Henderson can still reign supreme despite Binocular’s Champion woe

PETER Easterby makes it sound so straight-forward. “All you want is two Group One horses – and for them to be right on the day,” he says.

Thirty years after the Yorkshireman became only the fourth man to train the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup winners at the same Festival, the 81-year-old understands, more than most, the pressures that will confront top trainer Nicky Henderson this week.

Henderson did have an outstanding chance of joining this select group – Long Run, the brilliant King George winner, has an outstanding Gold Cup chance while Binocular was favourite to defend his Champion Hurdle crown until being pulled out yesterday.

That leaves Henderson – four winners away from overhauling the legendary Fulke Walwyn and becoming the Festival’s most successful trainer – relying on his second-string Oscar Whisky, the Welsh Champion Hurdle victor.

“I’ll be delighted for Nicky if he wins both big races – and to welcome him to the club,” says Easterby as he reflects on his five Champion Hurdles and two Gold Cups during a period of National Hunt racing when Yorkshire stables dominated Cheltenham.

“There’s always something that goes wrong. Mind, Oscar Whisky is a good horse, not as good as Binocular though, but it is funny how these things can turn out.

“Nicky can handle the pressure if the horses are good enough. Pressure didn’t bother me. Not one iota. It’s nice to have good horses with a chance. I never thought that my fifth Champion Hurdle win with Sea Pigeon in 1981 was a record at the time because the build-up was tricky.”

This was the race – one of the greatest – when John Francome, replacing the injured Jonjo O’Neill, waited until he was within the shadow of the winning post before asking ‘Pigeon’ to make a winning move in order to prevent the 11-year-old hitting the front too soon.

He knew, all too well, the quirks of ‘Pigeon’ who nearly pulled himself up when hitting the front in the 1979 Ebor under O’Neill. He only prevailed by the shortest of short heads as York racegoers waited, in silent agony, for the photo-finish decision.

But the build-up to the 1981 Champion Hurdle defence after O’Neill had successfully partnered ‘Pigeon’ the year before was far from straight-forward – a lesson that could strike fear into Henderson as Easterby recalls some of his finest hours that he masterminded at his Great Habton stables in the heart of Ryedale.

“You need to get a horse right,” explains the veteran handler. “Five or six days before the race, Sea Pigeon did a very bad gallop, came back to the yard, ate a bit of grass and blood came away. He had broken a blood vessel. What did I do? I kept my mouth shut and just hoped he was okay on the day which he was. I thought he was travelling well and knew Francome would do the job because he knew the horse pulled up if he hit the front too soon.

“If he couldn’t have ridden him, I would have asked Lester Piggott to ride him – and he would have. Mind you, ‘Pigeon’ would have won by a short-head and frightened us all to death. But, if there was money involved, Lester would have got the job done.”

Easterby – still the only man to train more than 1,000 Flat and National Hunt winners – lights up as he recalls these halcyon days that saw him record 13 Festival triumphs.

From his house, he can see the paddock where ‘Pigeon’ and his great stablemate Night Nurse, the 1976 and ‘77 champion hurdler, are buried under a line of beech trees. A small plaque pays homage to their equine achievements under the inscription ‘Legends in their lifetimes’.

These were phenomenal horses who ran with great regularity. Sea Pigeon’s 85 runs yielded 37 wins and £277,044. Night Nurse won 35 out his 82 starts, collecting £183,342.

Why did they run so frequently compared to today’s horses who are often limited to two or three outings a season?

“We needed the money,” says Easterby who began training after serving with the Royal Veterinary Corps. His first winner, he points out, was Double Rolls at Market Rasen. “£102 for winning and training fees of five guineas – not much has changed.”

Easterby’s first Champion Hurdle winner was, in fact, Saucy Kit in 1967 who prevailed over the Queen Mother’s Makaldar – but the trainer is reluctant to take the full credit.

“I put Terry Biddlecombe on him for the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton and he won. Terry said ‘This could easily win the Champion’. I hadn’t thought about it until then. I remember him saying, not long since, that he never got a drink out of me. One day...”

Easterby enjoyed similar good fortune with Night Nurse who he had bought from Houghton sales in 1972.

His difficulty was finding an owner. “He was a big, raw horse. The ninth man that saw him bought him – Edgar Rudkin, a Midlands buisnessman. I only sold him for £1,000 because he was in his 80s, almost blind and wore thick glasses.

“He was a very moderate Flat hurdler so I then schooled him over hurdles and entered him at Market Rasen. I phoned Mr Rudkin up. He was 85, his fiancée was 65 – and she said Night Nurse would only run over obstacles over her dead body. I bought the horse back for £1,000 – and then sold him to a pal Reg Spencer, a York estate agent, for £1,500. I got a nice 50 per cent profit and a great horse – an out-and-out galloper who led from the front.

“Timeform still have him a pound clear of Istabraq, Aidan O’Brien’s three-time winner, on their ratings. I don’t know how they weigh it up – but it sounds about right to me.”

Though the 1977 race is still regarded as the most competitive Champion Hurdle seen, a horse as good as Sea Pigeon was unplaced, ‘luck’ was – once again – on Easterby’s side as he refused to panic (a piece of advice that he hopes Henderson will follow).

“I took him to Doncaster the week before. It was heavy ground and he had only run on firm before that. Paddy Broderick rode him and he assured me that he would go in soft ground,” recalls Easterby. “We got to Cheltenham. He was favourite, about 3-1, and I backed him. It rained. He went out to 5-1. It rained more. I backed him again. He went out to 7-1. By that time, I was worried that someone had nobbled him – there were doping cases in those days.

“Keith Stone, his lad, assured me that he had never left him. I backed him again and the pressure was on, and he just kept galloping, pulling clear of Monksfield on the run-in.

“I made a few bob. Before I left home, I had 10 tonnes of potatoes left worth £100 a ton. I said to my brother-in-law to keep them in case this job (Night Nurse) backfires. The horse won, we got home and the potatoes sold for £150 a ton. Not bad.”

The two-year gap between Night Nurse’s final Champion Hurdle, and Sea Pigeon’s first victory, was filled by Alverton winning the 1979 Gold Cup before suffering a heart attack in that year’s Grand National when favourite.

Easterby’s regret was delaying, by a year, the decision to switch Night Nurse to larger obstacles. It probably cost him the 1981 Gold Cup when stablemate Little Owl, pictured below, and Jim Wilson, the last amateur to win racing’s blue riband chase, prevailed in a one-two for the stable.

The trainer had bought the horse at Doncaster Sales having assured his wife that he would be making no purchases. “He was only hunter price but a brilliant jumper,” recalls Easterby. “As they came down the Cheltenham hill, that was when I felt a bit nervous. They couldn’t both fall, could they? When it was over, it was satisfying – the Champion and the Gold Cup double.

“If it wasn’t for Little Owl, then Night Nurse – and not Dawn Run five years later – would have been the first to win both the Champion Hurdle and the Gold Cup.”

Having passed his training licence on in 1996 to his son Tim, the St Leger-winning trainer, Easterby is still involved in racing and farming, his twin pursuits.

“The horses used to keep the farm going. Now the farm keeps the horses going,” he says before lamenting the diminishing prize money at courses like Wetherby.

As informed as ever, he says, without hesitation, that Arkle, the pride of Ireland is the greatest horse that he has seen.

With Binocular sidelined, Easterby believes the Philip Hobbs-trained Menorah will win the Champion Hurdle – while Kauto Star can regain the Gold Cup if he has fully recovered from a broken blood vessel.

“Perhaps I might keep my Champion Hurdle record for another year,” he says. “If Nicky beats it, he will have earned it. It comes down to having a good horse, good management beforehand – and a bit of luck. Simple.”