Lester: The Official Biography Page 16

  There were critics who said Lester had been too hard on Roberto and had thrashed him unmercifully to get his win. "Well," Lester says, "of course I was hard on him. I had to be, at the end. I felt he could go faster, if only he would. I suppose it looked worse just because I didn't have room to use my whip. Rheingold was too close."

  Vets examined Roberto afterwards, and there were no whip marks on him. Whatever persuasion Lester had used over those last gruelling fifty yards, it hadn't been a beating.

  By the following morning, the Press were conceding that the owner had been right, that no one but Lester could have won that race on Roberto, that the change of jockey had been devastatingly demonstrated to be wise, that Lester was supreme. The cheers on Derby day itself however were all for "Weary Willie" Williamson who displayed some I-told-you-so fitness by winning two races later in the afternoon, with Lester both times on the favourite in the pack behind him. No one in their hearts believed by then that Bill Williamson would have won on Roberto, but he did have his compensations in the shape of underdog-sympathy and Galbreath cash.

  How valuable is loyalty? How much should one expect?

  Loyalty comes low down on the list of priorities in professional team games: the fittest and best get to play. Loyalty may be admirable or it may be sentimental mush or a refusal to face facts. Loyalty may be courageous and it may be costly and it may be stupid.

  John Galbreath was realistic, not disloyal. He had no long-term ties with Bill Williamson, only the brief encounter of one lost race. In his own mind, his loyalty was primarily to the horse which he had bred on his own stud farm and had known much longer. In effect, he paid Bill Williamson not to ride, and never then or afterwards regretted an action seen unsympathetically by many as disgraceful.

  Other trainers and owners after him wanted and demanded Lester in place of their former jockeys, often with equally furious consequences. The rows thundered on with great storms of indignation but, as Lester says, "If someone asks you to ride a good horse, you don't say `No, no, let so-and-so ride it.' You say, `Yes, all right.' "

  Lester's friendships with many powerful owners, besides, ran deep. They liked him and trusted him, and it was to him they wished to show loyalty, if they could. They understood he couldn't be on their horses everywhere, but if they could have him, they would.

  Modern racing is big business, like it or not. The stud fees beckon. If you are an owner with many thousands invested in bloodstock, the winning of big Flat races means more than the pride of leading in your darlings and beaming at prize-givings.

  Losing gracefully brings nothing but sighs. It may be sad or it may be good for a vigorous industry. The fact is that if you own expensive Flat racers and seriously want to win big races, you seek to engage the best jockey available.

  Lester, free-lancing, available, needed only to be asked.

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  16 The Roberto, Rheingold and Hard to Beat Circus

  AMONG his fellow jockeys Lester was liked and very much respected. His constant courage, commonsense, calm temperament and astringent wit were appreciated and relied upon, and although he was never a jolly extrovert in the mould, say, of Willie Carson, his quiet camaraderie with his colleagues in the changing-room was a daily fact.

  Most trainers and almost all owners deferred to him, leaning forward to hear better what he said. His down-to-earth clear-sighted opinions were seldom ignored, his understanding of horses being second to none. Many owners, indeed, were and are slightly in awe of him, perhaps because of his often detached manner and his unconscious aura of power.

  Lester himself was unaware for a very long time of the effect his presence has on people, and probably even now scarcely understands it. His sort of power is hard to perceive from the inside. As far as he's concerned, he is merely doing a job.

  It was in the year of Roberto's Derby that he deliberately walked away from his champion's crown. He stopped chasing around the country day in and day out in the search for numbers. He rode a great deal abroad, even more than usual, and he remained cool when Willie Carson led the jockeys' list by a substantial margin halfway through the season. In the eight preceding years, if someone had headed him, he had flown and driven inexhaustibly to catch up and prevail. In 1972, it was as if he had grown past needing the number one slot, and without a pang let it go.

  "When you're Champion," he says, "and you're ten winners in front in June, you think that when you're thirty in front you can take a day off. It's not much fun. I decided that . whenever possible I wouldn't ride on Mondays or Tuesdays, to have some time to myself."

  In other ways, the 1972 season was a switchback affair, up with satisfying highs and down with good decisions gone wrong. There were some splendid successes such as Boucher winning the St. Leger for Vincent O'Brien and owner Ogden Phipps, and Noble Decree taking the richly-endowed Observer Gold Cup for Bernard van Cutsem and Nelson Bunker Hunt. Both of these horses, like Roberto, were American bred and American owned. Lester always did particularly well with American imports, drawing out their toughness and speed as if in response to his own.

  It was Roberto, however, who dominated Lester's year; Roberto, Rheingold and a French horse, Hard to Beat. These three met often that season and the next, their mixed results appearing incomprehensible and their jockeys playing musical chairs.

  Lester to begin with went four times to France to ride Hard to Beat who, in spite of his name, was French bred and was trained by a Frenchman, Richard Carver, at Chantilly near Paris. He was a great horse but had three powerful idiosyncracies: he would race well only on right-handed tracks, he hated to travel and he suffered from claustrophobia.

  He and Lester won their preliminary race easily enough and started hot favourites in the French equivalent of the Two Thousand Guineas. Hard to Beat always had to be put into the starting stalls last, because he so hated being locked into the small space that, once inside, he would continually plunge forwards and hit the front gates, which in their turn would knock him backwards.

  In the French Guineas, the gates opened while he was on the rebound, rocking backwards, which lost him what proved to be a crucial length over the turning Longchamp mile. Hard to Beat didn't run well and everybody was unhappy.

  Next time out, he won easily in the Prix Lupin and the Stewards wanted to know how he had improved so much.

  The fourth of the French races was the Prix du jockey Club (the French Derby) in early June. This was the one and only ideal race for Hard to Beat, held as it was at right-handed Chantilly, near where he was trained--no travel to get there in claustrophobic horse-boxes. He and Lester won the race easily; and Lester believes that if Hard to Beat could have run at Chantilly all his life, he would never have been beaten.

  Winning the French Derby on Hard to Beat was what Lester was doing on the Sunday John Galbreath arrived in London to enquire into Bill Williamson's fitness for Roberto.

  After his remarkable Epsom Derby the victorious Roberto ran abysmally in the Irish Sweeps Derby on 1 July (ridden by luckless Johnny Roe), finishing twelfth and nearly last, with stable mate Manitoulin sixth. Roberto wouldn't go at all and Vincent sought frustratedly for reasons.

  At Saint-Cloud, the day after the Irish Derby, Yves Saint-Martin on Rheingold showed his heels to Lester on Hard to Beat. Trainer Barry Hills had discovered that Rheingold ran better in France, for reasons known only to the colt, and now had his post-Derby sights set on the Arc de Triomphe.

  Lester reckoned it a mistake for Hard to Beat to have been sent to Saint-Cloud (a left-hand track) in preference to the Grand Prix de Paris at Longchamp (right-handed) where he would have won easily. The Grand Prix de Paris prize money was also larger, and the field wouldn't have included the big danger, Rheingold, but the new Japanese owner, who had bought Hard to Beat after his victory in the French Derby, insisted on the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud because it was another of the French classics.

  When it came to the Benson and Hedges Gold Cup at York in August, Lester had been invited by Ba
rry Hills to ride Rheingold, and had accepted, Yves Saint-Martin being claimed elsewhere. Roberto also had been entered in the Benson and Hedges Gold Cup, but after the Irish Derby flop Vincent didn't want to run him, especially as the event was dominated by the unbeaten Brigadier Gerard.

  John Galbreath, however, insisted a few days before the race that Roberto should take his chance. Lester couldn't ride him as he was already engaged for Rheingold, so the mount was offered to Bill Williamson, who turned it down. Very well, John Galbreath said, I'll send a jockey from America; and he sent a champion, the Panamanian Braulio Baeza.

  The York race was a sensation. Baeza on Roberto jumped out of the gate at a tremendous pace and kept right on going, breaking the course record. The scintillating Brigadier Gerard for the first and last time met his match and finished a tired second by three lengths. Rheingold ran like a dead horse and trailed in fourth of the five runners, 13 or so lengths behind Roberto.

  Everyone retired in slight embarrassment (except Baeza and John Galbreath) and considered the implications.

  Lester couldn't understand Rheingold's failure, as he had ridden him seven furlongs at half-speed on Newbury racecourse the Saturday before and had found him in terrific form. Barry Hills took Rheingold home to Lambourn and didn't run him again that year, as the horse-and the dreams of the Arc-had gone all to pieces. (Barry Hills, incidentally, had bought and expanded the Lambourn yard where Lester had been brought up.) Roberto went back to Ireland to be prepared for the Prix Niel at Longchamp a month later. Braulio Baeza was to return to ride.

  Lester was engaged in the race for Hard to Beat who was returning from the lay-off that had followed his defeat at Saint-Cloud. Baeza jumped off again smartly on Roberto, and Lester, pulling out all stops, beat him rousingly by a length. Baeza came in for criticism and Lester for glory, but, he says, "It was just one of those things."

  The two colts met for the last time that season in the Arc de Triomphe, Baeza again on Roberto, Lester on Hard to Beat. Roberto set off so fast that the whole field ran most of the race off the bit, pushing. Neither he nor Hard to Beat did much good in the end, finishing seventh and eighth behind San San, ridden by Freddie Head.

  Rheingold moped in Lambourn under his trainer's worried eye.

  Next year, the three colts, now four years old, resumed the circus. Lester, back on Roberto, won the Coronation Cup at Epsom in perhaps the horse's easiest race ever.

  With only five runners, none of the others of his class, Roberto made a good deal of the running and finished five lengths ahead at a canter. Epsom, Lester points out, is a left-hand track, as is York, and Roberto too was a different horse when going the way he liked.

  On the day before the Coronation Cup, Lester had come second in the Derby on Cavo Doro, beaten half a length by Morston.

  Rheingold, restored to tremendous health, won four straight races for Yves Saint-Martin in the first few months of the season, and Barry Hills with confidence sent him to Ascot in July for the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. Yves Saint-Martin was to ride.

  Hard to Beat came over from France for the race, Jimmy Lindley engaged for the saddle. Roberto also lined up, ridden by Lester.

  It had all the makings of a hot contest, and so it proved, but none of them won. They were all beaten by the brilliant three-year-old filly Dahlia, ridden by Bill Pyers, owned by Nelson Bunker Hunt and trained by Maurice Zilber in France. The nearest to her skittish heels was Rheingold, six lengths second. Hard to Beat, too far from his home stable, came ninth, while Roberto, who had reached the front five furlongs out, weakened sadly to finish almost last. Ascot is right-handed, like Longchamp, and again it made all the difference.

  It was Roberto's last race. He had been withdrawn from the Eclipse earlier because of monsoon-type rains on the morning of the race, and although he was expected to repeat his Benson and Hedges win at York, Vincent again withdrew him at the last moment because of soft going. John Galbreath took him home to his US stud farm, where he proved to be among the top flight of sires.

  For Rheingold, the King George was by no means the end of the road. With Lester riding (as a run-up to the Arc de Triomphe, in which Yves Saint-Martin was already booked for Allez France), he ran a month later at York in the Benson and Hedges Gold Cup, but couldn't quicken at the end and finished third. As in the year before, he seemed to fall apart after that, and it looked miserably doubtful whether he could be got right for his again planned target of the Arc de Triomphe in October.

  Barry Hills rested him well before re-starting strong work, and then asked Lester to ride him at Lambourn and give his opinion. Lester said Rheingold was the same as at York: lifeless. Barry Hills in despair again set to work on his colt and Lester shortly went off to the south of France for a few days' rest in the sun.

  "Barry rang up about September 25th, ten days before the Arc," Lester says. "He said come and ride him again, so I went back in the middle of the night and rode him work in the morning, and he was a different horse." With that, Rheingold returned to France, where he had never been beaten, and took his place in the Arc de Triomphe.

  After all the ups and downs and tribulations, the event itself went smoothly.

  Rheingold was drawn well, and Lester set off promptly to ride from near the front, quickening into the lead with impressive ease two furlongs out and cruising home by two and a half lengths from Yves Saint-Martin on the French star filly Allez France.

  The big Rheingold, Lester said, was ideal for that sort of race.

  It was Lester's fifteenth ride in the race and his first win, his first triumphant Triomphe. There was relief as well as joy in his broad smile when Rheingold was led in by his owner, Henry Zeisel. The long dream of Barry Hills had at last come true.

  Hard to Beat, soldiering on, ran into third place, ridden this time by Gerard Thiboeuf.

  It was the final time out for both colts: the circus was over and time moved on.

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  17 Empery

  THE years between the Derbys of Roberto (1972) and Empery (1976) reverberated in Lester terms with names like Apalachee, Cellini, Abergwaun and Thatch, all trained by Vincent O'Brien, with Steel Heart for Dermot Weld, Giacometti for Ryan Price, Sagaro for Frangois Boutin and Juliette Marny for Jeremy Tree. Above all, there was Dahlia who had made mincemeat of Roberto, Rheingold and Hard to Beat in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at Ascot.

  Abergwaun, owned by Lester's long-time friend Charles St. George, won rompingly at Royal Ascot in 1973 three days after owner John Mulcahy had taken the St.

  James's Palace Stakes with Thatch; and Thatch later won the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood in fine style.

  Less happy in a way were the careers of Apalachee and Cellini, though each won more in prize money. This pair seemed, as two-year-olds, to be the natural successors to Vincent's string of great Derby winners, both having at the end of 1973 shown brilliant promise. Lester won the Dewhurst Stakes on Cellini, followed by the Observer Gold Cup on Apalachee, and it seemed merely to be a toss-up which took the more classics come 1974.

  Then, first time out as a three-year-old, Apalachee set off at the Curragh at 6-1 on and Lester had a struggle to win by a neck. He went all the same to the Two Thousand Guineas at Newmarket; started favourite and finished third; and, to everyone's dismay, he showed no more development and had to be withdrawn before the Derby, never racing again.

  Cellini scraped home in two preliminary races and started favourite in the Irish Two Thousand Guineas, also finishing third. He had one more outing, unsuccessful, at Royal Ascot, and that was that. Brilliant two-year-olds do occasionally fizzle out for no discernible reason, and even the O'Brien touch couldn't conjure miracles from spent rockets.

  Steel Heart, owned by Ravi Tikkoo, had a great two-year-old season in 1974, culminating in a defeat by Grundy in the Dewhurst, no disgrace: but he too made less mark at three.

  Unbeaten as a two-year-old, Giacometti came second in the 1974 Two Thousand Guineas, third in the Derby (both wit
h Tony Murray up) and second in the St. Leger (with Lester), a great horse knocking continually on the classic door. Owner Charles St. George finally led in his winner after the Champion Stakes in October, Giacometti and Lester scoring in fine style, unchallenged.

  Juliette Marny, sired by 1969 Derby winner Blakeney, bred and owned by James Morrison, and partnered by Lester, won Lingfield's Oaks Trial Stakes by a head in May 1975, followed by the Oaks itself in June. A bright bay filly who carried her head high, she wasn't Lester's original choice for the Oaks. He had the pick of her or her better regarded stablemate Brilliantine, Jeremy Tree having the faith to leave the choice entirely to his jockey. The racecard on the day actually had L. Piggott down to ride both horses, with asterisks explaining that he would ride either one. It wasn't until noon on the baking hot day of the Oaks, three and a quarter hours before the "off", and on the telephone to Jeremy, that Lester made his choice. James Morrison, on his way to the course, didn't find out until Susan Piggott told him. Lester had decided on that morning that the going was likely to be too firm for Brilliantine but would suit Juliette Marny, and he was right. Juliette Marny, running in blinkers for the first time to concentrate her mind, won breezily by a margin of four lengths.