Racing: The mongrel they can't help but love

By MICHELE HEWITSON

Bob Autridge says you have to have a party before you have the party. The logic's simple. If you win, you get to have another really big piss-up. If you lose, you've already had your party.

So, on the night before the big one, the Grand National Steeplechase, the trainer from Matamata kicks off his party in the bar at the Racecourse Hotel in Riccarton.

Autridge is a pretty laid-back sort of bloke who whistles as he walks into a stables and begins most sentences with either "Oh, ho, yes," or "Oh, ho, no". When his horse wins his whole face lights up. When he loses he shrugs and has another beer.

The business card he hands over is one of those pub cards you collect stamps on in order to win a free Vodka Mudshake. He's stamped his name and phone number on the back.

He doesn't need a card. Everyone knows Bob. And everyone knows Cuchulainn, the horse he's running in the National. Almost everyone calls this horse Paddy, his stable name.

Paddy is the horse no one could train, the horse who had run out of chances. Who went on to win last year's National, and the Koral, the steeplechase the week before the big one.

Last month, he won the Great Northern hurdles at Ellerslie. The weekend before this year's National he ran third in the Koral.

These races, and many others from years ago, will be re-lived tonight - the night before the big one.

This is what the National is all about: the making of legends on the course and, for ever after, in the bar.

Pete Wilson and Baggy Hillis trot in. They are legends in the jumping world, and Autridge's great mates. They are ex-jockeys with twinkling eyes and ruddy faces from spending a lot of time in the fresh air and a lot of time in the bar. And, boy, can they spin a yarn or two about the jumps.

The party moves across the road to the race course where drinks are a dollar, and by 7pm Cuchulainn's owner, Graeme Robb, is happily pickled. He's clutching a beer in fingers tattooed with "A. T. E." and he's talking about Autridge. "He's a true blue trooper. He's got a heart the size of a ... " He simply can't think of anything that could conceivably have a heart as big as Bob's.

Lynn Robb is not drinking. It's her birthday tomorrow. She's wondering what her present will be. She'd love the horse to win, and she'd like diamonds. She fears she might get another horse.

By 7.30pm Wilson and Hillis are telling Grand National yarns. They've both won it. How many times they won it grows in the telling as the drinks go down. Autridge laughs and says, "Oh, ho, yes. They re-run those races a few times."

The next day, in another bar at the race course, Hillis is asking: "Did I give you some of that horse last night?" Wilson picked up a grey filly at the sales the previous day. It cost him $12,000 and Hillis spent the night giving away free shares, mostly to women. At the National, the jumping folk come as much for the grand blarney as for the race.

In the Phar Lap room, Autridge is watching the TV screens. His hands are jammed into the pockets of his long, black leather trenchcoat. His face, usually beaming, is unreadable. It is 12.30pm, two hours and five minutes out from the Grand National.

Bushland, one of Bob's, is racing at Waikato. He's put on a tenner each way. It gives him something else to think about other than Race 7, the National.

The National is 5600m and 21 fences; a hard race for horses - and for trainers if they are given to nerves.

Autridge is doing it hard. He always does. His wife Gloria won't come to the races with him. There's no fun in "following me around all day. I can't keep still".

Watching the TV, he is still for the time it takes his horse to run in the third. The punters behind him have money on Bushland. "It's in front."

"Hey, how did that damn thing get in front of it?"

"That's the trainer? He's not cheering very loud."

Cheering very loud is not Autridge's way. When the horse comes in fourth, literally by a nose in a photo finish, he just grins and says, "That's steeplechasing for you".

He makes his way through the crowds. They shake his hand, or touch his shoulder and say, "Good luck, Bob".

It's 1.10pm in the downstairs bar when he says to Graeme Robb, "What'll you have to drink?"

Robb says: "Oh no. Not until 2.30pm. Go on then."

Autridge says: "Beer or rum?"

"Rum," says Robb.

By 2.30pm Lynn Robb is inside watching the TV screens. Graeme Robb is sitting in the stands. Autridge is standing. They never sit together. This is the bit you do alone.

Cuchulainn is not the TAB favourite. But in Autridge's heart - and in the hearts of the Robbs, of Jean Schluter, the horse's first owner, of Finbarr Leahy, the jockey, and Steve Braybrook who rides him every morning at the track at Matamata and who loves him more than anything in the world - Cuchulainn is the favourite. No contest.

At 2.35pm Cuchulainn is first out of the starting gates. A punter in the stands says: "He's trying his heart out." He crosses the finish line third.

Robb, rivulets of sweat pouring off his palms, says: "He's done us proud."

In the birdcage, Cuchulainn tries to kick jockey Leahy and handler Sarah Reid.

Before the race Leahy had said: "I've ridden a lot of great horses. He's probably the best. He won't take any crap. He's got that attitude. He knows he's good. But I don't want to put him on a pedestal - he'd kick it over."

But anyone would have to concede that he hasn't done too badly at all for a horse whose luck should have run out on Valentine's Day, 2000.

A week later Cuchulainn will be in the running again, for Champion Jumper of the Year at an awards ceremony in Auckland.

"If he wins," says Autridge, "it certainly would be the end of a good little story."

Here is how a good little story begins. In the stables on the day of a National is a man in a suit who looks slightly out of place among the stable hands smoking roll-your-owns, the jockeys in their silks, the scattering of ladies in hats and heels.

This is former Labour MP Peter Neilson, who has come to look at the foal he bred from a $700 mare.

When he left politics and wanted to go horse breeding his wife told him he could spend $1000. You might pay $500 to rescue a horse from the knacker's yard, so you can see what he thought his chances of producing a champion would be.

He has since "spent a lot more money on horses and never had another as good".

Neilson calls Cuchulainn's subsequent career "a culmination of errors".

Neilson and Jean Schluter are watching handler Reid walk the horse before the race. All the other horses have been taken to their stalls, but Cuchulainn has yet to calm down.

He's been playing up and has been sweating under his cover. For the only time today Autridge will show his nerves. "Get that off him," he snaps at Reid.

"He gets up to all sorts of mischief," says Autridge. "The older he gets the more he fights."

He kicked Autridge once. But only once.

He dumped Jean Schluter - who bought him from Neilson as a foal for $1700 - more than once. He did other things. He escaped from his paddock at night, ended up in a ditch wrapped in barbed wire.

He broke through a concrete-post fence and cut himself up. He'd hoon around his paddock in the wet, not be able to stop, and slide through electric fences.

"We had a lot of sagas with him," says Schluter dryly.

Then, on Valentine's Day 2000, Paddy bucked, Schluter fell off and broke her leg. Her husband Michael said if she didn't get rid of the horse, he'd shoot him. "He ... said that it was him or the horse, basically."

Schluter tried him out with a couple of trainers but they "just got sick of him, I think".

She had no idea what to do with him. Too strong-willed to be given away as a hack, she's sure his next stop would have been the petfood factory. That would have broken her heart because, despite all of those sagas, despite that "he was a difficult horse", she says "there's something about him you can't help but love".

Autridge didn't particularly want another horse when he was asked to have a look at him, but, he says now, he had the truck so he thought he might as well take him home. He said, "Put him in the paddock over the weekend and we'll have a look at him on the Monday morning".

The stablehands, Steve Braybrook and Fred Osbourn, looked at him as though he was mad. Then Braybrook, like Schluter before him, fell in love with the rogue horse.

In the exercise yard at Riccarton, Neilson says to Schluter: "Come to have a look at your first love, have you Jean?"

She says, "You know, he was an adventure, really. I always said if he was a human he would have been a bikie. It's just brilliant that he's found the right person, isn't it?"

She means Autridge, but he says it's down to Braybrook. Braybrook says it's down to Autridge.

Sometimes people ask Autridge how you train a great steeplechaser and he laughs and says, "Oh, ho. Now, that's a hard one."

The funny thing is, when you train a jumper you seldom jump them. "We already knew he could jump," says Autridge. He sent him out training on the road beside the railway track.

"I thought it would change everything for him and it certainly worked a miracle. He's a real looker and it just gave him plenty to look at, to take his mind off work."

Autridge is a great one for looking. He doesn't fiddle-faddle about weighing horses obsessively. He just goes down to the paddock and has a good, long look. On the day before the National, at the stables at Riccarton, everyone was saying: "He's looking good Bob." What this means is that the horse has "a look in his eye". You can't train for it, or put it there. It's an arcane thing, as is much in the horse business.

Autridge can't explain what it is about this particular horse. "I don't know what it is. You fall in love."

Hardly anyone wants to train steeplechasers. Twenty, or even 10 years ago the jumps were popular. It takes time and patience and money to make a jumper. It's not the flashy end of the industry, that's the gallops, where the big money is.

Cuchulainn has won over $100,000 in stake money but the trainer and jockey get 10 per cent, and it costs $1800 a month to train him. Then there are float charges and vet's bills. He'll win a further $6000 at the National. "That's the drinks bill," says Lynn Robb.

The common wisdom is that investing in a jumper is like investing in forestry. You have to wait for eight to 10 years for your return. And, unlike a steeplechaser, it doesn't matter if a tree breaks a limb. At the end of every race Autridge breathes a sigh of relief and says, "Well, he came home safely. That's the main thing."

There are fancy stables in Matamata, where Autridge has lived all his life. There are fancy houses too, built by the people who have made money from the gee-gees.

Autridge has trained some winners in his time. But as for making money: "Well, we've had a lot of fun out of it. A lot of fun. It's not about the money. You can't get sentimental about money."

At Autridge's stables on a morning so icy that at 7.30am you have to pour hot water over your windscreen, work starts at 4.30am. It is two weeks before the National and tomorrow Cuchulainn and his paddock mate, Mr Barrymore, will be loaded into a float to make the long trip to Christchurch.

Paddy can't travel without Barrymore. He gets lonely. He plays up. "Oh, ho, yes he does," says Autridge. Then, fondly, "He's a S. H. I. T."

There is nothing fancy about these stables, but they are pretty, painted turquoise and pink ("Terracotta," grins Autridge) and neat as a new pin.

Steve Braybrook has already ridden Cuchulainn - he calls him Dago because he's "a bastard" - and the other horses in work. He and Fred Osbourn work side by side, every day, without much talking.

Osbourn is 67. He and Autridge go way back. He used to work for Autridge's dad, Billy the Blacksmith, who made Osbourn's 21st birthday cake. "I said 'you can't make a cake.' But he did. He cooked it in the coal range. It was a fruit cake. It was a beautiful cake."

Osbourn reckons he's "back here to die". He can't stay away from the horses. None of them can. "They get to you that way," says Autridge.

Osbourn's favourite is Miss Higgins: "She's my girl." Braybrook's is Cuchulainn. Osbourn says about Braybrook's horse: "He's a freak of nature. He's 12 but he thinks he's two." There is rivalry.

When Cuchulainn won the Great Northern Hurdles at Ellerslie in July, Osbourn travelled with the horse. Braybrook didn't say much but he owns to missing the "bastard" when he goes away. "Oh, I do and when I don't ride him I get really pissed off. I go all dog."

When Dago is led on to the float the next morning, Braybrook watches the door close then wanders off on his own. He sits for a long while on an upturned bucket, staring at his boots, before he gets up and continues mucking out the stalls in silence. For the rest of the morning he scarcely talks.

But he cheers up later on and says: "Come over to my place and I'll show you my pictures."

Braybrook lives in the old house at the Matamata race track. He starts work at 4.30am, and, at the other end of the day, is usually at Lucky's Bar, which is owned by the boss' son, Toby, around half past four.

Home is like the stables: spick and span. He likes to keep it tidy.

The pictures on his walls are of horses. There is the occasional jockey on a horse, but otherwise there are no people in his pictures. His favourite is one of Cuchulainn crossing a finishing line. His photo albums are full of snapshots of landscapes, empty except for cattle or horses or dogs. There are a few family pictures. Braybrook is one of 10 siblings. "I'm not close to them. I've always been a loner." He was once married; he's not now: "I'm married to Lion Red."

He used to share the house with Osbourn. Now Osbourn lives in a pensioner flat five minutes from the stables and Braybrook lives alone, except for the grey cat which adopted him. He claims not to want it. "I used to be keen on cats but I've gone off them." This is because of his hips. They've been wonky since the last time Paddy threw him and now, when the cat gets under his feet, he finds it tricky to side-step around it. He once had his hips manipulated by the man who comes to the stables to massage the horses.

According to Autridge, Braybrook was right as rain for ages after that.

Now Braybrook thinks if he could only have one of those magnetic underlays to go on his mattress he'd get some relief. "They're supposed to be good for bones and mine are stuffed."

His bones have taken a few knocks over the years. He started out as an apprentice jockey at 15, but "I didn't like the boss". He went rodeo-riding, then shepherding, here and in Aussie. He was dragged by a horse once and thought he'd die. "I've seen the man in the white coat. You know what that means? They say it's God."

He says of Cuchulainn, "Don't call him Paddy, his name's Dago". And, with real tenderness: "Oh, I love him."

If Dago wins the Grand National - and he thinks he will - he'd like the owners to buy him one of those underlays.

The china cabinet is a shrine of sorts to Dago. There is a bronze of a horse leaping a fence, a jockey on its back. "I pretend that's Cuchulainn." He doesn't pretend he's the jockey. "I wish."

He worries about what will happen to the horse when he retires. Who'd want a horse like that, the mongrel, the love of Braybrook's life? He's too strong-willed. He's like Braybrook.

But the horse will have to be retired soon. He carried a big handicap weight, 68kg, in the National. That's the penalty of success. A younger horse could carry it, but at 12, Cuchulainn is getting on.

You think of the horse retired, then you think of Braybrook retired. The idea of Paddy, the equine equivalent of the extreme long-distance runner, in a paddock grazing contentedly is as hard to picture as the idea of Braybrook in a retirement home, sipping tea, making small talk about family.

He'll be the one talking about a great horse, one of the greatest, called Dago.

But that's in the future. For now, the good little story ends here.

Lynn Robb got diamonds, as desired, for her birthday present. She promised Steve Braybrook his magnetic underlay.

Bob Autridge was doing some hard thinking about whether to retire Cuchulainn at the end of this year's jumping season. He thought the time might have come.

Cuchulainn, aka Paddy, aka Dago, won the Mercedes Champion Jumper of the Year at the awards ceremony last night. And everybody had a very big party.