I FOUND Banswara at Goffs in November 1975 out of a horses-in-training sale when she was a three-year-old.

I had a friend in one of the big training yards in France and he used to tip me off to the likely raceable French horses. Wildensteins had about eight horses in the sale; we went through them and he said there was only one possibility.

She had never run but she had been overnight favourite for a very strong two-year-old race at Longchamp. Something had gone wrong and she could not run again that season.

Crooked leg

I went to see her with my father. She had a very crooked leg so I left her for the moment, saying no. She came into the ring and no bid. She went to the minimum £50 and I was just going to raise my hand when my father came along and said, “you couldn’t buy legs like that”.

I did not bid but something told me to go ahead. I went outside and bid them £100 but they were insulted and said: “You want to send her to the factory for meat.” I swore that I wanted to race her but they wouldn’t listen.

I rang the stud a fortnight later and bid £300 and was told “Okay, but without the passport.”

I told them I must have the passport! We settled on £400 with the passport but I was told I had to collect her the following day with cash. She arrived and I rode her the next day. She trotted in the field but found it very difficult to trot with her strange leg. I never rode her trotting again – she either walked or galloped.

I tried walking her on the road as we always did in those days and that didn’t work either so I only went in fields after that. She was about 15hh but with the longest stride I had ever come across.

We ran our first race in Leopardstown in January 1976 – she had had hardly a gallop as the ground had been frosty most of the month. She finished second to Relight. It was a very hot winners’ bumper and the winner was sold for big money to England.

Mick O’Toole

We won at Thurles in February in a four-year-old bumper as she liked at 2/1 on in a canter. Mick O’Toole met me in the changing room afterwards: “You think you’re f***ing Lester Piggott, looking around all the time, with my money on you.”

We went to the Punchestown Festival, to the big winners’ bumper, which she won easily, beating the money-on favourite The Bo Weevil who had finished a short-head behind Monksfield in the Triumph Hurdle the year before.

Snowstorm

She later ran in the Irish Champion Hurdle and finished fifth after a terrible journey to Leopardstown with snow along the way. On the way home there was a snowstorm in Enniscorthy and she had to be stabled in the Springs’ eventing yard from Saturday until Tuesday.

They were very kind and let her off in a huge indoor school every day, so she could exercise herself.

I collected her on Tuesday afternoon as I had declared her for the feature two and a half-mile W.T. O’Grady Hurdle at Thurles on Thursday, so she only had time for a canter on the Wednesday morning.

I had the further complication of being called for jury service on the Wednesday at 10am, a big embezzlement case which I hoped wouldn’t go on until Thursday as I would then miss the race at 3pm.

The case started promptly and the jury appointed me as their foreman which suited me well as I could hurry the jury along.

The case was a large Dublin builders’ provider against the manufacturers of kitchen units. The units gave trouble and the Dublin firm sent the kitchen makers a small cheque of £600 (not the £6,600 the makers were due) until they fixed the units.

Somewhere on the way to the bank, the amount on the cheque was changed from £600 to £6,600. The builders’ providers brought in the Crime Squad and the embezzlement case came up in front of a judge four years later in Waterford Court. The kitchens had since been fixed and the makers had their money.

Judge’s first case

The case went on all day Wednesday and into Thursday morning getting dangerously close to race time. At about noon, the judge, on his first case, summed up and said that we, the jury, might think that things were alright but that this was case of law and not morality and we must, if we found the kitchen makers had changed the cheque amount, find them guilty of embezzlement which was a very serious crime.

I did not think it sensible to find someone guilty when he employed five or six people in a small country town.

It was now after 12.30pm and I needed to be away before 1.30pm to get to Thurles. We, the jury, retired to our room with the jury result form.

I sat down and wrote a large “not guilty” on the form in front of the other jurors. I then asked each one if they agreed. They all suggested there were a lot of inaccuracies in the evidence of the defendants all agreed “not guilty”, except for one.

It was getting very close to 1pm and we would have had to go back after lunch if we could not get the last juror to agree.

Luckily, she was in a hurry to get home to cook lunch for herself and her husband and so she reluctantly agreed with the rest of us.

Unanimous

I got my unanimous result at three minutes to 1pm and rushed out with the result to the judge who nearly fell off his bench – but there was nothing he could do. The defendants looked equally surprised. The jury was thanked and then released.

I jumped into the car and went off to Thurles, where I arrived in time to lean over the rails for the start of the race to give the jockey his instructions.

Banswara won the big hurdle which made the whole thing worthwhile – court and all – and keeping the mare in an indoor school for three days before a race.

The following night I happened to meet the court clerk. He told me the judge said he was very upset about the way his first case had gone, he couldn’t understand it, had he made a mistake?

The court clerk said: “You made one very big mistake.” “Please tell me,” the judge said and the clerk replied: “You didn’t back the horse!”

Banswara went on to win a Denny Havasnack Race at Tralee and five hurdle races, including a Richard Power at Tramore.

Perhaps her greatest win was a Waterford Crystal Chase at Tramore, including a prize of an 86-piece set of Waterford Glass. It was her first and only chase she ran in and it is a listed chase.

As she was just over 15hh high, it was a great feat and her jockey Paddy Kiely - one of the bravest you could meet - said she should not try that again as she gave him many frights in the race!