Staying power to the fore as Brough and Calandagan lead the charge of the older brigade at the Cartiers
In a sport often berated for its brief and transient nature, with its brightest stars departing the firmament after just a year or two of illumination, this year’s Cartier Awards were founded upon many welcome examples of dedication and achievement that have lasted the course.
The night itself was the first of them. This was the 35th running of an event that remains the most glittering in the Flat racing calendar, and, although there have been changes in personnel, the song remains the same.
Sometimes, the arrival of new regimes and priorities means that great institutions such as this fall by the wayside, but at Cartier the commitment that has confirmed these awards as ‘the ultimate accolade in the racing world’ remains fully intact – which is how the Dorchester Hotel on London’s Park Lane came to celebrate the mighty Calandagan, three times a Group 1 winner last season, as Cartier horse of the year.
Calandagan, it escaped nobody’s notice in the room, is first and foremost a glittering embodiment of the breeding programme of the Aga Khan Studs, driven until his death this year by the fourth Aga, whose passing surely deserved this fitting memorial.
The poignant nature of the award – actually two awards, as the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud, King George and Champion Stakes winner was also named older horse of the year – was apparent in the emotion that shone through in the acceptance speeches, first of trainer Francis Graffard, who reported Calandagan fit, well and on a plane bound for his next assignment in Japan, then of Princess Zahra Aga Khan, who described the honour, and the glorious campaign, as “special” and “wonderful”.
By way of an ironic aside, in the company of so many of the sport’s leading breeders, Calandagan’s peculiar status in the Group 1 world as a ‘g’ and not a ‘c’, which deprived him of the chance to add the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe to his annual haul – although the Aga’s green and red silks were still carried to victory by top three-year-old Daryz – also means we’ll see more of him next year, as a five-year-old gelding with immeasurable potential for sporting joy, rather than a five-year-old entire enjoying a lustier yet less public career at stud.
Gina Bryce (left) talks to Calandagan’s trainer Francis-Henri Graffard with Princess Zahra Aga Khan looking onCredit: Dan Abraham
Even a horse of this calibre and scope, however, will do well to match the astonishing longevity of the man who received the Cartier/Daily Telegraph award of merit for his practically innumerable decades and almost as many varied roles in racing.
Brough Scott MBE started out as a jump jockey, but his achievements in the saddle were soon dwarfed by his pioneering efforts in the fields of racing broadcasting (sparking many a youthful passion for the turf with his work on the ITV7 show and later Channel 4), racing journalism (as a celebrated writer with The Sunday Times and one of the founders of the Racing Post), racing literature, in fact, most things racing.
None of this, though, could hold a candle to Brough’s finest hour – inevitably turning out to be more of a lifetime than an hour – which was the establishment of the much-loved and utterly vital Injured Jockeys Fund, starting out as a crucial lifeline for those badly hurt in action but eventually becoming an all-enveloping support mechanism for so many more.
Now closing in on his 83rd birthday, this shining light among racing hacks was never going to have enough speech time in one evening to do justice to such an impressive career, as he flitted between Yves Saint-Martin, Lester Piggott and Dancing Brave by way of Omar Sharif and Buckingham Palace, but Brough summed it up thus: “What a life I’ve had, what races I’ve seen. Racing’s given me a passport to all over the world.”
Fortunately, he’s taken us with him wherever he’s gone.
Ryan Moore (left) with Kia Joorabchian (right) and Kevin Buckley at the Cartier AwardsCredit: Dan Abraham
Back in the ballroom, among the bright lights, rare fillet and good claret, the awards were handed to many of the usual suspects. Coolmore picked up their share with the juveniles Gstaad and Precise and the three-year-olds Delacroix and Minnie Hauk, none of which came as any surprise, although Minnie Hauk’s breeder Ben Sangster caused a rare stir among an ever polite crowd with a wry aside, on the subject of the filly’s narrow defeat in the Arc, to the effect that, “we all missed Ryan this year”.
Mr Moore, recovering from injury but present for the occasion, perhaps allowed himself a grin. Christophe Soumillon’s lawyers were not available for comment.
Trawlerman, another seasoned gelding with a continued part to play on the track next season, was a popular choice as top stayer, but it fell to a visiting Aussie to sum up the part of the jet-setting racing lifestyle that we’d all like to share in, with Henry Dwyer, trainer of top sprinter Asfoora, open in his belief that “I’ve had a holiday financed by the El-Fahkri family [the mare’s owner-breeders] wherever we’ve gone”.
The seven-year-old’s bold, globetrotting campaign, her sporting owners and her forthright trainer are surely prime examples of the kind of extended pleasure Flat racing’s fans came out to celebrate.
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