Imperial Commander: 'It was an intense time. Everything was pinned on him'

Fans' Favourites is a weekly feature in the Racing Post Weekender in which we talk to those closest to racing's most popular horses and find out why they tug on our heartstrings. This week's subject: Imperial Commander

It takes two to tango and the late noughties were about a pair of staying chasers with few peers in the sport.

Not only were Kauto Star and Denman supremely talented, they were adored by racing fans, often split like football supporters in a two-team city, as jumping enjoyed a rock and roll era.

Kauto Star won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2007, only for Denman to power his way to victory 12 months later.

His Paul Nicholls-trained stablemate snatched the crown back in 2009 and the following year had his chance for a third triumph.

He was probably ahead of Denman in the likelihood stakes, but the Rafael Nadal to Kauto Star’s Roger Federer was never going to go down easily.

The problem for them in the 2010 Gold Cup was the emergence of Imperial Commander, perhaps the Novak Djokovic of the scenario.

“It was a strange situation because we were ignored for a while,” says Ian Robinson, who put together the Our Friends In The North partnership that owned the Nigel Twiston-Davies-trained Imperial Commander.

“It didn’t particularly worry me and I remember Johnny Francome came and rode Commander at Nigel’s for a TV thing and listening to Francome talk about him made me think he had a real chance. I doubled my bet on that basis!”

Imperial Commander

Born 2001
Died 2017
Starts 22
Wins 8
Biggest wins 2010 Cheltenham Gold Cup, 2010 Betfair Chase, 2009 Ryanair Chase, 2008 Paddy Power Gold Cup
Prize-money £707,073
Racing Post Rating 182

These days, Twiston-Davies, who wears his heart on his sleeve, suggests the lack of limelight didn’t bother him, although you sense at the time it did.

After all, he had a crack chaser who relished the Cheltenham hill and had pushed Kauto Star all the way in that season’s Betfair Chase at Haydock, losing out by the narrowest of noses.

“He was sent to us by Ian, who had formed the syndicate, and he was a lovely horse, a great big type,” Twiston-Davies recalls of the son of Flemensfirth.

“He won a bumper first time out at Cheltenham and we got very excited. He ran well over hurdles but was always going to be a chaser.”

That was Robinson’s impression too.

“We lost a very good horse called Bobby Dazzler in a stable accident and I was thinking of packing the game in because that really hurt,” he says.

“These horses give you a lot and when you lose one, particularly in those circumstances, it’s tough to swallow.

“I’d always go to Ireland to look at potential store horses with Kevin Ross, our bloodstock agent, and had two days of not much interest. We went up to Wilson Dennison’s yard at Loughanmore and his trainer Colin McKeever owned Imperial Commander. It’s a lovely setting and Commander was on antibiotics, so he wasn’t doing much, but I watched him charge round and jump these fences coming out of the mist and he was awesome.

“We bought him privately for £30,000 and then he won his point with Kevin’s mother Eyssen training him. We wouldn’t put our horses to the sword and went there about 85 per cent fit to see what we’d got.

“He won the second division of his race ten seconds quicker than the first and it was a strong point-to-point meeting, so you think he might be special, but we didn’t really think about it until we got to the pub.

“Kevin’s phone started ringing and several large offers started coming in. He was probably more special than we thought.”

Imperial Commander and Paddy Brennan lead Denman over the last in the 2010 Cheltenham Gold CupCredit: Mark Cranham (racingpost.com/photos)

Twiston-Davies was soon to welcome the gelding to his Gloucestershire yard – his association with Robinson dating back to when the owner would cast admiring glances in the trainer’s direction.

“Nigel trained Bobby Dazzler and I first got to know him because my local track was Carlisle and he used to send his horses up there,” he explains.

“They were the fittest and toughest horses you ever saw. The biggest bet I had in my life was Bindaree in a novice hurdle at Carlisle, where he was incredible.”

Imperial Commander gave first notice of his talent to the wider world when winning a bumper at Cheltenham in October 2006.

“He sustained a cut to his knee, so didn’t go straight into training and had a break, but that probably helped him as he was never the soundest,” Robinson says.

“He had bone-remodelling problems and nursing him back into training each season was a tough task, which Nigel and Kevin Ross deserve immense credit for.

“We always knew he was a chaser. He didn’t know how to handle hurdles. He’d run towards them and then kind of back off and look at them again; he didn’t know whether to jump them or step over them or what. When he saw a fence he was exceptional, though.”

The switch to chasing for the 2007-08 campaign resulted in two impressive wins at Cheltenham before a laboured fourth at the track on the final start of his novice season.

“He won his first two over fences, but then went wrong on his next start and damaged something,” Twiston-Davies remembers. “It wasn’t that serious, but he missed the rest of his novice chase campaign, which we felt left him incredibly well handicapped for the Paddy Power.”

Robinson shared that view, so the first target of the following autumn was never in doubt.

“He hurt his back in that third novice chase, but the gift that kept on giving was the mark he got for the Paddy Power Gold Cup the following season,” he says. “He’d won two novice chases at Cheltenham and, although he limped home when stepped up to three miles, the fact he crossed the line meant he’d had three runs and had to be given a mark, and that mark looked an absolute gift.”

In that Paddy Power, the then seven-year-old, competing off a rating of just 139, tore away from the Queen’s Barbers Shop.

Nigel Twiston-Davies is in celebratory mood outside The Hollow Bottom after Imperial Commander's finest hourCredit: Edward Whitaker

Impressed, and perhaps regretting his act of leniency, the handicapper raised Imperial Commander, by now the regular mount of Paddy Brennan, to 156.

The King George VI Chase was next but, like many others, he was no match for Kauto Star around Kempton.

“I don’t know whether he didn’t go right-handed or didn’t like Kempton or the timing of the race wasn’t right,” Robinson says.

“We never really worked it out, but the place he loved was Cheltenham. It was his home turf and he jumped it better than most and had that little kick at the bottom of the hill that made him difficult to peg back. He had the heart of a lion.”

A 72-length sixth in the King George was quickly forgotten when Imperial Commander bounced back in the Ryanair Chase at the 2009 Cheltenham Festival.

Robinson marvels at the job Twiston-Davies and head lad Richard ‘Sparky’ Bevis did in the interim, but the trainer plays down working wonders.

“He disappointed in the King George but bounced back to win the Ryanair, although that wasn’t a challenge at all,” says the 64-year-old.

“Nothing went wrong at Kempton – it just wasn’t his track and we all know it was Kauto’s. He was in good form heading to the Ryanair, but one of my great regrets is talking ourselves out of the Gold Cup that year.

“Kauto and Denman were meant to be so far above him and so good. They were winning everything and the easier alternative was the Ryanair, which was great to win, but now – looking back – I wish we’d gone for the Gold Cup. We still won a good race, though.”

Imperial Commander, agonisingly, was soon to come close to winning another good race, the aforementioned Betfair Chase when he was involved in a tremendous duel with Kauto Star, who just prevailed.

“The Betfair Chase was heartbreaking and even looking at the picture today we still think we’ve won it, but there you go,” Twiston-Davies says.

The defeat fuelled Robinson’s optimism, though.

Kauto Star's owner Clive Smith (left) and Imperial Commander's owner Ian Robinson of the Our Friends In The North syndicate examine the photo-finish print after the 2009 Betfair ChaseCredit: John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)

“We’d come very close at Haydock in the Betfair Chase and losing narrowly wasn’t really the point,” he says. “The point was our guy against the best chaser we’ve ever seen and making a good fist of it.”

Even more so because Imperial Commander’s build-up to that seasonal debut was far from smooth.

“In my penny-pinching ways I’d arranged for Commander to go back to Nigel’s from Kevin Ross’s in Ireland after the summer on a truck with a filly,” says Robinson. “She was diagnosed with strangles on arrival, so Nigel had to stick him in a stable for three weeks; we knew there was a lot more in the tank from Haydock.”

That wasn’t evident at Kempton in another heavy reverse in the King George, but Cheltenham favoured him and confidence grew as the Gold Cup approached.

“That’s probably the best training performance I’ve ever seen,” purrs Robinson.

“That’s down to Nigel and Sparky, who rode him every day. I saw him a week before the Gold Cup and he looked a ball of muscle; I’d never seen a horse in physical condition like it. The sun filtered off his coat and he was in a very happy place.

“I really fancied him to win the Gold Cup. Looking back, that was lunacy because we were taking on Kauto Star and Denman – the best chaser I’ve ever seen in my life and another not far behind. Cheltenham was Commander’s course, though, and it was the perfect race.”

It was the perfect day for Twiston-Davies, who also won the Grand Annual with Pigeon Island, while son Sam partnered Baby Run to victory in the Foxhunter.

“All the build-up was about Kauto and Denman, but it didn’t miff me no-one was talking about Commander,” Twiston-Davies says of a race in which Kauto Star fell and Denman was seven lengths inferior to his stable star.

“We had a nice horse with a good chance, and he proved what we thought.

Imperial Commander is the toast of the party at The Hollow Bottom after his Gold Cup winCredit: Edward Whitaker

"That Gold Cup was great to win. It proved we had the best horse in the country, and he was just lovely in every way.

“He’s right up there with the best I’ve trained, while that Gold Cup day was special – one of the finest I’ve had on a racecourse – because Pigeon Island won the Grand Annual and Baby Run won the Foxhunter for Sam.

“Commander went on to win the Betfair Chase the following autumn, but the Gold Cup – beating Denman and Kauto Star – was his pinnacle and an afternoon I’ll never forget.”

It is also etched in the memory of Robinson, who says: “My dad, Andrew, loved horses and the Gold Cup, so it was always my ambition to win it from the day I owned horses. It was an incredible day. You have those ambitions and dream, but never believe. It was very special. Dad died when I was 14 but until then, every Saturday, racing was part of the agenda, so it was always in the blood and it’s an obsession that continues to this day – I can’t stop buying horses.

“It was an intense time. Everything was pinned on him. He was great for the yard and the owners, and it was the journey of a lifetime. There’ll never be another Imperial Commander. It doesn’t matter how many more I buy, nothing will ever replace him.

“We’ve got special memories and it’s strange in life how people find reasons not to get together or they can’t make it, but when you’ve a horse like him everyone is there.”

Read more from our Fans' Favourites series:

Thomas Crapper: 'They bought him for £8,000 and he won them nearly £140,000'

Comply Or Die: 'You couldn't believe how well it went – it was surreal'

Silviniaco Conti: 'His jumping never let him down – he was absolutely class'

Secretariat: 'He was something else – I'm still waiting to see one as good'

Lady Bowthorpe: 'Even on Newmarket Heath, people know who she is'

Quiet Reflection: 'It poured down but we didn't care as she destroyed them'

Alpha Delphini: 'I asked them to stick me 50 quid each-way on that morning

Canford Cliffs: 'He was one of the best racehorses in the last 50 years'

Taghrooda: 'She turned towards the stands and everyone was going absolutely mad'

Kingman: 'There are some in the camp who think he'd have beaten Frankel'

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