‘I Feel Very Responsible for the Horses I’ve Bred’: Lady Cobham on Breeding Havana Hurricane and a Reunion With Walson’s Law

[Wandering Eyes]

June may have turned to July but the echoes of a superb Royal Ascot will echo through this Friday when Ascot stages its annual lunch to celebrate the winning breeders. It's a lovely touch by the racecourse management, and one which is much appreciated by those who have produced a horse good enough to shine at one of the world's most prestigious meetings.

Among the guests this Friday will be Lady Cobham, breeder of the Windsor Castle Stakes winner Havana Hurricane.

“I couldn't believe I would ever be asked to such a thing, it's amazing. I'm looking forward to it. I'm sure there'll be very interesting people there with lots of stories to tell,” she says, but then Lady Cobham has some interesting stories to tell herself, not least when it comes to the existence of Havana Hurricane. 

Trained by Eve Johnson Houghton, the Havana Gold colt is out of Lady Cobham's homebred mare Spitfire Limited (Excelebration). Those who have followed some of the good horses she has bred over the years, such as G2 Prix d'Harcourt winner Air Pilot and Bunbury Cup hero Biggles, will have noted the aviation theme. The breeder's late father-in-law Sir Alan Cobham, himself a pilot with a dash of derring-do who it is believed inspired WE Johns's fictional character Biggles, founded the pioneering aerospace company Cobham, later run by his son Sir Michael. 

Much has been made of the fact that Havana Hurricane, who was subsequently beaten mere inches by Anthelia when second in the Weatherbys Super Sprint, was bought for only 9,000gns when offered at the Tattersalls Somerville Sale by Norris Bloodstock. If circumstances had been different for Lady Cobham at the time, he may never have been sold at all. 

“It's just that I'd had a very bad health prognosis and I was told that I wasn't going to last very much longer,” she says. “And I said to Jenny [Norris] that the most saleable of my horses had to go to the yearling sales. I moved on some mares but I'm still here, and Havana Hurricane is now running in somebody else's name.”

Happily, Lady Cobham, 82, reports that her health has improved.

“I decided to give up and now I'm keeping going again,” she says. “And the horses definitely keep me going.”

Perseverance and dedication to her horses are common themes in the tale of this owner-breeder's life. Many would not have bred Havana Hurricane in the first place. His dam may have been named after an iconic fighter jet but fly she did not. Spitfire Limited (Excelebration) retired winless after eight starts with one placing to her name and a mark of 48. 

“I raced her in my colours and she was not a particularly good racehorse,” recalls Lady Cobham. “So I decided that I'd try to find another home for her and she went as a polo pony but I don't think she was very good at that. She came back to me mid-winter the following year with a shaved tail and hogged mane, so I put her out in the field, got her mane long again, and then I found another home for her in the spring with a riding club. But the lady who had her couldn't afford to keep her any longer so I had her back again.”

Eventually deciding to cover the mare with Havana Gold in the year before he died, Lady Cobham welcomed her first foal when Spitfire Limited was aged nine. Last year's bad news prompted another move for the mare, however.

She says, “I gave away two mares to the local farmer, and one of them was Spitfire Limited. He bred her to a New Forest [pony] stallion and she had a foal this year. But, very kindly, we have reached an agreement that I shall have her back when the foal is weaned.”

 

Havana Hurricane wins the Windsor Castle Stakes | Racingfotos

 

While Havana Hurricane can to some extent be viewed as one who got away, Lady Cobham has recently welcomed back to her fold Walson's Law (Wootton Bassett), a colt out of a half-sister to Air Pilot who was originally sold as a yearling to John Dance's Manor House Farm for 280,000gns. Dance's subsequent fall from grace prompted a reoffering of much of his bloodstock and Lady Cobham eventually managed to buy the now-gelded four-year-old back and sent him to be trained alongside Havana Hurricane. Walson's Law's two-year-old half-brother Senior Awareness, by New Bay, is in training with James Owen for the Gredley family. 

“I think that I really don't like the sales at all. I'm not very good at them,” says Lady Cobham. “I didn't think anyone was going to bid for Havana Hurricane, and then Anthony Bromley came and went just over the reserve price and he got him. I knew then he was going to Eve Johnson Houghton, so I was quite relieved about that.

“Walson's Law is doing really well. I sent him to Eve as I thought she was suitable for this horse who'd had a rather difficult time, and he's already won twice for us. So, where I've lost one, I gained another one, didn't I?”

She adds, “I feel very responsible for the horses I've bred. And the problem is with the sales you lose control, and I like to know what happens to them and like to find homes for them when they end their career.”

On her farm in Dorset the aforementioned Air Pilot resides still after an heroic career of nine wins from 32 starts, including four at group level. Trained by Ralph Beckett, his final success came in the Listed Foundation Stakes at Goodwood at the age of 10.

“Air Pilot still goes out riding with a friend a few days a week, and he's a very good nanny for my youngsters, he's a really nice-natured horse,” she says. “Maybe Havana Hurricane can be as good as him. And Biggles is now eventing. He was competing on Saturday at the Portman Horse Trials.”

Lady Cobham's royal connections do not end with the breeding of Havana Hurricane. Brought up on a farm, she says her mother bred “much lower-key type of horses, but she did manage to breed Special Cargo.”

Not many horses end up being commemorated in bronze, but the likeness of the Queen Mother's brilliant steeplechaser Special Cargo still watches over the winner's enclosure at Sandown where he posted his greatest victory in the 1984 Whitbread Gold Cup, a race which Lady Cobham remembers witnessing in person.

“It was a very special day,” she says. 

For a breeder who refuses to give up, and with the horses to spur her on, there will doubtless be more special days to come. 

 

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