Free Straight on Till Morning by Mary S. Lovell Page B

crop of horses, all from Kay Spiers’ Lolchorai Stud. Mrs Spiers is remembered as one of the greatest horse-breeders in Kenya, and until her death in 1977 she produced consistently good racehorses. Title Deed was initially owned by Kay Spiers and trained by Beryl. Ulysses, whom Beryl ‘bought’, was her first good horse. However, she had little or no money with which to pay for the horse, ‘so Kay supplied her more or less on HP terms’, Doreen Bathurst Norman recalled.
    Ulysses was a particularly good-looking horse and Beryl loved him. He was not only a racehorse but had won prizes in the show ring – the perfect, and rarely found, all-rounder. Title Deed, a two-year-old, was a marvellous little bay horse with a big heart, who flicked his ears forward as he passed the winning post. He was particularly good over middle distance, and gave her her first win, a two-year-old plate in September 1958. He was a sound, honest and consistent horse who in six seasons won thirteen races, and was placed nineteen times.
    Beryl’s own colours of blue and gold had long since been reallocated when she started training again, so she re-adopted the old Clutterbuck colours of black and yellow. Soon they were seen in pole positions at race meetings.
    One day Beryl went to look at a horse called Little Dancer. She immediately recognized the horse’s potential but this gave her a problem, which she took to Charles Bathurst Norman. Look, I’ve bought this horse but I can’t afford to pay for it,’ she told him. The Bathurst Normans characteristically bought the horse for her. On New Year’s Day 1959, thirty-three years after she had won the same race with Wise Child, Beryl’s second brilliant career in training took off when Little Dancer won the Kenya St Leger. 14
    Her next horses were Niagara and Snow Goose, both bought as yearlings. Once again Kay Spiers sold them to her on hire-purchase terms. Something about Niagara particularly attracted Beryl, and she had to have the little filly. Curious to see this horse about which Beryl seemed so anxious, the Bathurst Normans went down to see her. ‘She was an extraordinary little grey thing, still with her fluffy foal coat – she didn’t look anything out of the ordinary,’ Doreen remembered. They were perhaps understandably doubtful about Beryl’s confident prediction that ‘this horse is going to win the Derby for me…Niagara was by a horse called Toronto out of Propaganda, and as Beryl started to train the youngster, she knew she’d made the right decision. Niagara was very fast indeed.
    The 1959–60 racing season belonged to Beryl. She was selective about her horses and the races in which they ran. The leading trainer and owners are positioned not by the number of races won but by the value of stakes. With her small stable she took on the big trainers and Niagara obliged by winning the Kenya Guineas, the first race in the Kenya Triple Crown series. The East African Derby was Beryl’s next goal.
    There was a great deal of rivalry between the syces in Beryl’s stable and those of the then leading trainer Gladys Graham, whose farm and training establishment marched with the Bathurst Normans’ land. At times, as Beryl’s success grew, the rivalry sparked into open confrontation. ‘You can imagine how popular Beryl’s success was, can’t you?’ Doreen asked with a smile. Beryl’s employees were absolutely convinced that Mrs Graham’s syces would be out to sabotage Niagara, who was entered for the Derby, and they took no chances. The horse was never left alone for a single minute.
    â€˜Of course Gladys would never have allowed anything like that but the boys were convinced and nothing would dissuade them. A few days before the Derby, Niagara travelled down to Nairobi by train accompanied by Beryl’s childhood playmate Arthur Orchardson who packed a revolver just in case, and