By Timeform — published 31st May 2020
Timeform's Paul Goodenough looks back on the career of Arkle, 50 years after the death of the horse rated the best chaser of all time.
With the highest rating of any horse in the history of Timeform, Arkle can justifiably be called ‘the greatest’ in any discussion about National Hunt racing. Trained in Ireland by Tom Dreaper, Arkle was still considered in his prime when his career was prematurely cut short due to injury as a nine-year-old, and the 50th anniversary of his passing provides an opportunity to highlight and re-examine the career that yielded three Cheltenham Gold Cups among a big-race haul that also included several extraordinary weight-carrying feats in handicaps, his mythical status within the sport casting a shadow over the careers of many otherwise great chasers who have since raced.
Winner of 22 of his 26 races in steeplechases, Arkle would remain unbeaten during the 1962/63 campaign, November’s Honeybourne Chase at Cheltenham selected as a suitable starting point over fences. Already a most fluent jumper and a relentless galloper, he would return to Prestbury Park the following March to rout the opposition in the Broadway Novices’ Chase, the race now known as the RSA, with anticipation already building about coming face-to-face with Mill House, the clear-cut winner of that season’s Gold Cup. Their first encounter in what would prove one of the great equine rivalries came in the 1963 Hennessy Gold Cup, the more experienced Mill House winning on that occasion, but Arkle had an excuse having slipped on landing at the third-last, and he would restore Irish honour in the 1964 Cheltenham Gold Cup. The pair had both been successful in the interim, Mill House easily landing the King George VI Chase at Kempton whilst Arkle had won no fewer than three times, including the Thyestes Chase at Gowran Park. Only four lined up at Cheltenham, but the eagerly-anticipated rematch certainly didn’t disappoint as the young pretender took over from the reigning champion approaching the last and drew clear up the hill to win by five lengths in a record time for the race.
Arkle was already establishing himself as an exceptional performer, even before adding an Irish Grand National to his tally little more than three weeks later – officials were tasked with providing two handicaps for the race, one if Arkle ran and a different one if he didn’t.
Arkle would confirm his superiority over Mill House the following season, gaining revenge in the Hennessy before an even more one-sided success at the Cheltenham Festival. Another track record – by a remarkable 17 seconds – would be achieved on Arkle’s 1965/66 reappearance with a 20-length demolition job in the Gallaher Gold Cup at Sandown, Mill House finishing only third in what would be their final meeting.
Arkle secured a second Hennessy Gold Cup later that November by 15 lengths, and the crowds flooded to Kempton the following month to see him tackle the King George for the first time. With just three rivals, the nearest pursuer was still jumping the last as Arkle crossed the line. A hat-trick of Cheltenham Gold Cups was secured with a 30-length success, even overcoming a rare lapse of concentration when making a bad blunder with over a circuit to race, and there seemed no obvious reason why he couldn’t challenge Golden Miller’s record of five consecutive wins in the race during the 1930s. However, Arkle’s racing career would come to a halt before having the chance to do so.
Even in defeat, Arkle’s performance in the 1966 Hennessy would provide further evidence of his superiority over his contemporaries, the Stan Mellor-ridden Stalbridge Colonist pouncing only after the last, making the most of the 35 lb he received from Arkle. The winner would go very close in the following two Gold Cups (which did not feature Arkle), whilst the subsequent 1969 Gold Cup hero What A Myth was a fast-finishing third at Newbury in receipt of a similarly hefty weight allowance.
Arkle bounced back with a wide-margin success in the SGB Chase at Ascot and headed to Kempton as a 9/2-on favourite for a repeat King George success, but Dormant – the horse Arkle had beaten by ‘a fence’ 12 months earlier – came home in front this time around, stunning the huge crowd. In mitigation, jockey Pat Taaffe had looked uncomfortable from an early stage, with Arkle uncharacteristically jumping and hanging to his left, and it later transpired that he had sustained a broken pedal bone, possibly sustained when clipping the guard rail with his hoof at the second fence. His inherent toughness and incredible talent still carried him to second spot, and it was initially hoped that Arkle would recover in time for Cheltenham. However, all comeback plans eventually had to be shelved, with his retirement officially announced in 1968.
There is no doubt that Arkle was a phenomenon of the sport. The rules for handicaps had to be changed due to his superiority, and only Flyingbolt – his younger stablemate who he never raced against – got within hailing distance of Arkle’s Timeform rating of 212. One key reason why Arkle’s rating is highly unlikely to be usurped is due to the increased number of conditions races now in the racing calendar, meaning that modern greats are rarely – if ever – tasked with conceding huge amounts of weight to rivals of championship standard in handicap events. Arkle’s reputation was not just built on victories in prestigious weight-for-age contests such as the Cheltenham Gold Cup and King George, but on towering performances in handicaps, routinely being asked to concede 35 lb to his opponents.
Arkle’s legacy continues to live on with longstanding and prestigious Grade 1 novice chases bearing his name on either side of the Irish Sea, while the term the ‘new Arkle’ is still used to describe the emergence of any young chaser of considerable promise. Arkle continues to provide a benchmark against which more recent champions can be measured. Many lovers of the sport still go misty eyed at the mere mention of his name, and Sir Peter O’Sullevan, who provided the soundtrack to the black-and-white footage that those not fortunate enough to be around at the time have since sourced to observe Arkle’s exploits, certainly left no doubt as to his thoughts on the historical equine pecking order even in the immediate aftermath of Kauto Star’s fifth King George success in December 2011. ‘I leave Arkle out of the equation.…he was a total freak, the rules of racing had to be adjusted to accommodate his talent’.
Timeform Timeform Annual Ratings (Chasers)
212 Arkle
210 Flyingbolt
192p Sprinter Sacre
191Kauto Star, Mill House
