“Don’t ever f*****g tell me how to ride a horse again”. There’s not many lines of work in which one could so vehementally rail against instructions dispensed by an employer and hope to survive such a skirmish.
You couldn’t exactly imagine WP Mullins or PF Nicholls or AP O’Brien reacting as serenely as the berated handler in this case.
Then again, maybe Noel Meade felt he’d no choice. Because in Paul Carberry and Harchibald he could lay claim – if that’s the right way to put it – to two of the greatest enigmas ever seen. Not just in racing, but any sport.
Over the years, yours truly has been on the wrong end of a fair bit slagging on account of the fondness for and closeness to some, what one might describe as colourful characters in the sporting world.
I give you – Graham Geraghty, Trevor Brennan, Roy Keane, and, of most relevance to this offering, Mr Carberry. And the equine supporting actor in this case, Harchibald, was every bit as quirky as the man on his back. Thus, time had proven it best for the master of Tu Va to leave the dynamic duo to their own devices.
Until one day, Plan A didn’t work. And with Harchi, there was no Plan B. It really was his way or no way. If anything, he’d looked better that season, 2005, in winning both the Fighting Fifth and Christmas Hurdles (both for the second time) than at any stage.
Until that day. March 14th 2005. Harchi, Brave Inca and Hardy Eustace – three two mile hurdlers of a generation. The three of them, stride for stride, three abreast rounding the final bend in Prestbury Park.
(AP) McCoy commits first on Brave Inca, (Conor) O’Dwyer will be in no hurry as old Hardy would stay for a week. Hold onto him Paul, not yet. The other pair drop the throttle slightly strides from the last.
All three wing the obstacle. McCoy and O’Dwyer are now at full bore on their mounts. Still Carberry waits. Motionless. Seemingly primed for a PC special. Hardy is continuing to find. Half way up the run-in. Now? Not quite, but suddenly it’s as if the hound realises the hare has bolted.
When Paul let’s the Perugino gelding ‘down’ – goes for him in other words – there’s nothing there. No response. Try as the pilot might, by the time he did manage to crank a few extra revs out of his conveyance, Hardy Eustace had, done as he always did. Somehow, somewhere finding a way to win.
Now, unfortunately, but perhaps inevitably, it was Carberry who shipped most of the flak. Mostly gobshites talking by their pockets. If anything, as the jockey commented in his autobiography, One Hell Of A Ride, if he made one mistake aboard his mighty steed that day, it was going too early. Probably understandably, then, that whether pilot liked it or not, air traffic control demanded a different flight path be taken for the rematch at Punchestown a month later.
In other words, if the opportunity presents itself to go for home, grasp it. Lo and behold, didn’t ‘Alice’ (Carberry) and his quirky sidekick find themselves in the box seat approaching the last.
With the opprobrium of the month before probably ringing in his ears, he doing the steering kicked on to order only for – you guessed it – McCoy to conjure up the seemingly impossible from the Inca to leave the gallant heroes from the Royal County cast to the shadows once more.
Needless to say, PC was not a happy camper on returning to the parade ring. Which is where the quote at the outset of this piece originated. The man atop felt himself and his buddy should have done things their way. If they had… Well, we never will know now, will we?
Dear old Harchibald strode, ears pricked, into the parade ring far away during the week. A relic of probably the greatest generation of two nile hurdlers there’s been. He might not have got the that his owner, trainer, rider and us mere fans so desperately craved.
But make no mistake, his was the X Factor which made that golden era what it was. Rest easy old boy.
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