A Cheltenham legend is baffled by balloons - but horses' enthusiasm for their second careers can't be deflated

For a horse who jumped two clear rounds in the Grand National, Balthazar King is having some unexpected trouble with a set of poles that stand only a little above knee height. It seems strange that a horse who once cleared the mighty Chair and Becher’s Brook should be stumped by an obstacle – just a stone’s throw away, in the Aintree International Equestrian Centre – measuring a mere 80cm, but he’s having none of it, ‘refusing’ in every sense of the word (four times in all, across two classes) and finally forcing his rider Michael Andrews to admit defeat.

“I think it was the balloons,” says Andrews, reflecting on the party atmosphere in the arena. “I’ve never seen so many balloons and clearly neither has he.”

Either way, BK (as he’s known by his nearest and dearest) will not be winning any rosettes this morning at the 2024 Retraining of Racehorses National Championships. He’s come all the way from Andover in Hampshire to blot his copybook in the brightest spotlight an ex-racehorse can compete under, but nobody is suggesting for one minute that the trip has been a failure.

“Not a success, perhaps, but not a failure at all,” insists his rider. “He's just a wily old former racehorse who has seen it and done it, who’d normally go through a brick wall for you, but he’s decided he doesn't like what he’s seen today, and that’s it.

“He's happy, he didn't hurt himself, and along the way he’s had a ton of Polos. So why not? He’ll go back to competing against ponies at local shows, although he can’t beat them because they can cut corners and outspeed him.”

It’s not a glory day for the horse who won 13 of his 28 chases, scoring twice over the cross-country fences at the Cheltenham Festival, winning six more times at the same track, and finished runner-up in the 2014 Grand National. The point of all this, though, is that he looks more like a glistening, well-muscled athlete than a doddery pensioner, yet he’s 20 years old.

He may have broken four ribs and punctured a lung in the 2015 National, but a lot of veterinary care and attention, and no little money, saw him through the trauma, and now, still owned in name by The Brushmakers – although passed on to Andrews after a second career in the hunting field with trainer Ralph Beckett’s wife Izzi – he’s enjoying his third career on his own terms.

In short, he’s become the poster boy for RoR, and while his best days may be behind him, he’s still a superstar in his own right and still has an impressive body and an active brain, which would keep most of us oldies very happy.

What, though, would Andrews say to those critics who feel old warhorses like him should be out in a field doing nothing in well-earned, gentle retirement?

“I’d say sit on one and then tell me that's what they need,” he insists. “He loves life and I think the second we stop with him is the second he'll stop himself.

“You might think he's fresh today, but that's just him, all the time. He wants to be out there, to get going. We'll go out for a hack on our own for three hours and he's constantly striding out, so keen to get on with every task you put in front of him.

“Of course there are some horses that won't jump a fence or go on a hack, and perhaps they do just need to go in a field, but if a horse is happy to come here, and people are happy to come and see him, why not put him on show and make him available.”

‘It’s a shop window to show how retired racehorses can live’

Lucinda Sims, an international showing judge who has also competed for Great Britain, couldn’t agree more. The woman who runs Harroway Retraining Stables – and is an avid supporter of National Racehorse Week – was instrumental in shaping Balthazar King’s path to RoR and will have no truck with the notion he’d be better off doing nothing.

“A lot of these horses retire at four or five and live until they're 20 or more, so it's right to retrain them to do something, and this is a lovely showcase for them.

“They can be a bit ‘hot’ but they're easy to train and they're the best horses in the world. There are so many things they can do, but they’ve been so well rugged, looked after and fed that a lot of them can't cope with just going in a field. I've had a lot through my hands that can't. They have to be looked after, otherwise it can become a welfare case.”

Gentleman At Arms was crowned the Tattersalls RoR Ridden Showing Supreme Champion Credit: Majestic Photography

The ones here this week are very much the tip of the iceberg, the best of the ones who have paid the small supplement to this free service, to become competition horses, some 300 in all across the six days; there are many more who don’t suit jumping or dressage, or who aren’t all that good at it, but they’re part of the RoR equation just as much. Success, it seems, is about far more than clear rounds.

“This competition is very popular,” says Becci Thompson, marketing and communications executive for RoR, “and while it’s not all that we do, if it can shine a light on RoR as a charity, all the other things we do – welfare in particular – that's great.

“It’s a shop window to show how retired racehorses can live, that they're in the right hands and well looked after, but RoR is also a safety net for those horses who aren't as fortunate as these, and people measure their own success in different ways, like the woman who wrote in to tell us about what she didn’t think was much of a success story at all with her ‘leisure’ horse.

“She said, ‘We've not achieved anything but this horse I got directly from a trainer is now listening to me, we have a bond and we're able to go out on hacks together. It took so much longer than I thought but look where we are now'. That's a success for me.'”

Rupert Arnold, a former RoR trustee and now stand-in MD, is busy trying to “keep up the momentum” of the organisation as it seeks the cash required to turn its latest three-year strategy, recently endorsed by the BHA, into a lasting reality.

“It's a critical time in terms of funding,” says the man who was for many years president of the National Trainers Federation.

Rupert Arnold: 'It's a critical time in terms of funding'

“It's about the industry as a whole, with all its stakeholders, committing to make sure that through their contributions and RoR's own investments and fund-raising efforts, we're a sustainable organisation that can deliver as the lead organisation for after-care, to prevent former racehorses from being neglected and poorly looked after.

“There are so many components in that, so much work to do, and it takes money, so we need the industry to step up a bit on what they already do.”

‘He’s a dude – you could put your granny on him’

Away from the hullabaloo of the arena – where a clear round is greeted by a surprisingly loud blast of music, and where a horse could quite easily develop a liking or loathing for tunes from Aerosmith to Creedence Clearwater Revival – I run into Kirsty Harkness, champion of what are sometimes known as the 'also-rans', the non-headline acts who make up a large and crucial part of the RoR family.

Some of these horses have simply satisfied the basic criterion of having been in training at some stage or another, but Harkness’s pride and joy is Carlitos Bay, 34 times a runner and once a winner in Ireland, in a Cork handicap hurdle in 2017, then pulled up twice when trained by Hugh Burns in Northumberland, at which point irony shaped his destiny.

“He ran 36 times,” explains Harkness of the horse now known as Conal, “then I got him in 2020, when he was nine, took him out hacking and kept him active, then put him out in the field, where he struck into himself and lacerated 50 per cent of his SDFT [superficial digital flexor tendon]. He had three months in the hospital and had to have fairly major grafts, so I'm lucky to have him, let alone ride him.”

Anybody believing either that being out in a field is necessarily safe for a horse, or that partners of former racehorses are selfish sorts, would do well to heed Harkness – and look at her vet’s bills. The pair have been through the mill together, but both of them surely believe it’s worth it.

“We're only starting to get going as a partnership this year because of the rehab he had to go through, but he's a very nice horse to look after and handle,” she says. “We do a bit of everything together, a bit of jumping, a bit of dressage, I take him to the beach for a gallop, but you could put your granny on him. He's the true definition of a dude.

“It's amazing how tolerant and willing former racehorses like him can be, and it makes me emotional.”

Kirsty Harkness on her pride and joy Carlitos BayCredit: Majestic Photography

At this point, Harkness wells up, the tears brimming in her eyes as she voices her appreciation for what Conal has given her. I’m not surprised: this is the kind of place where emotions sit very close to the surface and I’ve already seen a quivering lower lip or two.

Prize-money in these classes is between mediocre and inconsequential, but as Demi Harper-Adams hurtles past the chocolate fountain stall and the equine mix ‘n’ munch concession, hollering and cajoling the quirky Behomebymidnight to victory in the Class 9 80cm category, she celebrates as though she’s just won the Grand National itself.

Success, as I say, can be measured in many different ways.

‘People do it for the passion, not the money’

There are two sets of full-brothers competing under RoR rules at the moment, a couple of horses once owned by the King, as well as a retired broodmare who has taken up show jumping. The only stipulation is they have to have been in training at some point.

There’s a veterans’ class for over-15s, well-populated dressage classes currently going on in the middle of the racecourse, an ‘in-hand’ section for horses who can’t be ridden and people who can’t ride, and a star parade later in the week for horses who have won ten times or earned prize-money of over £100,000 (step forward Desert Encounter, ex David Simcock, on £1,199,876). Vancouverite (ex Charlie Appleby and John Ferguson, £281,116) has already won a class today.

I know these things because I’ve been chatting to Anne Parkinson, RoR’s sports training executive, who is the fount of all such knowledge and happy to share it with an appreciative public. She used to work for jumps legend Tony Dickinson, went into point-to-pointing and permit-holding, has long taken in and ridden former racehorses – and now she’s spreading the gospel.

Lalor in action back at Aintree seven years after winning a Grade 2 bumper at the trackCredit: Majestic Photography

“I've been involved since the first show in 2015,” she says, “when it was a two-day thing that's grown and grown and grown until it's the go-to event for everybody with a former racehorse. Some keep coming back year after year. In fact, we've had an email this morning from somebody wanting to book a stable for 2025.”

Parkinson is another horsey expert who is sceptical about the idea a sedentary lifestyle is anything like the best thing for a retired racer.

“It's a feelgood show and the horses love it,” she stresses. “Some of them are a bit buzzy to start with and they need time, but they love it. A lot of them like to be in work and the ones that don't will make it quite clear, and you can't make them do something they don't want to do.

“Of course, there’s nothing new about people buying these ultimate sport horses to show and event, but now we've created a situation where people are looking for the name, a type. We hear it all the time, ‘Have you got an RoR for sale?'"

This is what Parkinson calls a “feelgood show”, for horses, owners, families, friends and anybody with a heart. Retraining of Racehorses may have created a brand for itself, may have positioned itself well in the market, but the key isn’t cash.

“People do it for the passion, not for the money,” she says. On a day like this, it’s hard to argue otherwise. The winners are simply the horses enjoying their second lives and the people enjoying their horses.

Part four of Life After Racing, in which Andrew Dietz joins Goldream at a brain injury centre, will be online from 6pm on Wednesday. You can read parts one and two below:

'It's not just the social licence, it's morally the right thing to do' - how racing is raising its game for horses in retirement 

'He won us the Gold Cup - but we've got just as much of a thrill out of what he's achieved since he retired' 

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