It’s apt how parked in the shadows of tomorrow’s Navan programme is a race named in memory of perhaps the sport’s most underappreciated talent. Fate turned Flyingbolt into a footnote in the Arkle legend, more evidence of how fickle a beast popularity is.
The remarkable thing about the two greatest horses in steeplechasing history is that although they never met on the racecourse, they saw each other every day.
Just a couple of doors down from Arkle’s box in Tom Dreaper’s yard in Co Dublin was Flyingbolt. One became a paragon, all metaphorical white hat; the other was left to defiantly sport the black hat.
It fitted him too. For all that Flyingbolt was brilliant, he could also be a bit of a bastard. The front-end bit and the back end could kick the eye out of a starling.
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“A small child could walk into Arkle’s boxes in absolute safety,” remembered Pat Taaffe who rode them both. “No child, no man, would ever willingly step into Flyingbolt’s ... at least not twice.”
At a time of shaky national self-confidence during the 1960s, Arkle became an icon of rare Irish excellence, inspiring adoration through his legendary clashes with Mill House and a renowned Cheltenham Gold Cup hat-trick.
He had a malleable temperament ideal for racing, but also for the sort of attention that included international letters addressed simply to “Arkle, Ireland” reaching their destination.
Arkle is still held in mythical regard, even by those for whom he’s mostly just a set of shaky black-and-white 1960s images. But the horse that once threatened to eclipse him has largely been forgotten. Flyingbolt deserves a better legacy than that.
Maybe it’s the times that were in it. We like our heroes with a bit more grit these days. Bitter experience has revealed too many supposed paragons with tarnished halos. Arkle was blameless, but Flyingbolt’s ornery nature would be embraced now.
He was a couple of years Arkle’s junior and fetched up as a British–bred product of a supposedly impotent Derby winner and an ancient mare both left to share a supposedly platonic paddock. They gave their unlikely progeny a washy chestnut colour, a bad attitude, and stupendous talent.
Before Arkle beat Mill House in that iconic 1964 Gold Cup, Flyingbolt won his novice hurdle at the festival. He won at Cheltenham again a year later during an unbeaten novice season before a 1965-66 season that hit levels of accomplishment and versatility even Arkle couldn’t match.
In December’s Massy Ferguson Gold Cup, he humped 12st 6lbs in a bog and won at a canter. He had 12st in Gowran’s Thyestes and beat Height O’Fashion by a distance giving her two stone. Arkle had failed to give the same mare 32lbs in the previous season’s Massy Ferguson.
Taaffe recalled afterwards the legendary trainer Paddy Prendergast telling him how the seven-year-old Flyingbolt had achieved more than Arkle at the same age.
The natural date for a clash between two titanic talents was the 1966 Gold Cup, but it was never going to happen. Ducking and diving around the programme book is no modern phenomenon. Tom Dreaper was never going to let the pair take on each other.
So, Arkle won the Gold Cup at a canter and Flyingbolt did something far more remarkable.
He won the two-mile Champion Chase at his ease. Just 24 hours later he started favourite for the Champion Hurdle and finished third. Taaffe’s ride was criticised. More pertinent was how Flyinbolt skied some of the hurdles, little surprise considering his run over fences a day earlier.
A few weeks afterwards, Flyingbolt carried 12st 7lbs to victory in the Irish Grand National to close out a remarkable season. A clash with Arkle wasn’t going to happen, but he was the obvious heir apparent. Except during his summer break, Flyingbolt contracted brucellosis from cattle with whom he was grazing and was never the same afterwards. That Christmas, Arkle was injured and never raced again. Consequently, any match was fated to be bar-stool stuff.
Like any good stable jockey, Taaffe was non-committal about which he’d have picked. Others are more dogmatic. Former RTÉ pundit Ted Walsh is adamant Flyinbolt was superior and “would have ‘eaten’ Arkle” had they clashed. That’s close to heresy for Arkle fans.
What’s factual is how, at just seven, a healthy Flyingbolt had yet to reach his peak and yet handicappers struggled to separate him from Arkle. Some suggested only sentiment led to the older horse holding a 1lb edge on ratings at one point.
The Timeform organisation famously made it two – 212 to 210. They are startling figures. The next best on their all-time list is Sprinter Sacre on 192, well over a stone behind. Kauto Star and Mill House are next on 191.
To more modern eyes the idea of not just one but two horses being so superior to a talent like Kauto Star is hard to credit. Handicap marks are just opinions and this one must be wonky. That those who watched first-hand insist it’s the real deal is the ultimate tribute.
Nevertheless, how hard would it be for racing to give more recognition of its unsung anti-hero: for a few months a long time ago he was managing feats beyond even his revered next-door neighbour.
In less than a fortnight the Arkle will be won at Cheltenham. Surely winning the Flyingbolt should mean something more lustrous than this.
Something for the Weekend
It’s very much a case of before the Lord Mayor’s show from now until Cheltenham but Vanderpoel (2.55) can spoil Willie Mullins’s attempt to secure a first Kelso winner tomorrow. The more the ground dries up the better his chance and he gets a useful 5lbs from Dedicated Hero.
Flemensface (2.45) can make headlines for the right reasons at Navan tomorrow. Banned for 14 months following a positive drug test in a point-to-point and subsequently returned to a sales company in controversial circumstances, he showed enough when runner-up at Punchestown earlier this month to suggest he can land this maiden. The third at Punchestown has won since.
