The dead cert: The most dangerous label to put upon any horse
Constitution Hill may be a once-in-a-lifetime talent but racing offers no guarantees as the hot favourite takes an unbeaten record to the Cheltenham Festival on Tuesday
ONE of the earliest recorded uses of the phrase “a racing certainty” appears in the Monthly Magazine in October 1837, in an article recalling the St Leger of 1834. Plenipotentiary – or Plenipo to his fans – was the odds-on favourite, having won an unusually strong running of the Derby at Epsom earlier in the year.
“Plenipo, after beating the best lot of horses probably ever seen in the south of England, was sent to Doncaster,” it recounts. “If ever there was a racing certainty, it was that, barring accidents, he must win the Leger.”
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