A Tribute to Best Mate This month we were going to write a feature about the Betfair Million. However, given the death of Best Mate at Exeter on Tuesday, it seems right to put things on hold. So this month, our horseracing manager, Jack Houghton, pays tribute to the triple Gold Cup winner…

There are those who have much more relevant and important stories to tell about Best Mate than me. What he meant to them and the role he played in enriching their lives. How they reared him, trained him, nurtured him and followed his every move.

I don’t have a story of that depth to tell. All I have is what he meant to me and why I’ll remember him.

It would be nice to say that I was there when he won his first bumper at Cheltenham. That I’d seen him in the paddock and immediately known that he was something special. That I followed every step of his career and supported him, emotionally and financially, through every race – winning when he won and losing when he lost.

Saying this would somehow make the story more worthy, and more appropriate in the telling. But it wouldn’t be true.

I’m not sure I can pinpoint the moment that Best Mate became special to me. The reason I find it difficult is that it wasn’t an achievement on a racecourse that placed him in my affections.

He meant something to me because he made my life better.

There are some strained relationships in your life that require big conversations to put things right. But small conversations have to happen first. Best Mate gave my dad and I a shared experience and something to talk about. The subject of a first conversation in years. A conversation that led on to others.

It’s embarrassing to think that it took a racehorse to make two people overcome their stubbornness. But sometimes the most unlikely characters make the best envoys. Later we would move on to say other things of much greater import, but he was the start.

We were both there when he won his third Gold Cup. We both cried. One of us because he had felt he would never see it done again in his lifetime; the other because he couldn’t believe he had seen it done at all.

That was the high point of my Best Mate story. Exeter is the low-point.

It was all about anticipation. I’d been lucky enough to see Best Mate at Wantage in his preparations. I’d interviewed Jim Lewis and been gripped by his enthusiasm. This was not a vanquished champion. His crown had not been taken at Cheltenham in the spring; merely borrowed from a temporarily vacated thrown. The enthusiasm was infectious, and it became easy to believe that this horse had a story or two left to write yet.

The crowd at Exeter shared that enthusiasm. They clapped as he was led into the pre-parade ring. Again when he came into the ring proper. Again as he came out onto the course. And once more on the announcement that he had won best-turned-out.

The crowd also clapped when it was announced that Best Mate had died. A recognition, a thank you, a remembrance, a valediction. But not one forbidding mourning.

Even before the worst became known there were those crying. When it was known there were more. From the kids who couldn’t understand how so many people could be so quiet, to the hardened punters who realised they weren’t quite as hard as they thought.

Some seek balance on occasions like these. We are asked to remember the tragedies in the world around us, the hardships and atrocities that others are enduring. We are asked to put things into context.

That doesn’t work for me. To know that something else bad is happening does not change how I feel. I feel atrocious because I feel atrocious. It’s a feeling that exists on an emotional level, not a rational one.

Others will immediately look to crab his achievements and question his place in the pantheon of greats.

We spend most of our lives in racing measuring achievement in minutes and seconds, feet and inches, winners and losers, profit and loss. It is sometimes seen as childish and unsophisticated to do anything but.

But there’s nothing sophisticated about emotion – something that Best Mate engendered in thousands.

So I won’t do it. All I’ll do is remember what he meant to me and how he played a role in my life. When I replay the video of that third Gold Cup win I’ll smile because of the guts he showed and how it made me feel.

And I’ll remember Exeter. The day that I stood on tip-toes, peering desperately over a birch fence, hoping and praying that he would emerge unhurt from behind those screens.