Bit-part player who became the brightest Christmas star

Not many racehorses get to have their own fan club. They either have to be entertainingly bad, like Quixall Crossett, or very, very good, like California Chrome; the best of them, the ones with the handsome looks and the uncanny ability to engage each member of every adoring throng, can earn a following like an equine film star.

Desert Orchid ended his career with a fan club that was as huge as it was enthralled, but in 1986 he was no kind of celebrity. He was good, but he was no more memorable than a lot of other good horses, and his commendable efforts as a hurdler (a Tolworth and a Kingwell) and novice chaser (third in the Arkle) had yet to persuade the public to pay for the signed photo and the lapel badge.

Evidence of his lack of star quality was provided by the commentary on that year’s King George VI Chase, in which the flying grey was described by Graham Goode as “Combs Ditch’s stable companion Desert Orchid”; to be fair, the sentence went on to include the soon-to-be-familiar words “six to eight lengths clear”, but the horse who would become Dessie was at this stage no more than a 16-1 sidekick in the big Christmas feature.