Tenacity already living up to his name as he sets out on turf journey

ASK anyone in a racing yard to come up with one word which sums up everyone involved in the game and the odds would favour "tenacity" being among the most popular.

For Mike and Glenda Swinglehurst, that choice fits perfectly with a yearling they hope will make a successful start to his turf career next summer.

Tenacity today stands tall in the paddock, a fine specimen of a thoroughbred as you would expect of an animal with Mill Reef, Nijinsky, Habitat and Kalaglow illuminating his pedigree – the unforgettable Mill Reef being his great-great-grandsire on both sides of his bloodlines.

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He even has a hint of the white marking on the forehead which so distinguished the winner of the Derby, the Eclipse, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in 1971.

It is a credit to his breeders – the Swinglehursts – their vets and friends and his own constitution that he can even be considered a future racehorse, so traumatic was his entry into this world.

"George – that's his name at home in memory of a chap called George David, who tenaciously fought off illness for some years and was a member of our 'Keep the Faith' syndicate – is lucky to be here at all," says Mike Swinglehurst.

"He was foaled with an oxygen deficiency when his umbilical cord snapped within a few minutes of him being born. We called in the vet and didn't think he would survive as he was struggling to stand and was not suckling.

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"He was moved to Minster Vets in York for intensive care where a team of six or seven people worked round the clock; the mare had to be milked and the foal fed by a naso-gastric tube to make sure he had the strength to fight for his life as well as take in the antibiotics which any foal needs from his mother's milk. After two days he had turned the corner and a week later – on April 10 2009 – he came home."

Now he is growing by the day and, with an equable temperament to match his good looks, is a racehorse in the making.

The Swinglehursts always planned to race him themselves rather than sell him and discovered that the name Tenacity had become available at Weatherbys – a horse's name can only be used once every 20 years to prevent confusion in breeding – although another owner had reserved the name.

"We thought, 'we'll have that if it becomes available' and when the option was not taken up we had him registered," said Mike Swinglehurst, whose base is at Wigman Hall, not far from York Racecourse, and whose interest in racing blossomed when he had a share in a horse called China Castle, who won several races when trained at Middleham by Patrick Haslam.

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The plans now are for Tenacity to be taught the basics – responding to instruction, becoming used to having the weight of a rider on his back and a bit in his mouth – early in the new year before being sent to Middleham trainer Kate Walton with a view to a first running on one of the Yorkshire courses in August.

The Swinglehursts are optimistic, given that his full brother Embsay Crag, also trained by Kate Walton, won as a two-year-old and took a good race at Chester aged three.

"Embsay Crag might go hurdling next year," chorus the Swinglehursts, "and he should get two miles without a problem. Tenacity looks like he might make a miler but we'll wait and see.

"The main thing is there are no signs of mental or physical problems following on from the traumatic start to life he had."