Under starter’s orders for opening

Aug 14 2007 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

The Earl of Derby is celebrating his wonder horse, Ouija Board, at Knowsley Hall’s public open week. Peter Elson reports

VISITORS to Knowsley Hall a little while ago would have been treated to a curious sight.

The Earl of Derby and one of his estate staff could be seen carting a large plastic horse around the garden, repeatedly staring at it and then heaving it off elsewhere.

He had borrowed the plastic horse from Robinson’s saddlery shop to decide where a full-size sculpture of his wonder horse, Ouija Board, would be best placed.

“People would have thought that the potty old earl had really cracked up,” he chuckles.

In this ever blander world, doesn’t it revive your spirits to know that “potty old earls” are out there in deepest Prescot pushing around plastic horses like an episode of the World of PG Wodehouse?

Before Lord Derby flew off for a family holiday in Majorca, from Liverpool John Lennon Airport, the security official operating the hand baggage X-ray machine immediately struck up a conversation.

“He asked me, ‘How’s that wonderful mare of yours?’,” says Lord Derby, who adds, “it’s fantastic that my face is recognised as her owner. For me and my family owning Ouija Board has been an unbelievable, once in a lifetime experience.

“But that man’s comment made me realise the impact she’s had on so many people everywhere since she won the 2004 Oaks.”

Ouija Board, dubbed “a mare in a million”, will feature prominently in Knowsley Hall’s annual public open week, starting on Thursday.

“We like to do something a bit different every year, so we’re trying a summer holiday time opening and celebrating Ouija Board’s career,” says Lord Derby, who has just written a book chronicling her career.

“We’re showing off the paintings of Ouija Board we’ve commissioned and trophies she’s won on her glittering career across the world. Because she is such a truly incredible horse we’ve commissioned a bronze sculpture by Emma MacDermott. This sculpture will be a full-size one of her ‘in movement’ and there’ll be another half-size standing bronze at Stanley House Stud in Newmarket.”

As 19th earl and head of the greatest racing family in history, Lord Derby quietly glows with pride at his contribution to the sport through Ouija Board. In 1780, the 12th Earl of Derby founded and gave his name to the Derby, the most famous horse race in the world.

“This has been an amazing fairytale story for me having a family name with such roots in British racing, with the Oaks named after our Epsom home and, of course, the Derby,” says Lord Derby.

The Ouija Board exhibition in Knowsley Hall’s Jacobean Drawing Room will include contemporary paintings by leading equestrian artists.

This will feature work by Katie O’Sullivan, Sean McMahon and Sarah Aspinall, commissioned by the Derbys to mark the mare’s outstanding career. Lord and Lady Derby are keen to use Ouija Board’s success to continue the tradition of aristocratic patronage for the arts.

“Ouija Board is such a significant thing for us so that’s why we’ve enjoyed commissioning artists to produce work including one of the great bronzes of today,” says Lord Derby. “My wife has a huge interest and knowledge of art history and what’s going on. She has a keen interest in who will be tomorrow’s art superstars. Although my wife has always loved her riding, when Ouija Board came along it really ignited her interest in racing and I found that I couldn’t get to the Racing Post first at breakfast as it’d been bagged by her.”

Of course, a racing career of this magnitude is by definition limited and Ouija Board is now out to stud.

“Horses operate at the top level for a relatively short period. Generally, it’s the two-year-old season when they show their potential. When they’re three-years-old it’s the classic year. At the highest eschelon, the major- ity are retired at the end of their three-year-old career, particularly stallions as their stud value is enormous at that point.

“Ouija Board’s family have always been better when they’re older at four and five years, so we’ve also been able to attend this extraordinary global programme that’s grown up.”

The story started with Lord Derby’s uncle, the previous Earl, racing a mare called Selection Board whom he retired to stud and has bred for many years. Lord Derby’s brother, the Hon Peter Stanley, who is his stud manager, always thought Selection Board had good potential as a mare, but none of the animals were quite up to what they thought she was capable of producing.

“My brother suggested using Sheikh Mohammed’s new stallion, Cape Cross, and out came Ouija Board. Nothing spectacular, nice-looking foal who moved quite nicely. We put her into training and thought about a name. My wife suggested the name Ouija Board, which worked quite nicely, out of Selection Board.

“What my wife didn’t know was that Selection Board’s mother was called Ouija, a horse my uncle raced back in the 1970s. My uncle used the same process to get from the names Ouija to Selection Board that my wife reversed, which is rather Ouija Boardesque in itself.

“The fact that Ouija Board is a home-bred horse makes it the ultimate fun thing, rather than having gone to the sales with an enormous sack full of money. We bred her relatively cheaply as Cape Cross stood at about £6,500 when we went to him and he’s now at £50,000.”

Ouija Board’s first victory was timed perfectly on Lord and Lady Derby’s wedding anniversary on October 21, 2003, at Great Yarmouth. “We were going to a dinner in Liverpool that night and I wondered how we could race in Great Yarmouth and do the dinner?” says Lord Derby. “So for the first time in my life, at shocking expense, I chartered a helicopter to get us there and back. I must have had some inclination.

“Ed Dunlop our trainer had given us a steer, but he’s a man who tends to undershoot and say no more than it’ll probably be OK. In fact, she won very impressively that day.

“When she won her first outing as a three-year-old, it was in a listed race, the Pretty Polly Stakes, at Newmarket, in May, 2004, going from last to first by six lengths we realised we had a very serious horse on our hands.

“That was when we started talking about classics in the Epsom Oaks or French Oaks. We were leaping down with excitement at this time, it was the only moment when I had sleepless nights.

“It’s been real team work,” Lord Derby continues. “There’s no reason why people watching a racehorse should wonder about how she got there, which was a reason for writing the book.

“There are issues of transport, quarantine, food and all the many talented people who make it happen. We’d no idea how important it was to choose Ed Dunlop at the time. But he read her superbly from end to end, as did her top jockeys like Frankie Dettori and Keiren Fallon.

“Between winning the Epsom and Irish Oaks, she only did two pieces of serious exercise, which took a lot of intuition on Ed’s part to realise this was for the best.

“If I hadn’t written it down, probably my grandchildren would have said ‘he’s a bit ga-ga the way he goes on about that horse’, but this is absolute fact.”

So, perhaps he’s not so potty after all.

OUIJA Board, A Mare in a Million, by Lord Derby (Highdown Racing Post) £20.

peter.elson@dailypost.co.uk

Ouija Board

LORD DERBY’S life was changed when Ouija Board won the 2004 Oaks in a seven-length demolition of her rivals in the Epsom Classic.

This was Lord Derby’s first Group One and Classic winner, especially given the family context.

Clocking up 74,000 miles, Ouija Board is the most travelled and successful mare in racing history.

She won big races across three continents from Japan to Alaska, including two US Breeders’ Cup races.

Her 2006 close encounter with Alexander Goldrun, in the Nassau Stakes, at Goodwood, was acclaimed everywhere as one of the greatest races of all time.

Ouija Board’s trophies and memorabilia will be on show in Knowsley Hall’s Jacobean Drawing Room, along with the Derby family’s famous black and white silks, introduced in 1788.

The distinctive white chest button was incorporated when jockey Tony Watson was running late to mount his steed Sansovino in the 1924 Derby. Hurriedly dressing, he caught his white stock button in his black jacket, but went on to win the race.

Naturally, in such a superstitious sport, this possible lucky omen was immediately incorporated into the Derby colours.