14th January 2009 - MOTIVATOR AT STUD - Brough Scott
(Racing Post)

By the end he’d had enough of us. Since seven o’clock we had touched his nose, stroked his neck and patted his quarters. We had watched him groomed, admired him exercise, seen him buck and heard the most intimate details of both his past injury and his unbelievably active sex life. But then Motivator reared up, forelegs threatening, before swinging down and giving three massive kicks to remind you of the power that took his Derby field apart. This was dismissal.

Motivator is a stallion now, a true king of the herd with a 130 mares “served” in each of the last two years and another 130 lined up for him in the new covering season which starts in the middle of next month. But in 2005 he was a three year old on a Classic mission and from January to October, from box to gallops to racetrack, Edward Whitaker and I had logged his journey. We saw him in the snows of winter, the high Epsom glory of midsummer, and the slightly anteclimactic closure of Arc de Triomphe defeat. The last memory was of sharing the plane trip back from Longchamp. Monday was our chance to catch up.

The Royal Stud at Sandringham is a truly regal setting at the centre of the 24,000 acre estate which runs in from The Wash just north of Kings Lynn. A huge weather bleached statue of Persimmon, the royal Derby winner of 1896, looms proudly out of the early morning darkness. We find Motivator in Persimmon’s box complete with traditional Norfolk reed lining in the roof, modern infra red lighting overhead, crisp fresh wood shavings underfoot and a smart yellow fluorescent jacket for exercise which would have given Edwardians the vapours.

He has the same quick, kind eye and white-starred forehead, but it’s the neck which is the first big difference. Where before you ran your hand down the hard fighter’s muscle from behind the ears to the top of the withers, there is now the big, chunky, sultan’s crest which has made the thoroughbred stallion the ultimate symbol of potency down the ages. Motivator is still an athlete but the gleaming skin shines out of a 16 hand 1½ inch frame which pulls 550 kilos on the weighbridge compared to some 485 on Derby Day and a battered 430 kilos when he completed his second injury ordeal.

We all remember the first one. It came on Racing Post Trophy day 2005. Motivator cracked his pelvis whilst working brilliantly in preparation for a final hurrah in the Breeders Cup at Belmont. After nearly two months in his box he recovered quickly enough to start his new job on time in February and had enthusiastically seen to 75 mares (65 of whose progeny are two year olds this season) when disaster struck.

“I was leading him down hill on normal exercise,” says stallion man David Cartledge, “and it was as if someone had pulled his hind legs with a rope as they slipped right underneath him. When he got back he seemed all right and in fact he covered another 5 mares over the next few days and got them all in foal. But he seemed to be taking things a bit gingerly and the more the vets explored the more they worried. To avoid any more damage he was tied up with a 24 hour watch to prevent him ever lying down. 16 weeks he stood up from April to August. It was pitiful, but he got through it. Just look at him now.”

It is hard to think of a situation that might be more likely to turn a horse’s temperament sour. But just as Motivator, whilst racing, was a perfect mix of fizzing adrenalin at exercise and sleeping docility in the stable, so in this time of crisis his native intelligence told him not to panic even in one or two awful moments when his legs seemed to be quite literally buckling under the strain. Stallions are naturally much more active and tactile with their teeth but Motivator will still allow you to give a respectful pat on the nose without insisting on removing at least a couple of fingers in payment.

“He is very good,” adds David, “you can see how fresh he can still be out walking but there is no malice in him. And with his mares he is very quick and never savage with them.” That last remark hangs in the air because amongst the horses in David’s 38 years at Sandringham was the 1978 Derby winner Shirley Heights who came with a serious health warning. “He would suddenly flip and go for you,” says David, “and sometimes he would seize his mares and tear them to the ground – for some reason particularly with greys. Sometimes I could not sleep at night.”

When Motivator’s powerful frame is sponged off after his hour’s exercise the left hand side of his quarters shows traces of the damage done and when he is turned out next to fellow stallion Royal Applause, one of the two paddocks behind the handsome red brick walls of Edward VII fruit garden there is a hint of irregularity at the trot . But to watch him canter and plunge and buck is to see something of appropriate royal worth aptly caught by the golden globe Jubilee commemoration built beside the paddocks in honour of the stud owner who has personally followed Motivator’s every move.

“Her Majesty is absolutely involved in all that we do,” says Joe Grimwade who for 11 detail-watching years has managed the 30 mare operation whose produce this year include Free Agent and Four Winds, two three year old colts who just might deliver the crowning sporting glory of winning the Derby for The Queen. “Of course Motivator is owned by a syndicate of which we are only a part, but as we stand the horse, we are very close to him and The Queen does have a very nice Motivator two year old colt called Tactician.”

Stud people have to be optimists or be put on suicide watch. So the stories over the past three years of Motivator’s outstanding foals, marvellous yearlings or talented two year olds should not necessarily be given any more or any less credence than any of the other four legged potentates whose connections are begging you to spend £10,000 (Motivator’s current fee) for the privilege of his attentions. But there are plenty of facts amongst the wishful thinking as Joe outlines the quality of the brood mare band on whose progeny so much depends. Grimwade was brought up on a struggling stud in the West Country whose inmates included a stallion who refused to have anything to do with copulation until someone sprinkled the sort of scent you only get in a whore house. “It was a long way from this,” Joe had said in his office pointing to a Motivator poster proclaiming – “is this the next Galileo.”

David Cartledge has been around too. He is 60 now and, despite an operation to match his name, is in the shape of someone ten years younger. He has seen most things in stud life at Sandringham including Sir Winston Churchill’s famous grey Colonist II who was actually rather than just metaphorically a “pigeon catcher”. “He would suddenly swoop out his neck and ‘whoosh’ he had one in his teeth.” But as a stallion man David knows the truth of the game – that it is the talents of the offspring which decide the father’s fate.

As we leave the paddock he looks across with an affection tempered by reality. “We have given him the best chance,” says David. “Now he has to deliver.” With 60 two year olds, and more than a hundred other children on the hoof Motivator has a heck of a better shot than most of us.