Jamie Lynch's Hennessy Preview: A character reference book

Tidal Bay winning at Sandown in April

Despite what the old curmudgeons tell you, there are still some characters in the game, and Jamie Lynch profiles one of them who's rolling back the years and aiming at the Hennessy.

'I have been commissioned to write an autobiography and I would be grateful to any of your readers who could tell me what I was doing between 1960 and 1974.' 

The brilliant Jeffrey Bernard, king of the racing writers, did manage to join some of the dots for a priceless collection of his columns entitled Low Life: A Kind of Autobiography, which is a sweet-scented nugget amid the manure pile of life stories available. You can usually tell how good, or more often how bad, an autobiography will be just from its title. 

There are the generic pretentious ones such as 'My Way' or 'Honest'; there are the cheesy ones like 'Making Waves' by David Hasselhoff or 'Don't Hassel The Hoff' by David Hasselhoff; there are the prosaic ones such as 'Hitting Back' (Andy Murray) or 'Losing My Virginity' (Richard Branson); and then there are those involving desperate puns, principally Shane Richie's 'Rags To Richie' or, as if Alan Titchmarsh wasn't unbearable enough already, and brace yourself for this, 'Trowel And Error'.

And every now and then there's one that hits the mark, like 'The Hardest (Working) Man In Showbusiness', documenting Ron Jeremy's very particular body of work. 

Racehorses compile their own biography, in its strictest sense of self-documentation and achievement, through their race-record. Their character is up to us to decipher, but some clearly have more of it than others, and, as such, some horses' full autobiographies would be more readable than others. 

I've managed to get my hands on one such manuscript, on the verge of being published, and, in terms of equine characters, it's a biggie, probably the biggest of all. 'High And Low Tidals: Racing Through My Mind' tells the story so far of Tidal Bay, ghost written by Brough Scott. Here's an excerpt - detailing the 2010 Betfair Chase - of a defining day for this flawed genius of a horse, one of the game's great thinkers: 

Daybreak. The sun, though brightening the sky, along with my mood, was unable to penetrate the winter blanket that Mother Nature had draped across the expectant Durham meadows that November night. 'It's very cold, isn't it?' I said to my next-stabledoor neighbour, Striking Ambition. 'I don't know, I can't feel it,' he replied. I knew it was a big day because Howard had on his best overcoat, the one with the velvet collar. He had schooled me well, but today I was going to be the one teaching a lesson.

Howard and I hadn't been getting on like before. It was a running battle; I disliked running and he liked a battle. I had given Howard and Graham everything, including winning days at Cheltenham and Aintree, and yet here I was, once their pride and joy, left feeling unappreciated by the weekly influx of new and expensive younger models they paraded in front of me at the yard. I needed to remind them of what I could still do, without rewarding them in full. It's a fine line between love and hate, between first and second, and I intended to tread it. As we left the stables, through the recently-replaced gates, I knew what I had to do.

Seeing Imperial Commander, the Gold Cup winner, in the paddock was the cherry on the revenge-chilled cake, because my plan needed a proper horse like him. I gave a wink to his rider, Paddy. We always got on well, Paddy and I. Kindred spirits. 'You're like two peas in an effing pod,' Howard used to say. Brian rode me these days, and I almost felt sorry for him as he climbed aboard, unaware that he'd have a harder race than me. Going through the slow motions is easy, but knowing when to isn't. That afternoon, at Haydock, I got it just right. As others began to flag, I put on the brakes and waited until Imperial and Paddy had a big enough lead before I gave the controls back to poor Brian. There was a point I thought I'd underdone it, and that I might even catch them, but the old head-on-one-side trick bought me a bit more time. A fast-finishing second, hot on the heels of Imperial Commander, was job done as far as I was concerned. 

On coming back in, Graham had on that nervous smile he wears. Howard just sneered. My message hadn't got through. I'm going to have to go through all this again, I thought. Again and again and again... 

The fact that Tidal Bay is such a character, and has seemed to hold a bit back in his time, in part explains why he's still got so much to offer at the age of almost 12, when he should, by rights, be past his sell-by date. But, gradually revitalised by Paul Nicholls, here Tidal Bay is, in better form and mood than for years, carrying top-weight in a Hennessy, with a big chance of winning it. 

Success in a Grade 3 Chase (likewise off top-weight) at Sandown at the end of last season and a Grade 2 Hurdle at Wetherby at the start of this one have suggested that we can now put the word 'reformed' before his steadfast signature of 'character'. Yes, he still has the Timeform squiggle, because there are just too many previous offences to be taken into account, and yes each one of his 18 rivals in the Hennessy is younger, with fewer miles on the clock, than him, but, as the handicap scale shows, he's the best horse in the race, and only three others are within a stone of him.

That's the other point: it's not a great Hennessy. Second-season chasers are the fad, understandably so after what Cue Card, Al Ferof and Silviniaco Conti, amongst others, have achieved in the last month or so, and clear-favourite Bobs Worth is tied in with two of those, 1-0 against Cue Card and 1-1 with Silviniaco Conti in match-ups last term prior to his RSA win at Cheltenham. Bobs Worth comes here cold, though, which may not be ideal for one who took time to warm to his jumping last season, and beyond him there are no obvious up-and-comers for Tidal Bay to worry about. Not that much worries him by now, I wouldn't think. 

It's ironic that Tidal Bay has ended up with Nicholls, who tried to buy him over six years ago at the sale Graham Wylie forked out 300,000 for him, a sum that Tidal Bay has repaid twice over in win-and-place prize money. It's also perhaps ironic that Tidal Bay will take to the same course, on the same day, for the same team, as the mighty Big Buck's. I say that because, for me, there probably isn't much, besides the odd chromosome, between Tidal Bay and Big Buck's. 

Both are cut from the same-styled cloth, both have outstanding ability, but one is a giver while the other is self-centred, or at least he was. Instead of being a great character, Tidal Bay could have been simply a great, but he may still succeed where Big Buck's failed in winning a Hennessy, making for a dramatic epilogue to a fascinating autobiography.     

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