Harry Redknapp is holding court, telling one of those stories that ends in gales of laughter, when the subject changes to football.
We know how he likened The Jukebox Man, his runner in the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup, to Neil Ruddock and Stuart Pearce earlier this winter as ‘he’d kick you if he could’, but what if a rival owner approached and asked about a high-profile transfer? What sort of fee would this mighty beast command?
‘There isn’t one,’ comes the reply, firmly. He is standing in the kitchen of his trainer Ben Pauling’s stable and has put down a cup of coffee to emphasise his point. ‘I’ve had an awful lot of horses over the years, still got an awful lot.
‘But this one has taken us to places you only dream about as a racehorse owner. He’s my dream; he’s not for sale and he wouldn’t be for sale at any price. I’m not saying we’re going to win the Gold Cup but we’ve got a serious horse, it’s an open race and I think we’ve got as good a chance as anything.’
He would be the first to recognise, however, that The Jukebox Man is vying for favouritism in the most prestigious race of them all because of the work that is being done on the glorious Naunton Downs by Pauling and his team.
Pauling, who had a pressure-releasing winner at the Festival with the JP McManus-owned Meetmebythesea, has nursed The Jukebox Man from an injury that decimated his campaign last year to the point where he could potentially conquer Cheltenham.
Harry Redknapp has refused to entertain the idea of selling Gold Cup hopeful The Jukebox Man
Ben Jones is the jockey who describes riding The Jukebox Man as like being on ‘a spaceship’
Just as influential, though, is Ollie Wardle, the lad who rides him out every day and spends so much time talking about The Jukebox Man that he has left locals in the nearby Hollow Bottom pub pleading with him to change the subject.
Racing is in Wardle’s blood and both Redknapp and Pauling confide that they would be lost without his input into a campaign that scaled an incredible peak at Kempton on Boxing Day, when The Jukebox Man snatched the Ladbrokes King George.
‘The King George was the best day of my life,’ Wardle recalls. ‘It was the longest 10 months of my life when he was injured. I thought about him every day. I was manifesting his rehabilitation for him to get better. I just wanted him to show everyone what he could do. The win was for everyone.’
It is a significant point he makes. Cheltenham, as always, has been marvellous but there has not been a genuine people’s horse this year, one the nation can get behind. Right on cue, The Jukebox Man is appearing with a backstory that could have been put together by a scriptwriter.
‘This is more than just racing,’ Wardle emphasises. ‘Harry is an amazing man. You can see him over there now — look how accessible he is. He’s a huge force in the football world but he is a massive supporter of racing and always has been. He deserves this as much as the boss.’
But what about Wardle, who smiles as he relays what a typical week looks like for The Jukebox Man. An hour earlier, Redknapp has just watched him scamper up the gallop that runs from Pauling’s yard and, strikingly, splits the fairways of Naunton Downs, one of the few 13-hole courses in the country.
‘Monday is one canter,’ he begins. ‘Tuesday is a work morning, so we do three or four canters at a quicker pace. Wednesday is one canter, Thursday and Friday, a lot of our horses tended to go on the round gallop but he had that injury last year so he never goes on the round gallop.
‘Saturday he does quicker work. I only inherited two years ago. Ben just said to me in the car one day: ‘Right, you can ride Jukebox this year’. And that was it. A lad called Osian Radford had been riding him, I was just the lucky one after he moved on.’
The Jukebox Man has returned from an injury that decimated his campaign last year to the point where he could potentially conquer Cheltenham
Luck does not come into it; Wardle has done the hard yards, once working for another Cheltenham Festival trainer in Alan King. The hours are long, the conditions are often challenging but to be around one such as The Jukebox Man is what it is all about.
‘I tried different jobs,’ he says. ‘A few years ago, I had left the industry to try something different. I worked in an office and I lasted four days. I walked out. I was a recruitment consultant! On day four, I ruined a sales pitch to someone on the phone and I got told off.
‘So I got out of my chair, handed back my headset. I said to them: ‘Thank you very much, don’t pay me, I’m out of here’. That was it. I wouldn’t swap this for anything else.’
Nor would Redknapp or Pauling or Ben Jones, the jockey who describes riding The Jukebox Man as being on ‘a spaceship’, such is his ability to float over obstacles. Wardle knows his pal has a reputation for being moody and visitors are advised, repeatedly, to approach his box with care.
But, as Redknapp would concur, the good ones — footballers, actors, businesspeople — are all different when it comes to their personalities. It is what separates them from the crowd and that is what this team hope The Jukebox Man will do on Friday afternoon. ‘He’s quite feisty in his box but once he is out of his stable, he’s a gentleman,’ Wardle begin. ‘He’s so docile, a lovely horse to ride. You just have to ignore him in his stable.
‘I will never forget before he got his injury, we were on the round gallop here. Usually we do three or four laps; it’s quite a deep surface and very testing.
‘The first time I went round on him, I turned to the boss and said: ‘I’ve never sat on anything like this in my life’. It was just pure power. He’s all control, pure strength.
‘It feels like if you point him at a wall, he would run through it for you. He would try his best to do it. I often wonder what he looks like when he is working but the feel he gives you is just incredible. It’s effortless power.’
And that is why Redknapp would never sell him.
