we look back at racing’s history, there are many examples of horses like Raise You Ten that ran over all sorts of distances. If we look at racing history for horses that operated under both codes, the most recent example that immediately comes to mind would be Sea Pigeon in the seventies. Nowadays, especially since the introduction of the American bred import, the sport has come to be dominated by the commercial breeding operations. When we look at European racing, the flat in Britain and Ireland is dominated by Coolmore (mostly Aidan O’Brien), Godolphin (mostly Charlie Appleby and Saeed bin Suroor) plus the rest of the Maktoum family (e.g. Hamdan’s Shadwell); and the Aga Khan’s French studs. National Hunt racing seems to be increasingly expensive French imports, but obviously none of them will be retiring to stud. The breeders are now only interested in speed, especially around a mile or ten furlongs, so the old staying races now seem to be the preserve of horses who proved to be too slow over middle distances or dual-code performers; and the sprints see the occasional fast three year old packed off to stud after one season or they are a lottery between a bunch of old seasoned handicappers who have got too high in the ratings. If an entire proves to be good at middle distances or staying races, they can expect a stud career as a National Hunt stallion. The only top class performers that stick around for years on the flat now are geldings (e.g. Battaash currently) or mares (e.g. Enable currently, only missing one foal per year that she races). It was interesting when they were discussing this on ITV that Jason Weaver mentioned one of my old favourites, David Elsworth’s old stayer Persian Punch, who has a statue at HQ. He should have mentioned Further Flight as well. Two old staying geldings owned by two traditional old breeders, Jeff Smith and Simon Wingfield Digby, respectively.
Hi Reebs, I trust you are keeping well. You're testing my memory with Raise You Ten's exploits. I've better recollections of Trelawny. I only ever saw him beaten once (on TV ) - by Boyd-Rochford's three year old, Sagacity, getting weight for age in the Yorkshire Cup. I think it was 1962. I think you'll find that Fred Rimell's classy hurdler, Honour Bound won both the Yorkshire Cup and the Supreme Novices (then the Gloucester Hurdle). Also, Thomson-Jones had another dual purpose horse in Red Tears who won both the Gloucester Hurdle and I think the Zetland Gold Cup at Redcar- probably in '65 or '66. There were so many tremendous dual purpose horses in those days. It's a pity cotton wool was ever sold to racing stables!
Hi Tam, glad to see you still look in on us from time to time - hope you are doing ok these days Yes indeed, dual purpose horses have always been around, I remember Red Tears but couldn't tell you what je won. I was just amazed by the fact that they put Raise You Ten in races of such vastly different distances - 10.5f Dante followed by 2 and a quarter miles of the Donny Cup, back to 10f for the Royal Stakes, then back to a whopping 2m5f. Can you imagine that these days! In fact it could happen, because conditions have been changed, certainly the Yorkshire and Ascot staying races are now 4yrs and up
Don’t you think Ascot’s staying handicaps have become a joke and don’t really belong any more? I can’t think of any Ascot Stakes winner this century which would have caused horses like Trelawny, Raise You Ten, Grey of Falloden, to even break sweat- and many wouldn’t have got in the handicap in their races.
