Ever been to Elton?
It was recently a very first time for this scribe.
The Oxford names Companion glosses Elton as a ‘farmstead where eels are got’.
Nevertheless the name of that quiet County Limerick hamlet rang a racing bell. Hadn’t a horse of that very name made headlines sometime in the dim and distant past?
Indeed it had.
Springing a shock when winning the Lincolnshire Handicap at 100/1, Elton had virtually eliminated bookmakers’ ante-post liabilities on the traditional Spring Double – the Lincoln and the Grand National.
Bookies’ glee knew no bounds when Gregalach came home first in that year’s Grand National – also at 100/1.
By Essexford out of Twincat, Elton was bred by Curragh trainer JT ‘Jack’ Rogers, for whom he ran seven times unsuccessfully as a two-year-old.
Happily, Elton repaid his owner-trainer’s patience the following season, rattling off a hat-trick, beginning with the valuable Baldoyle Derby, followed by two Curragh wins, the latter at long odds-on.
Swiftly sold into an English stable, Elton clearly took time to acclimatise, down the field for the remainder of that season.
Consequently, when Elton’s name appeared among the entries for that Lincolnshire Handicap the next year, the handicapper was not hard on Harvey Leader’s charge, setting Elton to carry just 7st 2lb. Not that Mrs RW Foster’s pride and joy was exactly ‘thrown in’ even at 7st 2lb.
The weights went down to 6st, which both Ken Gethin and Frank Sharpe managed to make.
Top weight on the day was carried by Capture Him, ridden by perennial champion Gordon Richards at 7st 13lb.
35 faced the starter for the traditional fl at season curtain raiser, but the finish concerned just two, Elton and Athford.
The judge gave it to Kenny Robertson’s mount by a short head, to cheers from the betting ring. That truly was Elton’s ‘Derby’ for he was never to win another fl at race. By contrast, Athford won Newbury Spring Cup next time out, adding the Kempton Park ‘Jubilee’ and later on, the Doncaster Cup.
Time was to reveal the merit of Elton’s Lincoln win, for Athford was the first winning produce of Athasi, whose next foal, Trigo, won that year’s Derby, St Leger and Irish St Leger.
Harinero and Primero, Athasi’s subsequent foals, both won the Irish Derby and St Leger in consecutive years. Athasi is commemorated by a stakes Race run at the Curragh since 1952.
Whereas Jack Rogers had been happy to see the last of Elton, his reaction when losing Trigo to Whatcombe trainer RC ‘Dick’ Dawson at the end of that colt’s juvenile career was very different. He abjured Manuel, his travelling head lad, to “take care of the best colt ever to leave Ireland.”
While that may have been an overstatement, he was bidding goodbye to the next year’s Derby and St Leger winner.
To compound that irony, Jack Rogers was an Englishman training on the Curragh, while Dick Dawson was a Dubliner training in England.
But racing is all about swings and roundabouts. Rogers’ wheel of fortune turned in his favour once more when Double Arch, a half-brother to Elton, won the Irish 2000 Guineas for his owner-trainer-breeder just two years later.
Making that Elton association inevitably triggered a mental search for similar instances.
Adare gave its name to the 1957 Royal Ascot winner of the Jersey Stakes, trained by Vincent O’Brien for renowned equine veterinary surgeon JSM ‘Maxie’ Cosgrave.
Three years earlier, vincent O’Brien sent out his wife’s Churchtown to finish fourth in the Grand National, behind stable companion Royal Tan, the middle leg of Vincent’s unique Grand National hat-trick.
Kildimo was one of trainer Toby Balding’s classy Irish imports, a 1987 Cheltenham Festival winner and the only horse to make a race of it with the legendary Desert Orchid in the 1988 King George VI Chase.
At the other end of the spectrum, Milford carried the royal colours with distinction in the Derby.
However, pride of place in this context surely belongs not to a racehorse, but to a showjumper – Dundrum.
This tiny thoroughbred – Connemara pony cross, invariably ridden, jockey-style, by Tommy Wade – achieved the impossible time after time, both at home and abroad.
Such was the clamour for Ireland’s Aga Khan team to be opened up to civilian riders that the unthinkable actually came to pass in 1963.
In a nail-biting finale, Tommy and Dundrum went clear to win the trophy back for Ireland after a 14 year famine.
A happy and a healthy 2012 to everyone.