In horse racing parlance, what is a ticket?
Obviously, the word ‘ticket’, in the sense of a piece of paper or cardboard that serves as evidence that the holder is entitled to a certain right, can apply to various items inside and outside the world of horse racing. Indeed, readers of a certain age may nostalgically recall the distinctive, brightly-coloured betting tickets that were handed out by bookmakers in the days before the on-course market became a shadow of its former self.
However, to a racehorse trainer, the word ‘ticket’ has a specific meaning, above and beyond anything to do with betting. A ‘ticket’ is, in fact, a request from a trainer for a horse to be granted special dispensation, by the starter, to be loaded into the starting stalls as late as possible and, preferably, last. Such requests are typically made for horses who are habitually problematic at the start but, once a trainer has picked up three tickets for the same horse, in the interests of safety, the horse must take, and pass, an official stalls test before it is allowed to run again.
A stalls test typically, but not always, takes place at a racecourse, half an hour or so before the first race of the day, and requires a horse to enter the starting stalls with the assistance of a maximum of five stalls handlers – one in front and no more than four behind – and remain there, calm and relaxed, for sixty seconds or more. Failure to do so means that the horse must take the test again, but cannot do so for two weeks; if it fails the test again, it cannot take another test, or race, for six months. A routine blood or urine sample is taken after a stalls test to ensure that the horse has not been adminstered any prohibited substances, such as sedatives, to allow it to pass the test.
The two-mile hurdling championship, the Champion Hurdle, is the first of four ‘feature’ races run at the Cheltenham Festival, the others being the Queen Mother Champion Chase, the Stayers’ Hurdle and last, but by no means least, the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Upper Lambourn trainer Nicky Henderson already has nine winners to his name, including four of the last ten, and looks to have bright prospects of reaching double-figures with the hitherto unbeaten Constitution Hill.
The Great Jubilee Handicap, as it was originally known, was inugurated in 1887 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, who acceded to the throne on June 20, 1837. Run over a mile at Kempton Park, which opened in 1878, as one of the first purpose-built, enclosed racecourses in the country, the Great Jubilee Handicap was, in its heyday, a highly competitive, attractive betting heat, attracting widespread ante-post interest. Indeed, ‘The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News’ reported that the 1904 renewal, which was won for the second year running by Ypsilanti, who was conceding no less than 52lb to runner-up Cerisier, ‘was worth going miles to see’.
In short, Desert Orchid ran his last race on December 26, 1991, in the King George VI Chase at Kempton Park. By then a 12-year-old, ‘Dessie’ was attempting to win the Boxing Day showpiece for the fifth time in six years, having prevailed in 1986, 1988, 1989 and 1990 and finished second, albeit at a respectful distance of 15 lengths, behind surprise winner Nupsala. However, on his final foray at the Sunbury-on-Thames course, despite being sent off 4-1 joint third favourite of the eight runners, behind Remittance Man and Sabin Du Loir, the iconic grey never really looked like winning and had already weakened out of contention when falling at the third-last fence.