Dispute and drama – the great Sussex epic that had everything

Name Kings LakeYear of birth 1978
Pedigree Nijinsky (sire) – Fish Bar (dam)
Trainer Vincent O’Brien
Jockey Pat Eddery
Owner Mme J.P. Binet
Before the duel Won Irish 2,000 Guineas from To-Agori-Mou before finishing second to the same horse in the St James’s Palace Stakes
After the duel Beaten in Prix Jacques le Marois before winning the Joe McGrath Stakes (now Irish Champion Stakes). Retired after finishing 11^th in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe

Name To-Agori-MouYear of birth 1978
Pedigree Tudor Melody (sire) – Sarah Van Fleet (dam)
Trainer Guy Harwood
Jockey Greville Starkey
Owner Andry Muinos
Before the duel Won 2,000 Guineas, runner-up to Kings Lake in Irish 2,000 Guineas, beat Kings Lake in St James’s Palace Stakes
After the duel Beaten in Prix Jacques le Marois, won Waterford Crystal Mile, won Queen Elizabeth II Stakes; ran four times without winning in the US at four

Racecourse rivalries are intense affairs in which no quarter is asked or given. They are even more pronounced when fuelled by controversy, that was the backdrop when Kings Lake squared up to To-Agori-Mou in the 1981 Sussex Stakes. It was their third meeting inside ten weeks.

The race was run on the day the Prince of Wales married Lady Diana Spencer, and would prove every bit as incendiary as the royal marriage. Yet despite Greville Starkey aboard To-Agori-Mou having outmanoeuvred Pat Eddery for the length of the Goodwood straight, it was Kings Lake who finished the stronger to claim what were hotly contested spoils.

The two colts had traded narrow verdicts in the Irish 2,000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes. That alone would have ensured a keenly anticipated rematch on the Sussex Downs, but there was far more to each race than the bare result.

Kings Lake resisted To-Agori-Mou by a neck at the Curragh, after which the stewards threw out Kings Lake for persistently interfering with his opponent throughout the final furlong.

O’Brien could scarcely believe it. As his late wife Jacqueline recounted in her biography of the great trainer: “After he heard the verdict Vincent went out on to the road behind the stands and walked up and down, agitated, before returning to the stewards’ room to do what he’d never done before: he appealed against the verdict. He was extremely upset.”

The appeal was heard in Dublin two weeks later, when a battery of lawyers on both sides argued this way and that. And after a hearing lasting seven hours the Turf Club stewards reinstated the original result: Kings Lake would keep the race. The racing press in Britain was all but unanimous in condemning the verdict.

Whatever the rights and wrongs, sentiment always comes to the fore when legal opinion influences the outcome of a sporting event. It was bound to promote ill-feeling and this added plenty of spice to the colts’ second joust in the St James Palace Stakes, in which Starkey rode To-Agori-Mou more prominently.

Kings Lake duly came to challenge but To-Agori-Mou held him by a neck in a barnstorming finish. Starkey had barely crossed the line before he turned sideways in the saddle and flicked a V-sign at Eddery.

Eddery’s take on it was diplomatic. He said Starkey had “raised two fingers in what may have been a victory sign to the crowd or may have been something more unpleasant directed at me”. On that throbbing day at Royal Ascot, Eddery was alone in finding ambiguity in Starkey’s intentions.

A tale of two jockeys

And so to Goodwood, where To-Agori-Mou was favoured at 6-5 over Kings Lake at 9-4. Even Northjet’s late withdrawal could not diminish the field’s quality. It featured a Poule d’Essai des Pouliches winner in In Fijar; a Middle Park winner in Mattaboy, who’d also run To-Agori-Mou to a neck in the 2,000 Guineas; and the Queen Anne Stakes winner Belmont Bay in addition to Pattern winners Dalsaan and Last Fandango.

Last Fandango was also trained by O’Brien. He ran in Robert Sangster’s silks but Sangster also had a sizeable share in Kings Lake, who ran in the name of Mme Jean-Pierre Binet. That detail was not lost on Starkey.

Although Last Fandango liked to race prominently it was Lester Piggott, aboard the Daniel Wildenstein-owned Belmont Bay, who set quick fractions from the gates. Eddery settled Kings Lake back in fourth place, with To-Agori-Mou stationed on his tail, and the field turned for home with little change to the established order.

At that stage Starkey had Eddery where he wanted him. Kings Lake raced close to the far rail, and when he lugged out slightly on turning for home, losing perhaps half a length, Starkey urged To-Agori-Mou up to join him on the outer. On the pair raced until they caught up with Belmont Bay and Last Fandango, who by now had formed a two-horse shield against the far rail in their own private duel for the lead.

Eddery was suddenly trapped. Starkey had ridden him into a dead-end and kept him imprisoned until Brian Rouse, aboard Last Fandango, must have heard Eddery’s desperate pleas for help approaching the two-furlong pole.

Sensing his stablemate’s dire predicament, Rouse tried to ease Last Fandango away from the rail, in the process making room for Eddery to challenge between him and Belmont Bay, who was running on manfully under Piggott’s forceful urgings.

Starkey saw this at once. In the blink of an eye he angled To-Agori-Mou into Last Fandango. The two colts only made brief contact, yet while To-Agori-Mou, a strapping great colt, never wavered stride for a second, Last Fandango cannoned away to his right and back towards Belmont Bay. Starkey had shut off the gap almost before it had opened. Eddery was once again thrust into darkness.

This allowed Starkey to gain first run on Eddery, as he had at Royal Ascot. And when To-Agori-Mou swept into the lead approaching the final furlong he seemed sure to post a resounding victory, with Starkey perhaps showboating from the saddle in celebration of his tactical masterclass.

Closing remorselessly

However, Eddery persisted. He eventually found room between Belmont Bay and Last Fandango inside the final furlong and was finally in the clear, albeit surely too late. But the bay beneath him was up for the fight. As Starkey’s body-language regressed from upright confidence to a state of crouched anxiety, Kings Lake closed remorselessly, his every stride drawing him closer and closer to Tio-Agori-Mou.

The photo-finish wasn’t called until most of the field had returned to unsaddle, although those on hand didn’t require the judge’s verdict. That was one reason why the roar was muted when Kings Lake’s number was called. The other was due to the fact that Guy Harwood, who trained To-Agori-Mou, was based just down the road at Pulborough.

Harwood enjoyed tremendous success at Goodwood, which was very much his local racecourse. And Kings Lake had trampled all over what was envisaged by To-Agori-Mou’s many supporters as a homecoming coronation.

To-Agori-Mou had the chance to square up his personal rivalry with Kings Lake when the two collided for a fourth time in the Prix Jacques le Marois. To-Agori-Mou won that argument, this time by a nose, but he finished five lengths adrift of Northjet, who was thus crowned as Europe’s champion at the season’s close.

Nevertheless, the preamble governing Kings Lake’s duel with To-Agori-Mou at Goodwood made that encounter as memorable as the finish it provoked. Starkey outrode Eddery – but Kings Lake beat To-Agori-Mou.