Heart-warming farewell to Beef Or Salmon
He may have only finished sixth in the race, but that was irrelevant to his connections, including owners Joe Craig and Dan McLernon, trainer Michael Hourigan and, perhaps most importantly, Michael’s daughter Kay who has been Beef Or Salmon’s devoted servant throughout his racing life.
Her tears as she led him in for the last time were palpable evidence of the collective relief of those associated with this amazing horse as he came through this final test of his career completely unscathed.
Joe Craig, normally a burley barrel of Northern racing enthusiasm, seemed a pale shadow of his normal self as he watched the race on the giant screen in the Punchestown parade ring yesterday and his reaction afterwards was one of absolute release.
The over-riding fear among all those connected to the horse was that somehow he might hurt himself on his last outing, but those fears came to nought despite one or two small mistakes during the 3m 1f race as he was given a cotton wool ride by Timmy Murphy, the jockey most closely associated with the horse during his illustrious career.
“The single most important thing was that Timmy got him home safe and sound and he will now go back to my daughter Geraldine’s place in Antrim where he will be ridden out by my grandson Conor Drain every day,” Craig revealed.
“Conor has represented Ireland as a junior show-jumper and maybe Beef Or Salmon will do a little show-jumping in time to come,” he added.
That would probably be entirely appropriate as the horse was bred by John Murphy in Upton, Co. Cork, out of a show jumping stallion called Cajetanto and was probably never intended as the top-class steeplechaser he turned out to be.
However, Craig maintained that the only thing everyone associated with the horse wanted yesterday was simply for him to come home in one piece so he can serve out a deserved retirement.
“He has been a fantastic servant for us and I doubt we’ll ever be lucky enough to have anything like him again. But that doesn’t mean we won’t stop looking,” the relieved owner joked.
As the winner of ten Grade One races during his stellar career, Beef Or Salmon won over €1m in prizemoney for his owners and, despite being written off by many pundits after a crashing fall in the 2003 Cheltenham Gold Cup, he came back from that to win many more top prizes, not least of which was the Hennessy Gold Cup at Leopardstown in February 2007 when, from a seemingly impossible position to head The Listener in the shadow of the winning post.
The crowd’s reaction that day raised the Leopardstown rafters and demonstrated the genuine affection this horse engendered among the racing public and it was with this deep warmth in mind that gave everyone connected with the horse a sense of trepidation prior to yesterday’s race.
Michael Hourigan had, after all, come in for a share of criticism when a past stable star, Doran’s Pride, was killed at Cheltenham in 2003 after returning to the track after retirement, and the last thing anyone wanted as a repeat of that dark day.
Visibly nervous during the preliminaries, Hourigan reckoned he was “a lot better now” after his charge passed the finishing post and he was a delighted participant in a special ceremony organised by Punchestown Racecourse in which both Beef Or Salmon and the recently retired Grand National winner Hedgehunter were garlanded for their achievements.
That Beef Or Salmon would have no truck with having his garland placed around his neck bothered Hourigan not one whit as he donned the rose-festooned shrubbery himself to make the photographers’ day.
“He’s been such a fantastic servant it is just a relief that he’s got home safely and with a few bob more prizemoney to send him on his way to retirement. He’s given us so much pleasure over the years, it is fantastic to see him make his retirement safe and sound.
“Having said that, we will miss him terribly at home – Kay especially, because she minded him like a baby – but we’ll just have to try and find another one like him, although I don’t know will that be possible.”
Famously named after the offerings on a hotel menu Hourigan encountered on his way home from racing one day, Beef Or Salmon is a unique beast in very many ways and without doubt a star of the modern era – particularly so for his defeats of such racing legends as Best Mate and War Of Attrition, as much as his Grade One record.
Had he managed to win yesterday he would have entered the record books as the only horse ever to have won 11 top line chases, but as things stand he joins Moscow Flyer in retirement as the joint holder of the record for Grade One wins.
But that was an irrelevancy yesterday as Beef Or Salmon walked away sound from a career which lit up the lives of so many racing fans.
