ARKLE first, the rest nowhere. Had that phrase not been used for Eclipse, it may well have been apt for the star chaser, the best that most ever saw.

Was he the best ever? For the majority he was and always will be. To mention another horse in the same breath is a serious crime.

However, there is a school of thought that the only horse that could have been considered his equal or better was also housed at the same time in the Dreaper stable in Kilsallaghan.

Flyingbolt was an exceptional racehorse and one of the sages in his fan club is Ted Walsh, for whom he was the best horse he ever saw. However, the Flyingbolt story did not have the happiest of endings and perhaps it is that fact, as much as any other, that precludes more from being of the view that he was the greatest chaser of all time.

Breeding wise Flyingbolt was a fluke of sorts; not because he had an inconsequential pedigree, but rather that he was conceived at all. His sire Airborne won the Epsom Derby, Princess of Wales’s Stakes and the St Leger in the colours of John Ferguson. That was in 1946 and the Irish-bred grey, born in Castletown Geoghegan, Co Westmeath and bred by Cecil Boyd-Rochfort’s brother Harold, was trained in Newmarket by Dick Perrryman.

With hindsight, the 50/1 Derby winner was not one of the race’s most memorable graduates, his main claim to fame being that he won the first Derby to be run again at Epsom after the cessation of the war. He did make a name for himself as a stallion, though he didn’t sire many offspring and was considered at one point to be impotent. On the flat his daughter Silken Glider’s name lives on today.

not infertile

Turned out in a paddock as a companion for a 19-year-old barren mare, it transpired that he was not infertile and the resulting offspring was Flyingbolt. The colt was sold as a foal at the December Sale in Newmarket for 210gns and purchased by Co Clare breeder Larry Ryan. He showed him as a yearling and he proved to be a winner in that sphere, before being sent to Ballsbridge where he was sold by Goffs for a nice profit, realising 490gns.

His dam Eastlock never ran but she was out of Tetrarch Girl, herself an unraced daughter of The Tetrarch and the best of her five foals was the Ribblesdale Stakes winner The Blue Boy – in the days when the race was not confined to fillies.

Eastlock had a dozen foals, all but one of which raced and eight of them won. Her grandson Icanopit was runner-up in the 1960 Mackeson Gold Cup at Cheltenham.

Flyingbolt was sold by Ryan through Martin Molony’s Rathmore Stud, still a formidable name today, and bought by George Ponsonby who passed him on to the Wilkinsons in whose colours he raced. He joined Tom Dreaper’s yard and made an early start to his racing career in the spring of his four-year-old year in a 12 furlong maiden, but was unplaced.

Next time out he tackled a bumper and started a winning sequence, adding a mile and a half maiden and a maiden hurdle before the end of the year. Top amateur and event rider Alan Lillingston rode him to his bumper success, while Liam McLoughlin was in the saddle for his maiden win on the flat. He then was partnered to all but his final victory by Pat Taaffe.

Speculation

Tom Dreaper kept Arkle and Flyingbolt apart, though at the time there was much speculation about whether they would take each other on. Over hurdles Flyingbolt was certainly Arkle’s superior, his victories including a division of the Gloucestershire Hurdle and the Scalp Hurdle at Leopardstown – nowadays the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and the Irish Champion Hurdle.

Incredibly, he started favourite for and finished third in the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, the day after he won the Two Mile Champion Chase at the same meeting!

Sent chasing he seemed to be invincible. Five victories in his first season included the Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham, now the Arkle, three chases at Leopardstown and the Easter Chase at Fairyhouse. On the latter occasion he was sent off at odds-on, carrying 12st 2lb and giving 33lbs and more to his opponents.

The 1965-66 season started, somewhat unusually, over hurdles at the Phoenix Park where he suffered a rare, at the time, defeat. It was back over fences then and he made six starts over the larger obstacles and won them all. Two wins came at Gowran Park, including the Thyestes Chase. In that race he won by a distance from the wonderful racemare Height O’Fashion and was conceding her 2st 4lb.

Having won the Two Mile Champion Chase in a canter and run third in the Champion Hurdle on successive days, Tom Dreaper then sent him for the three and a quarter mile Irish Grand National. He again beat Height O’Fashion, shouldering 12st 7lb to the mare’s 9st 9lb and beating her a couple of lengths. He is the only horse to carry that weight to victory in the race’s history. He went to grass that summer, unbeaten in 11 chases.

Sadly Flyingbolt contracted brucellosis and rest was the only cure. In normal circumstances it would also have led to the horse’s retirement. Flyingbolt rejoined Dreaper after a year but was clearly not the force he had been. His trainer wished the gelding to have an honourable retirement but Flyingbolt resurfaced after another lengthy break with Ken Oliver. Barry Brogan rode him to a solitary further success over fences at Haydock, though he did show glimpses of his previous ability.

He raced on, latterly for yet another trainer, Roddy Armytage, but as a 12-year-old his racing career came to a sad end when he fell for the only time in his career when tackling the Grand National fences in the Topham Trophy.

Retirement was spent mostly in the company of the 1968 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Fort Leney. Flyingbolt died at the great age of 24 in 1983.