Recalling an intrepid horse who ran his race to the finish
Kerry Soldier Blue, one of Wales’ most popular point-to-pointers who died recently at the grand old age of 28, was qualified with the Brecon & Talybont Hunt.
Farmer Roger Price, who owned the horse, said: “Many hunt-racing enthusiasts will have fond memories of his gutsy front-running achievements on the point-to-point course.
“His greatest race for me was when he won the mixed open race at the Ledbury Hunt Steeplechases, beating Forest Fountain, ridden by top rider Julian Pritichard, in an epic duel with Pip Jones in the saddle.”
On that occasion Kerry Soldier Blue won by three lengths, leaving his 22 rivals trailing in his wake.
Mr Price said: “He never quite managed to win a hunter chase, but for three consecutive years he was just beaten at the annual Cheltenham Hunter Chase evening meeting when competing against some of the top horses in the country.”
The long uphill finish was just too much for this little horse.
Mr Price added: “Kerry Soldier Blue was born, broken in and trained on our family farm and he only left the farm twice in all those years – the first time during the foot-and-mouth outbreak, when he went to Richard Price’s farm in Hereford, and in his final year of racing when he went as a schoolmaster for Robert Stephens at Castle Farm, Penhow.”
Robert Stephens, who now trains at Caldicot, was 19 and attached to Philip Hobbs’ yard when he won his first race between the flags on the then 14-year-old Kerry Soldier Blue at the Curre & Llangibby Hunt Steeplechases in 2003.
The Hunter Chasers & Point-To-Pointers Annual described Kerry Soldier Blue as “scrawny” and “a cracking old horse who has run from the front in the majority of his 11 wins, and displayed his usual resolve when holding on to a dwindling advantage in his Members’ race.”
Kerry Soldier Blue ran for the last time that year when, after cutting himself badly, he was pulled up in a hunter chase at Hereford races, won by another good Welsh point-to-pointer, Mr Dow Jones.
Kerry Soldier Blue had the ideal partner in Pip Jones, a former Welsh international showjumper who rode more than 200 winners between the flags and under Rules. In 1998 she became the first Welsh woman to win the national ladies’ point-to-point championship and the following year she retained her title.
But for being sidelined owing to injury, she would probably have won the championship earlier. She was once on a life-support machine after being injured in a fall at Nottingham races, but despite all the broken bones and punctured lungs, she always came bouncing back.
Some of the other good horses Pip was associated with included Norton’s Coin, which went on to win the 1990 Cheltenham Gold Cup, Final Pride, Touch ‘n’ Pass, Sweet Rascal, Gunner Boon, Final Abbey and, of course, Handsome Harvey, who in 1992 won 10 races from 10 starts to capture the Grand Marnier Trophy for Wales.
Pip was just three years old when her father Lloyd was killed in a race riding accident at the Llangeinor Hunt Point-To-Point in 1972. She had style, panache and buckets full of courage and has set records – she won the Welsh ladies point-to-point championship 12 times – that may never be beaten.
The Chepstow Racecourse jumps season gets under way on October 14 -15 with the Saturday and Sunday big races meeting. Meanwhile, the following flat race meetings take place on August 17, 24 and 28 and September 6, 14 and 19. Former jockey Bob Butchers spent almost 39 years as newsboy, the Daily Mirror’s chief racing correspondent. In 2008 he wrote a cracking book called Silks, Soaks and Certainties in which he recalled many of the racing characters of yesteryear.
Of jockey Scobie Breasley, he writes: “Over the years, I have seen hundreds of jockeys and, apart from Gordon Richards, my favourite was Scobie Breasley. He really knew what was going on in a race and his judgement of pace was uncanny. So often I saw him in seemingly impossible positions only for him to be returned the winner. Scobie knew those upfront had gone too fast and would come back to him.”
Well worth a read if you can get hold of a copy.