Horse Trader: Robert Sangster and the Rise and Fall of the Sport of Kings. Nick Robinson
of the barns and their expensive occupants was, however, short lived. In the middle of the sales that evening, the tannoy system suddenly paged him: ‘Mr Nick Robinson of the Newmarket Bloodstock Agency to the office, please.’
Nick, who was becoming increasingly underwhelmed by the entire exercise, duly presented himself at the office where he was confronted by one Monsieur Olivier Victor Thomas of the French sales company, Office du Pur Sang. This particular Frenchman was not merely angry. He was shaking with rage.
‘You!’ he yelled. ‘You represent l’organisation des criminels.’
‘Who me?’ said Nick.
‘Newmarket Bloodstock! Ha! I spit on Newmarket Bloodstock!’
‘Oh Christ,’ said Nick, and added that he would prefer to discuss anything of this rather disagreeable nature somewhere less proximate to the officials of Fasig Tipton. They retreated to a little office above the open-air bar where most of the English bloodstock agents had congregated. ‘Newmarket Bloodstock is a disgrace,’ bawled the Frenchman.
‘Sssshhhhhhh,’ said Nick, acutely conscious that all eyes were now upturned from the bar below as he and Monsieur Thomas gave a passable imitation of Romeo and Juliet having their first row. ‘Monsieur Robinson!’ thundered the Frenchman. ‘We do not like people who do not pay for their horses. Your organization is a disgrace and you will be blackballed from French racing. Not one of your bills from the August Sale at Deauville has been paid.’
Down below a few sniggers had turned into full-scale laughter. The agents and trainers were falling about at the plight of the rookie bloodstock agency chairman, even though they all knew the debts were obviously Galpin’s not Nick’s, nor, clearly, Robert’s. The grandson of Sir Foster Robinson sighed the sigh of the profoundly depressed and headed for the second time that day to a telephone to call Robert. Then he realized it was three o’clock in the morning in Liverpool, and instead booked the call from his hotel for three a.m. Miami time. Robert took the news with immense irritation. ‘Jesus Christ’ was his precise phrase. Nick told him glumly that he knew Galpin was a bloody fool all along. But once more Robert agreed to pay the debt and to call the Paris office of Pur Sang to guarantee the credit of Newmarket Bloodstock.
When the chairman arrived home he called a meeting in Newmarket with Galpin and informed him that these kind of amateur dramatics were going to have to stop. Galpin pleaded to be allowed to attend the sales in Sydney where he believed he could make the kind of buys that could get the agency back on an even keel. Robert weighed up the cost and decided he either had to let Galpin try again or close the place down. Once again he was tolerant and agreed that Galpin could go as long as Nick was informed as to his precise activities in the sales ring. On that Nick was crystal clear.
‘If you sell all of the Australian horses we have in training you may buy one,’ said Nick. ‘That’s all. Not two, not three, just one.’
With that Galpin set off for the Land Down Under. All was calm for three days. Then one evening Nick was still poring over the office accounts at 10 p.m. when the telex machine in the corner began to rattle. ‘Guess who?’ sighed Nick to himself and, walking over to the noisy modern communicator, read to his utter horror the following words: ‘From Richard Galpin. This is a list of the yearlings I have purchased at Sydney today … Lot 21 … Lot 57 … Lot 102 …’ There were about ten purchases in all, but to Nick they looked like five hundred. He simply could not believe it. He let out a yell of anger that might almost have been heard in Sydney, grabbed the phone, called Robert, and then called Galpin instructing him to return home forthwith, if not slightly sooner.
This really was the end. Nick called Lester Piggott’s wife Susan, who was fast making a name for herself as an extremely efficient bloodstock agent, and offered her Galpin’s job. Robert, appalled at this opening venture as the owner of a Newmarket bloodstock agency, called a meeting at his London office. Present were Galpin, his wife Vivien, Derek Lucie-Smith, the company’s accountant, a director Keith Tamlin, Sangster and Robinson. Galpin opened with a rambling account of the great opportunities in Australian bloodstock. Robert, furious at the way his money was pouring in, and out, of this enterprise, demanded to know why Galpin had not carried out the very clear instructions given to him. Galpin rambled on some more, finally suggesting, with a marketing flourish, that Robert invest in six massive billboards to be erected at regular ten-mile intervals all along the London-Newmarket road. ‘That will increase our business,’ he declared.
Robert’s eyes rolled heavenward and his right foot shot out and slammed Nick in the shins. ‘For Christ’s sake, put the boot in, old friend,’ he groaned. ‘I think this man is crazy.’
Nick did his best to force Galpin to resign, but to no avail. Then Galpin went berserk, shouting and screaming, waving his arms, threatening Nick, threatening Robert with law suits. Nick was pretty angry himself, and his shin still hurt. But Robert went ice-cold silent and he stared hard into the eyes of Richard Galpin, who continued to rant and rave. There was no one to inform him that blind fury was not a good way to subdue R. Sangster and, in the regrettable absence of Tiny Davies, he kept yelling. When he finally subsided, Robert told him quietly: ‘Don’t shout at me again, Richard. You’re fired.’
The terms of his departure took many weeks to be settled and in the end he agreed to buy out Robert on a pay-back guarantee of £100,000 to cover the debts Robert had paid for him and the shares. It would take several years, but Robert was happy to cut loose from the agency. As they left the final meeting together Nick said quietly, ‘I never thought I’d see you that tough and that determined. But I shouldn’t hold your breath for your money.’
Robert grinned and said, ‘Don’t worry about Galpin. I know he’s a bit unusual, but there’s a touch of genius about the man in selecting horses. Remember he bought Solo Stream for me. And I have a lot of patience. He won’t owe me £100,000 for ever. That I can promise you.’
Richard Galpin never paid any of the money back, but in 1979 he had a two-year-old colt in training with Ron Sheather named Flash N Thunder. It won its maiden by four lengths and then finished a close second in the Prix Eclipse at St Cloud to earn a nine-stone rating in the Free Handicap. Flash N Thunder was thus valued at around £100,000 – and from out of the blue Robert claimed the colt from Galpin in settlement of the old debt. He relocated this fast three-year-old in Lambourn with Barry Hills who sent him out to win the Duke of York Stakes at the York May meeting. He was placed at both Royal Ascot and Goodwood, and Robert finally got his money in full when Flash N Thunder was sold to stand as a stallion in Greece. Eight years later the Newmarket Bloodstock Agency Ltd was declared insolvent in the Royal Courts of Justice in London, and compulsorily wound up.
With the Agency now out of the way, Robert began to concentrate more on the purchase of yearlings. His relationship with Eric Cousins was now on the wane, despite Eric training for him a first Royal Ascot winner with Cade’s County in the Norfolk Stakes in 1972. Eric’s principal talent and interest was the improvement of handicap-class horses from other trainers. At this he was supreme, but it was a policy guaranteed to keep him permanently in Division Two, where Robert no longer wanted to reside. And when Cellini began to please Vincent O’Brien in his early work at Ballydoyle, the die was cast for Robert. He was definitely going to stay in the Irish camp and moreover he was going to the Keeneland July Sales with his Irish friends in the summer of 1973 – and he was going to get involved in something big.
In the spring of the year, Secretariat did what no American racehorse had done for twenty-five years, winning the Triple Crown – the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont – with three track-record-breaking performances, the latter by an unprecedented thirty-one lengths. In one week Secretariat appeared on the front cover of Time Magazine, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated. He even made the centrefold in Vogue. No one could remember such adulation ever being lavished upon a racehorse – not for Man O’ War, not for Equipoise, not for Citation, not for Native Dancer, nor for Kelso. Not even for Secretariat’s own father Bold Ruler. With the row over Watergate threatening to dislodge President Nixon, it was as if this nearly unbeatable big chestnut colt had come along to provide a hero when everyone felt they needed one. All over New York there were