Jim Dreaper on memories of Arkle and his father

“NO matter how hard my father [trainer Tom Dreaper] tried to treat him normally, Arkle was a star and he knew it. He was a bit of a poser: he was so busy looking around, showing off in the paddock, he’d walk slowly, forcing all the other horses to slow down with him.

“I was sent to boarding school at six and the headmaster didn’t want us to have anything to do with racing. I was a teenager when Father was in his seventies, and he didn’t much like looking back. His view was that horses won in spite of the people around them, not because of them. Father didn’t used to talk much about Arkle.”