The romance of racing is sustained by a precarious presumption that anyone can hit the jackpot. Steve Whiteley did that literally last Tuesday, winning £1.45 million for a £2 bet at Exeter. Not far away, in the bucolic byways of Somerset, Pat Rodford and Sparky May could produce the implausible story of this Cheltenham Festival.
Hard-nosed punters may champion Quevega as their banker in the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle tomorrow but neutrals will be captivated if Sparky May can prevail. It would be a defining reminder of jump racing’s rural roots on the very day the Festival celebrates its centenary.
This unprepossessing mare must defy her own humble origins and much more besides. The only previous Festival runner for Rodford’s stable, Oats N Barley, fell at the first flight, 16 years ago. Her jockey, Keiran Burke, has never ridden at the meeting.
Yet Sparky May has already belittled logic and statistics. That she is alive and racing is no small thing, considering her alarming introduction to life. Rodford, who has lived his 70 years in the hamlet of Ash, has retold the tale a thousand times, of late, but plainly without boredom.
Until now, any sporting renown came more from playing cricket and football than from his late conversion to horses. More than one jumps season drifted past without a winner and his best year produced only six. Yet Holmwood Legend’s victory at Sandown Park on Saturday was the eleventh of this starry season and Rodford is tempted to put him on the lorry to Cheltenham, too.
Advertisement
Rodford has a bearded, lived-in face and a voice redolent of West Country farmyards, but he recounts his memories so vividly that he was plainly made for this belated public stage. When we tramp past the old farm equipment, and the chickens running loose, to share the modest kitchen with three bickering terriers, Rodford tells how an old girlfriend persuaded him to start “messing around” with horses in his mid-30s and how, much later, his first application for a training licence was rejected by the Jockey Club.
“The day I went up to reapply the day bombs were going off in London. I came out of the Tube with a helicopter hovering and a loudhailer telling everyone to disappear. I don’t know London — well, this isn’t much like London here, is it? — but I just kept running and, luckily, found myself in Portman Square.”
Then he tells how his son, Neil, was fast-tracked by Mohammed Al Fayed to the chief executive’s seat at Fulham and how he, Pat, went to a match and met the then vice-chairman, Bill Muddyman, who asked if he might try breeding from some showjumping mares.
“We picked the mares up and I remember driving home and seeing the total eclipse of the sun. I was just the other side of Wincanton and I pulled over to watch it.” As omens go, that takes some beating.
Finally, we come to the foaling. “The mare was out in the field and I’d put an electric fence in, halfway down. It was early May and she hadn’t foaled at ten o’clock, so we went to bed. I woke at 2am, heard the rain hammering against the window and thought I’d better go and bring her into a stable. I never walk anywhere, so I rode my quadbike down and she’d had the foal but I couldn’t see it.
Advertisement
“It was pitch black and pouring down. I swung the torch round and she was 20 yards beyond the electric fence — she must have kept trying to stand and rolled down the slope. I don’t know if she’d have survived the night if I hadn’t gone out but I was wet through and, as I tried to pull her back, I got a hell of a shock off the fence.”
It was Rodford’s idea to call her Sparky May and Muddyman readily agreed. Now, along with Burke, they are in dream territory. A listed-race win at Ascot has made her 4-1 second favourite for tomorrow’s race. “I’m bricking myself,” Rodford said colourfully. “There’s so much hype, I feel we’re under pressure. If we went and finished last, we’ll seem stupid.” And that would be a harsh ending to a heart-warming story.