Monday Musings: On Legacies…

Amid all the thrilling performances over the Christmas period so far, I cannot shake from my consciousness Ben Pauling’s Mambonumberfive, writes Tony Stafford. I must confess I hated the song of that name when it was popular – maybe I’ll be a bit more charitable after Kempton on Saturday.

Using times as a guide to merit in jump racing is never foolproof, but when successive races on the same card, distance and discipline are concerned, you have a chance of getting a reasonable line to the form.

On Saturday at Kempton – shamefully destined soon to be another housing estate it seems – both Ben Pauling’s Mambonumberfive in the Wayward Lad Novices Chase and Dan Skelton’s Thistle Ask, top-weight in the Desert Orchid Handicap Chase, both Grade 2 events, immediately afterwards were easy winners. The time of the former at 4.47 seconds faster than the standard for the two miles at Kempton, was 0.42 seconds better than Thistle Art’s demolition job in the handicap.

Dan Skelton is considering the Queen Mother Champion Chase for his eight-year-old, winner of five of six chases, the last four all by at least a margin of seven lengths since Skelton took him over from the retired James Ewart this season. He won off 115 first time for Dan and was already up to 146 on Saturday, with a hike guaranteed well into the 150’s when the new ratings come out tomorrow.

This was a race where the pace was unrelenting – three horses goading each other at the front until Harry Skelton pushed the button and sent Thistle Ask away from the rest of the seven-horse field. He seemed to be quickening throughout the race, gathering pace once more as they approached the first of three fences in the straight.

Thistle Ask will be a nine-year-old if he lines up for the Champion Chase, but you need to have an attacking mindset if you want to see off Willie Mullins.

Despite all this, Ben Pauling, a day on from the emotion of The Jukebox Man, Harry Redknapp and all that, unearthed a chaser I contend of equal potential to his stable star.

When Mambonumberfive went through the Arqana sale ring last year for €450k, the obvious question about the three-year-old’s qualification for such a lofty price was, “how?”

He had been unable to win in three tries in juvenile hurdles at Auteuil for French jumps training ace Francois Nicolle with the final effort in June 2024, a month before his sale, being a second to Double-Green homebred Raffles Dolce Vita.

That horse has failed to win again in seven tries, latterly when switched to Ireland. His latest effort was a fourth of six to Gordon Elliott’s Romeo Coolio, beaten 31 lengths, at Fairyhouse late last month. His chance was mirrored by the starting price, 125/1!

While his stock plummeted, Mambonumberfive has flourished under Pauling, initially in three tries over hurdles, winning the second, a Grade 2 novice at Kempton, then switching as a four-year-old to chasing this autumn.

A horse of impressive size and scope, he immediately took to this new role, winning with a sustained finishing effort at Aintree and trumping that with a comfortable two-length defeat of Mighty Bandit at Newbury.

From novice handicaps, Ben switched him to this weight-for-age Grade 2 race against his elders. Five runners here and for most of the two miles Ben Jones allowed him to sit at the back, with a couple of slight errors confirming that position.

Then, as they turned for home, you could see him making quick progress, and by the second last he had got to the front. From the final fence he was travelling so well that he had put seven lengths between himself and runner-up Hansard, a solid performer for Gary and Josh Moore. From last place four from home to seven lengths clear and careering away at the line. All as a four-year-old, although he will be five on Thursday!

You’d have to give him a chance in the Arkle Chase at Cheltenham as he clearly handles going left-handed as well as Saturday’s romp the other way round, but it might be less certain that Cheltenham would suit him as well as Aintree with the long straight there to get him organised for that charge to the line.

The amazing elements for me about Saturday were less that he was quicker than a possible Queen Mother contender having loitered at the back of his field for so long, against the sustained gallop of Thistle Ask’s race, but that he could manage it with so little previous experience of chasing behind him.

If his enormous talent was evident, his stablemate The Jukebox Man exhibited the one attribute that apart from natural ability is most elusive in racehorses, courage and determination not to be beaten.

I well remember how in 2009 when Punjabi won his Champion Hurdle for Raymond Tooth and Nicky Henderson, he was in the middle of a three-horse thrust up the Cheltenham hill between Celestial Halo and Binocular, grittily holding on to the narrow lead he and Barry Geraghty had taken at the final flight.

Here, though, The Jukebox Man did even better as he was overtaken by last year’s King George VI Chase winner Banbridge at that point in the race. It seemed inevitable that he would succumb to that Joseph O’Brien horse’s speed from the last and that of the joint favourites, Willie Mullins’ Gaelic Warrior and Nicky Henderson’s Jango Baie who were also bang there; but he would have none of it.

As four horses strained for the line, suddenly in the dying strides, The Jukebox Man, in the middle under Ben Jones, had his head down at the crucial time, winning by noses from Banbridge and Gaelic Warrior with Jango Baie half a length away. It was a race that racing needed and if you listened to the ITV commentators, a win in the Harry Redknapp colours that was “great for racing”.

It was great for Harry Redknapp and the two Bens certainly, but here was a man in his late 70s, however well known to the public, winning a race. Would his win inspire young racegoers to take more of an interest in the sport? That seems fanciful. Big days, be they at Kempton and Chepstow, where we got a great home win for the Rebecca Curtis/Sean Bowen horse Haiti Couleurs in the Coral Welsh Grand National, inevitably engender great enthusiasm for the young people that attend.

I remember last autumn suggesting that Champions Day at Ascot had many more younger attendees than I’d ever recalled at any meeting, something Grand National winning rider Graham Thorner also noticed that day. Getting them to come back for say, an all-weather card at Kempton, is another matter. I wonder who would get their many all-weather fixtures if the sale did go through.

Kempton was one of the many tracks near London, including Newmarket, my dad took me to from about the age of eight. I’d become much more interested in racing by 1961 at age 15. I recall one Easter we watched the Kempton Guineas trials from the stand at the top of the straight, where they now keep the course equipment.

The horse he’d backed in the 1000 Trial was in front passing us and I was shocked when it didn’t make the frame. That was three from home, though, and a long way out for a mile race! Even so, I thought I knew a bit more about the game than he did – not that ever in my life I’ve matched his facility for successful punting for small stakes.

One day in my teens, I had brought a girl friend to the flat in the afternoon with both my parents out at work, expecting a clear couple of hours. We were in the early throes of getting involved when I heard the front door opening. With a face like thunder, he took one look at the slight clothing disarray, went into his bedroom and within minutes had gone out again.

When mum arrived from work, she told me he went to Kempton, no doubt on the Fallowfield & Britten coach from Clapton Pond <Prince Monolulu, the famed so-called tipster who peed on my shoe at the halfway stop on the way to Newmarket one time, would always be on board>. When he came home, the girlfriend long gone, again I was greeted with a frosty silence as my mum looked on sympathetically.

The following night he went to Hackney dogs, his regular venue while I continued my apprenticeship in punting by going off with my mates to my favoured Thursday night track, Clapton. Slightly closer to home I always got back before him, and the difference in mood was soon evident.

He said, “I went to Kempton last night and had the Tote Treble <a regular bet in the second, fourth and sixth races of ten shillings, 50p in those days>. It Paid £98.18 shillings. Then tonight I had the Trifecta <first three home> at the dogs. It paid £123,15s,3d. <12 pence to the shilling>” He was always a lucky punter and couldn’t wait to tell me, whatever his feelings otherwise.

I never found out what happened to his last bet – he dropped dead in the William Hill betting shop (now closed) at Hackney Wick, 100 yards from his house and the ticket was never found. He was 82 and left me the heritage of Arsenal, cricket at the Oval and racing. What more did an eight-year-old need to set him up for life?

- TS

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