A successful breeder at the first – and only – attempt

By Ian Carnaby

It took me a while to realise it - a few days, rather than a few minutes. But Lenny The Blade’s victory at Newton Abbot the other weekend makes me a successful breeder. I was indeed a member of Limelight Associates when we sent the mare - also Limelight - to Master Willie some eight years ago.

Insisting that he went there was my main contribution. Limelight, who won twice for us, including a dead-heat in a Taunton maiden hurdle where I thought she’d been beaten a neck (“I must say, you’re some judge” – jockey Chris Maude) has become friendly with Wace since then and produced two more youngsters. Wace was a Maktoum horse who got a mile and quarter as a two-year old and tends to impart stamina. Stamina as in three-mile plus hunter chase stamina. All in all, I thought we’d be better off with an Epsom Derby runner-up and I must say I feel vindicated. I shall make no further claims.

Mind you, I did think of a name which even my wife thought quite clever - and I do not say that lightly. Lenny was going to be called Afterglow - by Master Willie out of Limelight, see. Come on, keep up. It’s slightly risqué but I don’t think anyone would have minded. Unfortunately, there’d been an Afterglow within the previous ten years so that was the end of it. One of the six-man syndicate knew a chap called Lenny who was quite a swordsman, apparently, although I’m never sure how these things get out. Women must talk more than we think. Anyway, Limelight’s boy became Lenny The Blade.

Pat Murphy trained Limelight and when she won a handicap hurdle at Chepstow, having been nursed back to full health following a serious leg injury, I thought he was going to break the habit of a lifetime and take a drink. She was the complete outsider of seven at 16 to 1 but was not to be denied. Pat thought breeding from her was an optimistic move and Lenny threatened to prove him right. He was not as tall as a lot of Master Willies and turned out his near fore. It took him a long, long time to grow up on a farm down in Devon.

Richard Phillips had to have him. Richard worked as pupil assistant to Henry Candy during the great Master Willie years and button-holed me at Aintree one day. I managed to fix it but Lenny, though intrigued by his new surroundings, was still a big baby. A big, fairly expensive baby, and it’s at this point that I’d like to say what a good, honest man Richard Phillips is.

Lenny looked willing, but moderate

Making the racecourse just before he turned six, Lenny made no impression in a couple of bumpers before finishing seventh in a maiden hurdle at Chepstow, beaten 31 lengths. Nothing if not consistent, he went to Hereford and finished seventh again, beaten 32 lengths by Kelv. Any unbiased interpretation of this form would make the lad pretty moderate. Willing, but moderate. He was never going to be dropped to a claimer or seller because the boys could not bear the thought of losing him. And I didn’t say I thought it unlikely, because I’d dropped out by then. One of my small saving graces is that I NEVER give up on lost causes, which is probably why Marks & Spencer has the edge on Hugo Boss in the wardrobe. But Lenny wasn’t cheap and I had to think of the Brighton seller I sponsor in the autumn. Something had to give, and it was my share of Lenny The Blade.

Phillips, as honest as they come, said the lads should try another yard. It’s not often you hear a trainer say a horse doesn’t justify the ongoing expense. One or two members didn’t mind moving anyway, because Richard, as we all know, runs his horses very sparingly indeed. He is a perfectionist who deserves better ammunition and I hope it all happens for him. He was determined enough to make a go of training to give up after-dinner speaking, though personally I feel that those owners who thought he was diversifying too much were misguided. He happens to be very funny.

So, Lenny had just the four runs for him before joining Sarah Robertson at Bridgwater. I must confess I had never heard of her, which almost certainly makes us even. On his first run in a novices’ handicap hurdle at Warwick he was beaten miles, though I thought he ‘missed’ one of the obstacles on the far side and showed a little ability. Then, dropped back to just over two miles at Exeter, he finished a good fifth, beaten a dozen lengths. I had phone calls from the ever-faithful who made the journey.

We might say the rest is history

We might say the rest is history. Well, it is in our house anyway. Because last Saturday, having braved the sleet drifting across Town Moor and embarked upon the three-hour drive back to Bristol, I pulled over for commentary on the Paddock Novices’ Handicap Hurdle at Newton Abbot. When you haven’t backed horses, don’t they win easily? Lenny, as I could tell from my position on the M1, was always pulling double. I spotted it even before the commentator. And he BOLTED clear to win by seven lengths. I like ‘bolted’. ‘Bolted’ means: ‘May win again’ I like ‘thrashed’, as well. ‘Lenny The Blade, an unsung hero these many years, handed out the kind of thrashing not seen in this corner of Devon for some considerable time’. That doesn’t appear in the official form-book because I just made it up, but it captures the essence of what transpired, I feel.

And he really could win again, you know. He’s seven years old but has run only seven times. Everybody loves him, possibly because no one has ever needed to make up a cute stable name for him. He’s just Lenny.

I had a poor Saturday in other respects. I thought Aahayson would win the Ayr Gold Cup but he came good six months early and won the Cammidge Trophy. And I thought Dhaular Dar might sneak a place in the Lincoln, even though the quiet yet insistent voice which is never wrong kept whispering: ‘Seven-furlong horse, old chap, Bunbury Cup. And I don’t think Southampton would have scored against Coventry, even if Le Tissier had come on in his brogues. Actually, that’s silly. Of course they would. But it was a tricky afternoon and the cold was seeping into bones which will be 60 years old in November. Mine, not Matty’s, of course.

I suspect I am on life’s final descent and the pilot is running out of ideas. Still, when I’m lying there and those discreet little curtains are waiting to part, and Billy Eckstine comes on with I Apologise, it’s good to know that someone at the back will murmur, ‘Say what you like, he was a lucky breeder’.