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'The dusty fingerprints of history are all over him'

Steve Dennis looks at the vivid history and promising future of the grand old stalwart Redoubtable

ALTHOUGH his coat is kept shiny and clean, the dusty fingerprints of history are all over him.

The aptly named Redoubtable, who has just celebrated his 15th birthday, is an exercise in equine archaeology; the deeper you dig, the greater the historical perspective.

There can be few racegoers who have not seen Redoubtable in the flesh since he made his debut at Chester’s May meeting in 1993. That was the first of his 182 races in Britain and the first of his 21 wins, the first five-furlong exercise in a career that would continue for another 12 and a half years.

Last January, he became the first 14-year-old to win a race in Britain since the equally redoubtable Be Hopeful in 1973 and, in the forthcoming weeks, he will become surely the first 15-year-old thoroughbred in turf history to embark upon a stud career. The old boy has been found a billet at the Goulding family’s End House Stud in north-east Lancashire, where he will cover thoroughbred and non-thoroughbred mares at an introductory fee of £500.

End House manager Trudy Goulding says: “We’re delighted to have Redoubtable at End House. There has been a lot of interest in him already, both from mare owners and local people - he’s a bit of a celebrity.

“As far as temperament goes, he’s not like a stallion at all. You could throw open the door to his box and fill it with people and he’d be a perfect gentleman. Children could throw their arms around him and he wouldn’t mind at all.

“I think he found it a bit strange when he first came here, as he’d only been out of training for a few weeks and was a bit fresh. A few sessions on the horsewalker reassured him, I think, and he’s adjusted very well.

“We’re also very pleased that the Sports Horse Society of Great Britain have approved him as a graded Sports Horse stallion, giving him much greater versatility in his new job.”

If he could talk, Redoubtable would be the Little Big Man of the racing world, the equivalent of an old soldier recounting his days in the trenches. Run your hands over him, and you’re flicking through the form books of the last 40 years.

Redoubtable’s sire was Grey Dawn, who was 28 and siring his last crop when he covered the Seattle Slew mare Seattle Rockette in the mating that would produce a remarkable bay foal. Gray Dawn himself was a stablemate of the nonpareil Sea-Bird and was the only horse ever to beat the great French champion. Grey Dawn’s damsire was 1936 Derby winner Mahmoud; in just two generations we have swept away more than 70 years.

Redoubtable was bought for $32,000 as a yearling and began his career with Richard Harmon, for whom he raced at two and three. And what a career. He ran at 28 of the 35 courses that stage Flat racing in Britain, as well as competing - and winning - at Nad Al Sheba during his ‘other job’ in racing, of which more later. Five champion jockeys have ridden him - Pat Eddery, Frankie Dettori, Kevin Darley, Michael Roberts and Lester Piggott - although only the first-named could conjure victory from him.

As a two-year-old, Redoubtable won the Listed National Stakes at Sandown and was third in the Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes. After acquitting himself admirably in the Dewhurst, he was allotted 9st 21b in the Free Handicap, 51b adrift of Dewhurst winner Grand Lodge.

Those whose experience of Redoubtable consists solely of watching the veteran in banded races on the all-weather would find it hard to believe that as a young buck he took his chance in the 2,000 Guineas and was quietly fancied. He was well down the field behind Mister Baileys, but they did rattle up the Rowley Mile in record time, and he continued to run well that season until he was bought by Godolphin as a lead horse - the very first of an increasingly long line of mid-season purchases? - and shipped to Dubai.

HE WOULDN’T have been the the first or the last horse to drift into obscurity in
the sands of the desert, but the move served only to raise his profile. He was pressed into employment as a lead horse for a promising three-year-old named Lammtarra - and the rest (as is typical of Redoubtable) was history. He mentored Lammtarra through his unbeaten year but then it was back to the day job following the intervention of trainer David Chapman, who snapped him up for around 5,000gns at Tattersalls.

Chapman recalls: “People said he had far too many miles on the clock, but I saw him and thought what a lovely little horse he was. The following week people contacted me asking to buy him as a stallion. I’d entered him for £10,000 in a claimer, so thought I’d better not run!

“He’s also well bred and the late Joss Collins spent years trying to buy him for a stud in America. I’m glad we kept him.”

If Chapman had accepted one of Collins’ offers, we wouldn’t have seen Redoubtable 170 more times in the space of eight years. It speaks volumes for Redoubtable’s equanimity and for Chapman’s skill that an entire horse could race on for so long without becoming either soured or unmanageable. The word ‘unique’ is devalued by overuse but it can be used here - there can be no other horse, at any time, in any place, who has had the physical and mental strength required to run 21 times a year at the age of 13 and 15 times a year at the age of 14, especially one with all his faculties intact.

Now, for Redoubtable, the hard graft is over. He doesn’t have a long time to make his mark at stud, and there has to be a doubt about whether he can shake up the Coolmore hegemony at the top of the sire lists. But when you consider what he can offer those looking for an inexpensive mate for their mare, the path to his Gisburn home — where Tony Dickinson trained the likes of Silver Buck and Gay Spartan should be well trodden. He even has experience of his new role — Chapman let him cover a couple of mares two years ago and he is already off the mark in the paternity stakes.

His foals will be able to command a rich heritage; their old man is a son of the only horse to beat the greatest European runner of the last century, was lead horse for a Derby winner and a pioneer of racing in Dubai, partner of some of the greatest jockeys ever to don silks, the hardy veteran of more than a decade of winters and summers at racecourses in virtually every corner of Britain. All that for £500.

The heir of the ages turns and jogs back into the middle of his field, ready to engender the next chapter in a never-ending story.



Racing Post Tuesday, January 3, 2006