Shergar, Shahrastani and three more Derby winners have passed through Sir Michael Stoute’s stable over the last 50 years, as well as the winners of more than 100 Group One races. But he takes scarcely a moment to consider the options when asked to name his most memorable success. “Blue Cashmere in the [1973] Ayr Gold Cup,” he said at his Newmarket stable last week. “He paid some bills.”
It is a typically Stoutian response, one that would be familiar to any reporter on the racing beat over the past five decades. As would his standard reaction to a group of journalists pointing microphones in his direction, which is akin to the way Bear Grylls might treat an angry rattlesnake: edge backwards ever-so-slowly for a minute or two, and then make a run for it.
