‘I didn't have any aims of grandeur’ - David Elsworth comes in from the cold as a breeder

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On this occasion, Tom Peacock speaks to the legendary David Elsworth about his bloodstock exploits – subscribers can get more great insight every Monday to Friday.

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When DRC Elsworth recently reappeared in the racing results alongside the name of a horse called Cold Henry, some with very long memories might have wondered if their eyes were deceiving them.

Very appropriately for Britain's greatest dual-purpose trainer, the Sixties Icon gelding he bred seven years ago and had for one start before retiring in 2021, has now achieved victories on the Flat and over hurdles.

Cold Henry has become a bit of a Catterick specialist for his trainer Sara Ender and saw out the three and a quarter miles of the Happy 106th Birthday Frank Buttery Handicap Hurdle at the beginning of the month, adding to a brace of two-mile handicaps at the North Yorkshire track on the Flat in 2022.

It was nearly 60 years ago now but David Elsworth did have an involvement with another horse called Cold Henry and he stuck in his mind.

"I used to ride a bit in my youth and I rode Cold Henry, who was by Pampered King, if I remember correctly," says Elsworth, who does indeed remember correctly. The horse was bred back in 1963, by Major Lionel Holliday's useful sire.

"He was only a fun horse. I lived down near the New Forest and he was trained on a permit by a couple of foresters. In those days you didn't have to have a full licence and one could only train one's own horses.

"I wasn't what you'd call a high-profile jockey, to say the least, and I used to help people out. I know I went and rode him out a few times, things like that, but we won a selling hurdle or two."

It was the journalist Jonathan Powell who first spotted the Cold Henry link, reckoning that the original one had landed a gamble at Wye. Elsworth won on the horse on March 16, 1970, just a few years before the rural Kent racecourse closed.

"I actually rode a double one day there, although he wasn't one of them then," Elsworth remembers.

“You used to go by train in those days as the station was near the racecourse. It was another lifetime.

"I only ever rode two doubles in my life and one was for Toby Balding at Wye. I'd ride out for Toby and there was often a meeting on a Monday, for some reason. Toby trained at Weyhill in Hampshire, we'd drive into the station at Andover, get on a train to Waterloo, get off and go over to London Bridge and get on a train to Wye.

"In those days British Rail did catering. We'd have breakfast going up on the train - if one could afford to eat because you might be doing light! When racing was over, we'd get the train back and we'd have supper on it."

It sounds so much more civilised than the lot of today's jockeys, slogging around the motorways. That return journey, with the bright lights of the capital calling, must have led to a few adventures.

"Life's always a lot more fun when you're younger, you know," Elsworth twinkles. "I'm 86 now and I can't get up to the mischief I used to when I was younger - nobody can  - but it was good fun."

You suspect Elsworth is still capable of giving it a go. On the day of this conversation he was awaiting a visit from his old mucker Mick Channon and sharing a glass or two seemed likely to feature in their plans.

Cold Henry mark two was sired by Sixties Icon, who Channon helped make a great success of at Norman Court Stud, in the pair's old stomping ground on the Hampshire and Wiltshire border.

He's out of Flashyfrances, an unraced Franklins Gardens mare and a half-sister of Hi Humpfree, who Elsworth won a bumper with at Newbury. 

While Elsworth is not exactly downplaying a riding career which yielded 31 jumps winners over the course of 15 years, his time spent as a trainer is quite the opposite.

Despite humble beginnings, he was champion of the National Hunt within a decade of sending out runners, excelling not only with the household name grey Desert Orchid but the likes of Grand National winner Rhyme N Reason and two-mile ace Barnbrook Again.

David Elsworth with long-time ally Jeff SmithCredit: Edward Whitaker

On the Flat, he achieved most of his biggest victories with fillies, including In The Groove in the Irish 1,000 Guineas and other heritage Group 1s as well as his final big star, Arabian Queen, the 2015 Juddmonte International winner.

This, however, did not translate into finding many decent mares of his own.

"I trained the granddam White Flash and owned the mother but my history as a breeder wouldn't be very high profile," he says.

"I had the odd mare when I was at Egerton House up here in Newmarket and I've got one turned out up in Yorkshire who I'm about to get in, she's a similar story and she's by the same sire. 

"Mick and I are good friends, so I used to send them to him. It was a fun thing rather than a commercial enterprise, I didn't have any aims of grandeur or anything like that.

"When you've got an old mare what are you going to do with her? They're like family, you breed from them and see what happens. I just played around with them, to give a mare a job."

The Cold Henry he bred, who was too green to do himself much justice on one start over seven furlongs at two, is clearly progressing with age and distance.

"When I bred the horse I didn't know what to call him," Elsworth explains. "He threw some curves and I gave him away to these people. They've done very well with him, which is a bit of fun for them.

"He stays well and is rather like the original Cold Henry I think; he's a fun horse in a very low grade."

Elsworth is certainly a mellower figure than in his training days, when he could hold a journalist to the flames for ill-timed phone calls or silly questions. 

Such encounters were easily forgiven and forgotten. He remains a true one-off, not only illuminating company but a hero to more people than he probably realises, even including some of those he might have occasionally savaged.

He's been quite touched that a few people have been in contact about this recent win and is amused, too, when it's put to him that Cold Henry might well be among his finest achievements as both a rider and a breeder. 

"I think you could count how many winners I've bred on your one hand, with an amputation or two probably as well," he says. "It wouldn't be many."

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State Of Wyoming14:48 Navan

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Good Morning Bloodstock is our unmissable email newsletter. Leading bloodstock journalist Martin Stevens provides his take and insight on the biggest stories every morning from Monday to Friday.