THE history of the Irish at Cheltenham is a rich one, reaching back through the generations. Countless stories abound of legendary feats, both on and off the hallowed Cotswolds’ turf. The heroes and villains, horses and humans and triumphs and tragedies of the past hundred years each have their own story to tell.
Cheltenham Festival Centenary 1911 -2011 An Irish Tribute, the latest book by noted racing author and historian Guy St. John Williams collates the stories of the exploits of the Irish at Cheltenham over the last hundred years. The author Guy Williams explains, “It’s a potted history of 100 years of the Irish at the Cheltenham Festival since it settled permanently at its present site. The book is written with a distinctly Irish slant and settles on the Irish horses and humans.”
This latest tome is the tenth racing book that Williams has worked on and he has brought to bear his experiences in the racing world on it. Through his career as a racing columnist and historian he acquired the store of knowledge and the stories that became the foundation of his latest book.
“I would have accumulated a lot of the stuff through the years and it was there if I knew where to look. I felt with the passage of time there were a lot of scattered references to the Irish at Cheltenham and that with the anniversary it was timely to try and pull the whole thing together and have it all there in one book.”
Over the course of the last one hundred years there have been many thousands of races run and a myriad of stories to tell. Naturally only a selection of the stories that illustrate the history of the Irish in Cheltenham could find their way into the book. “To tell them all would take many volumes so I cherry picked the stories and tried to get a mix of serious and light between the covers,” Guy adds.
His own personal Cheltenham highlight encompasses the quintessential nature of the Irish relationship with Cheltenham and with racing itself. Arkle, the greatest steeplechaser of all time, provides Guy Williams with his most enduring memory of the Festival.
“The outstanding memory of Cheltenham for me is when Arkle and Mill House met in the Gold Cup of 1964. It was the biggest and most hyped steeplechase. It was Ireland and England coming head to head to definitively sort out who was the greatest.”
After studying Business Studies in Trinity College and embarking on a career in marketing his present career seems a departure from that path but it was hinted at by his genes. “My parents decided I was a throwback to my great grandfather who had horses, one of which was Red Prince who won just about everything he started for on the flat and over fences.”
He is well qualified to tell this tale, having a long and varied involvement in racing, beginning a twenty year career as an amateur jockey in 1986. Guy Wiliams has also owned and trained racehorses as well as working as a racing official. He published his first book History of the Irish Derby in 1980 and since then has published fourteen more titles.
The love and interest in writing also has a familial origin, as one of his ancestors was the inspiration for Buck Mulligan in Ulysses. “My maternal grandfather was Oliver St. John Gogarty so you could say it is in the genes.”
* This article first appeared in The Nationalist 31 January 2012
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