Horse Racing: Part-time Hero Takes on Sceptics

There are those who believe Best Mate to be an accidental hero. "Let's face it," someone posted on an internet racing forum just three days after his third Gold Cup success last March. "Best Mate isn't even the best chaser in training at the moment, let alone the best ever."

This Doubting Thomas added: "He is just a very well campaigned horse with an excellent trainer and he has been lucky to be around at a time when he can dominate a very weak staying chase division."

And even the many fans who would disagree with those sentiments would have to concede that if Best Mate is not an accidental hero, he is certainly a very occasional one. Over the last three National Hunt seasons, he has contested just 10 races. After his seasonal debut at Exeter this afternoon, Best Mate's first run since Cheltenham, his schedule will extend to three more races at most, and more probably two.

They say familiarity breeds contempt, but in Best Mate's case it sometimes seems to be the other way around.

Of course, there were those in the gritty, weather-beaten business of steeplechasing who loathed all the hoopla around Desert Orchid 15 years ago. And had the internet been in existence in the mid-1960s, there might even have been a few attic-bound iconoclasts prepared to sneer at Arkle and Flyingbolt.

Yet still it seems strange that a horse with such an exemplary winning record, the first since Arkle himself to take three Gold Cups, can be a cause of ambivalence among racing's public. They greatly like and admire Best Mate, there is no doubt about that. They eagerly look forward to his all-too-rare trips to the track.

But at the same time there is a sceptical school of thought, one that is neatly summarised by the professional punter Steve Mellish. "It's good for the sport to have a champion," he says, "you want him to be campaigned in a way that you can admire.

"I've never been one for laying horses [betting on horses to lose], because I always like to take a positive view of a race, but when I sit down to watch the race at Exeter I'll be half-hoping he gets beat. Deep down you know you shouldn't feel that, that it's not the horse's fault, and I certainly don't want him to fall over.

"But at the same time, if you're going to campaign a horse that way, then at the very least people should be allowed to ask, What's it beaten? Desert Orchid got beaten loads of times, but his best performances, like his Whitbread win under top weight, were still better than anything Best Mate has ever done."

Of course, there are plenty of Best Mate fanatics around too, and the stall selling official Best Mate-branded merchandise (with all net proceeds going to good causes) at Exeter this afternoon can expect to do a brisk trade. And the leader of the fan club, as always, will be Jim Lewis, Best Mate's owner.

There was a suggestion earlier this week that even Lewis would like to see Best Mate racing a little more frequently, though few track executives will be holding their breath. Lewis, after all, apparently wanted Tony McCoy to replace the injured Jim Culloty in Best Mate's saddle today, but in the end the vote went to Timmy Murphy, the preferred choice of Henrietta Knight, Best Mate's trainer.

Knight seems reluctant to change the previous policy of putting the horse away between Christmas and Cheltenham, and the form book suggests she usually gets her way.

So Lewis must make the most of Best Mate's rare outings. "Personally I could stand being beaten," he said yesterday, as he returned from Ireland where his runner Impek finished fourth at Clonmel. "But there are people who are so much in love with him that they think he's invincible. It's a great responsibility, carrying all this fame.

"I would dearly have loved Impek to win, as I know that would have cheered Henrietta up. She's said nothing, but it's for everyone to see that she hasn't had a winner for a while and the horses aren't firing. Let's hope Best Mate can turn the tide for us all tomorrow."

And if there is a third way when it comes to Best Mate, it might be the opinion of Jim McGrath, the Timeform director and Channel 4 pundit.

"As a racing fan, I'd love to see him run a bit more," McGrath says, "but ultimately Hen's set out an objective each season which infuriates us in one sense, but that's typical of any form of entertainment. If something's really good, you want to see it again.

"There are two sides of it, not a right or a wrong, just two sides. And when we're moaning collectively in the press that he doesn't run enough, perhaps we're forgetting we're very lucky to have him at all."

How great is Mate?

Josh Gifford

Leading trainer for more than 30 years

"He's obviously a very, very good horse, but the best horse I ever saw was Desert Orchid. He could do it all, two-mile handicaps, four King Georges, a Gold Cup on ground he didn't like and a Whitbread over three miles and five. But you can't compare them, because Best Mate just runs in the races that suit him. He's definitely the best about at the moment - but I wouldn't put him the same class as Desert Orchid or Arkle."

Jim McGrath

Channel 4 pundit and director of Timeform

"In terms of raw ability, without question he is a top-class chaser, and when he's on song, he's beautiful to watch. But he isn't a great chaser in the mould of the ones that are almost a millstone round his neck, like Arkle, Mill House, Flyingbolt and Desert Orchid. We're often guilty of measuring everything by Arkle and he was just a freak."

Steve Mellish
Professional punter

"I am in the camp that thinks his reputation is greater than his worth. There's lots that's terrific about him - he's a great jumper, terrific novice and progressed all the way through from being a good hurdler - but if you analyse what he's done, I struggle to see where the great performance is. I think he'll be vulnerable at Cheltenham in March. I couldn't name the horse to beat him, they've all got flaws, but I wouldn't back him at the odds because I think he's priced up on reputation rather than form."