Bygones: Steve Cauthen recalls Triple Crown win on ‘best filly I ever rode’

This supreme challenge of a thoroughbred is so exacting that it has only been completed twice in recent years – American Pharoah became the first horse since Affirmed to win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes earlier this year while this month marks the 30th anniversary of Oh So Sharp, trained by the late Sir Henry Cecil and ridden by Cauthen, completing the fillies’ Triple Crown when winning a hard-fought St Leger in 1985.

“The best filly I ever rode,” said Cauthen in an exclusive interview with The Yorkshire Post ahead of this year’s Ladbrokes-sponsored St Leger on Saturday.

It is the highest of praise, given the ‘Kentucky Kid’s’ association with the best horses in the USA before a decade of dominance in Britain which only ended when he lost the unequal battle against the weighing room scales.

This eulogy also reflects the magnitude of the achievement – arguably the greatest in Cecil’s career before a horse called Frankel rewrote the record books.

Unlike America where the Triple Crown races vary in distance from a mile to a mile and a half, and are completed in a compact six-week period, the demands expected of horse, trainer and jockey in Britain are more exacting and require equine combatants to be at their peak for four and a half long months,

First there is the Guineas over Newmarket’s straight mile in early May – the 1000 for fillies like Oh So Sharp and the 2000 for colts. Thirty years ago, Cauthen’s impeccably-bred mount, running in the distinctive maroon and white colours of Sheikh Mohammed in the pre-Godolphin era, only hit the front in the final stride.

The outcome was determined by a three-way photo finish. “We barely got there,” said the jockey who recalled that the runner-up, Al Bahathri, was good enough to win the Irish equivalent.

Next up is the challenge of Epsom’s unique undulations over a mile and a half on the first weekend of June – the Derby for the colts and the Oaks for the fillies.

This was Oh So Sharp at her mighty best, powering to the front with two furlongs to go and pulling clear to win by an imperious six lengths just 72 hours after Cauthen and Cecil’s Slip Anchor had turned the Derby into a one-horse race. “Exhilarating,” said the jockey.

There were then two unexpected reverses – it clearly rankles with the jockey that he was pushed wide on the turn for home in Ascot’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes when the Classic generation of horses took on their elders for the first time. Cauthen blames this for Petroski’s neck win.

He is more sanguine about the filly’s defeat in York’s Benson an & Hedges International – now the Juddmonte. He recalls the ground being too soft and a messily run race being won by the Piggott-ridden Commanche Court, who got first run in the home straight and did not come close to surrendering the advantage.

Then to Doncaster for the Holsten Pils St Leger Stakes over a stamina-sapping one mile and six furlongs. It proved too much for Aidan O’Brien’s Camelot, who missed out on Triple Crown immortality in 2012 and Cauthen says that you can never be assured of winning such races because horses are galloping into the unknown for the first time in their careers.

Much of the build-up centred on Oh So Sharp’s actual participation. Sheikh Mohammed was reluctant and Cecil later admitted: “I was very, very stubborn.” The irony of timing, from the trainer’s personal perspective, was poignant – it was 30 years since Cecil’s stepfather, Cecil Boyd-Rochford, had landed the fillies’ Triple Crown with Meld.

A select five runners went to post and the aforementioned Piggott dictated the early stages of the race on Oh So Sharp’s stablemate, Lanfranco. It was “a sensible but by no means blistering pace,” commentator Graham Goode told World of Sport viewers. Yet, as the field turned into the demanding four-and-a-half-furlong home straight, Cauthen – a USA hall of fame sportsman – was perfectly poised.

“When you are going that far, you are a little concerned about the distance,” he said.

“She was taking on the colts, she had had a tough campaign and we were worried whether she was over the top. Through the race, she was always giving me confidence. Lester was in front on Lanfranco and I was in their slipstream.”

Then the race began as Piggott sensed he might be able to win a 30th victory in his 150th Classic. Oh So Sharp surged to the front with two furlongs to go – and the St Leger looked won. If only. Cauthen says his mount started “to doss” and “idle”. As The Duke, Victor Green, reported in the Yorkshire Post, the favourite was having to work hard to retain her advantage “and the champion jockey spared her nothing as Lanfranco stuck to her and Phardante came at both of them”.

The winning post came just in time – Oh So Sharp, a rangy horse, had three-quarters of a length to spare on her rivals and Cecil was the most relieved man on Town Moor. His horses had been misfiring. “Another week and it might have been too late,” he disclosed. “I could not have held on to her for another week. The way some of my horses were going in their coats caused me to fear that my team was over the top.”

Although he initially suggested that Oh So Sharp would remain in training, she never raced again and was retired to stud.

She died in 2001 at the age of 19 from laminitis. As well as being a historic St Leger, it was also full of statistical landmarks – Cecil became the first trainer to win more than £1m in a single season while Cauthen had now won each of England’s five Classics. It had taken just seven years to do so.

It took the great Piggott 22 years to complete the clean sweep. Having won his first race in 1948, he finally landed the 1000 Guineas in 1970 on Humble Duty.

“It takes a great horse to win the Triple Crown,” added Cauthen, 55, who now runs a farm in his native Kentucky.

“The fact that only one horse has won it since Oh So Sharp tells you all that you need to know. She was the best filly I rode because she was so versatile over any distance. She should probably have gone through her career unbeaten.

“She was also lucky to be trained by Henry. He was touched by genius, which we all saw, and appreciated, with Frankel. We just connected and understood each other.

“We would talk about horses and racing at breakfast, we were always talking, but he never tied me down to instructions.

“We might talk about the ideal scenario, and then he’d just say ‘Good luck old chap’.”

Never more so than when Oh So Sharp won the St Leger 30 years ago in a performance worthy of great champions like Sir Henry Cecil and Steve Cauthen.