Diamonds Are Forever: Franca Vittadini Remembers the Double Delights of Grundy’s Memorable King George Victory

[Wandering Eyes]

Those old enough to have seen it may well go to the grave thinking they will never witness another race like it. Grundy vs Bustino, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes, 26 July 1975.

Fifty years ago, King George day was dubbed 'Diamond Day' owing to the generous sponsorship of De Beers, and that magnificent afternoon has not lost its sparkle in the intervening decades. The names of those two warriors remain forever entwined in history, along with their jockeys Pat Eddery and Joe Mercer, and trainers Peter Walwyn and Major Dick Hern. It was a race in which, though there was in the end one clear winner in the flaxen-haired Grundy, the two horses are remembered as equals, an inseparable double act.

“I feel the elation that you normally feel with a winner,” said Hern, whose fielding of two pacemakers undoubtedly led to the significant lowering of the track record that day. 

Of Carlo Vittadini's winner, the wise men of Timeform were unequivocal in their assessment. A six-and-a-half-page essay devoted to the son of Great Nephew in Racehorses of 1975 began: “Look no further than Grundy for the racehorse of year. His was easily the most significant contribution to the racing year and the one that will surely be remembered longest by most.”

For the Vittadini family, there were in fact two winners that day. The opening contest – the now-defunct but prestigious ladies' race – had been won by Franca Vittadini, the daughter of Carlo, riding Hard Day for Grundy's trainer Peter Walwyn.

“Don't say it,” says Franca as she is reminded that half a century has passed since that momentous occasion.

“The ladies' race used to be the first race of the day and I can tell you there were very, very mixed feelings when I passed the post. I said, 'Shit, now that I've won the Diamond Stakes, there's no chance that Grundy can win the King George.' But obviously it was great to win that race, because in those days they were giving diamonds to the winner. I've still got them all.”

When she says “all”, Vittadini, one of the leading amateurs of the era who followed her father's love of breeding and race riding, is referring to her record four victories in the race. Diamonds truly are forever. 

Vittadini carefully stashed away her jewels and joined the watching party for the major event of the day. Grundy and Pat Eddery were taking on not just Bustino but also the great French mare Dahlia, the winner of the King George in the two previous years, and Star Appeal, who would go on to win the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. There were two 500/1 shots in the field of 11, Highest and Kinglet, Hern's henchmen who would ensure a ferocious early pace aimed at playing to the strengths of the strong stayer Bustino. 

“It was an incredible day, really. Having won that, and then Grundy beating what was really a Major Hern plot: first, the five-furlong pacemaker, and then the miler. I mean, they really tried to kill him,” Vittadini remembers.

 

Grundy wins the King George from Bustino | Gerry Cranham

 

The resultant epic duel between two horses of such grit was ultimately their undoing. Bustino never raced again, having sustained a tendon injury for his efforts, and Grundy's subsequent – and final – performance in the Benson and Hedges Gold Cup at York was but a whisper from a horse who had once roared.

“The race killed them both, definitely,” says Vittadini. “I remember when they came in to the unsaddling enclosure, both of them were wobbling. They were like drunken ducks.”

Timeform, too, made reference to the immediate aftermath: “Grundy stood stock still for an unusually long time on the course, head down, exhausted. He had had enough for the time being.”

Looking back at the career of Grundy, who was bought for her father as a yearling by agent Keith Freeman for 11,000gns, Vittadini says, “We've a lot of funny memories with him because when we bought him, in those days, a chestnut with flaxen mane and tail was considered not a nice horse.”

The Minstrel, winner of the Derby and King George two years later, did much, along with Grundy, to help the cause of flashy chestnuts.

“But from the early days, Peter Walwyn was always very, very hot on him, saying he floated over the ground. And so he went through his two-year-old career, winning all his races. First time at Ascot, he wasn't favourite, because Peter had another one of the Freedmans' horses [No Alimony] in the race, if I remember right.

“And then he went to Kempton, then to Doncaster for the Champagne Stakes. And then in torrential rain, he won the Dewhurst. He was a very, very good two-year-old, and firm ground, heavy ground, didn't make any difference. As usual, when they're good, they can run on any ground.”

Vittadini refers to “a hiccup” before Grundy's intended three-year-old debut in the Greenham Stakes. “He was kicked in his face in the trotting ring and it was touch and go if we were going to run. Luckily, he just cracked the front bone of his face, just above the nostrils, and it didn't affect his breathing. But he missed few days and Peter wanted to run in the Greenham because in those days it was unusual to run straight in the Guineas.”

She continues, “I think he was probably just short of a gallop, because he was beaten by Captain Lemos's grey horse, Mark Anthony. And then the Guineas was just a farce because the stable lads were striking and sitting in protest [at the start]. So they went in the stalls, and then out of the stalls, and then in again, and then out again. And then they decided to jump on off in front of the stalls, Anyway, he was half-turned the other way and Pat [Eddery] was adamant that if he'd jumped from the stalls with the others he would have won the Guineas. But he was beaten by [fellow Italian-owned] Bolkonski, who went on and won the Sussex.”

It is almost impossible to imagine a modern-day three-year-old lining up for the races which Grundy contested those 50 years ago. Perhaps only Sea The Stars comes close. Following defeats in the Greenham and 2,000 Guineas, Grundy then sailed through consecutive victories in the Irish 2,000 Guineas, Derby and Irish Derby before lining up in the race that would come to define him and is still held high as the benchmark. 

“He was a hell of a horse,” says Vittadini. “I'm very lucky to have been around when he was there.”

Her family was also blessed that year by two top-class homebred colts in Patch, also trained by Walwyn, who was beaten a nose in the Prix du Jockey Club, and Orange Bay, winner of the Derby Italiano and two years later beaten in a photo-finish for the King George by The Minstrel.

“Oh, I tell you, we were going from Newmarket to Chantilly to the Curragh. It was just incredible,” she says. 

After Grundy's Derby win, an offer came from the Levy Board to buy him for £750,000 to stand the following year at the National Stud. 

“There weren't many offers in those days, not like now, but I think the Japanese and the National Stud wanted to buy him, and Daddy wanted to help the British breeders, so he went to the National Stud,” Vittadini recalls.

Grundy, who sired the Oaks winner Bireme in his first crop, as well as Gold Cup winner Little Wolf, would eventually end up in Japan, at the JBBA Stallion Station in Shizunai, where he died in 1992. 

It was the colt's Derby victory that allowed Carlo Vittadini to buy Beech House Stud in Newmarket, which is now the base of the Shadwell stallions but which had famously once been home to the great Nearco and, at the time, had Derby winner St Paddy in residence. Franca Vittadini, a regular work rider in Henry Cecil's string of a morning, took over the management of the stud. 

“Louis Freedman owned the place, and he wanted to sell, so Noel Murless helped to get the deal done and we bought Beech House,” says Vittadini, who would later welcome the great stayer and Arc runner-up Ardross to the stallion roster. 

“Ardross just loved carrots and he would do anything for a carrot,” she recalls. “I was at the time riding out every day for Henry and Julie, so I knew him from the yard. He was such a gentleman.”

Carlo Vittadini, who is remembered still with a race in his name at San Siro racecourse in Milan, died in October 2007 and his daughter has continued the management of the family stud near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.

Now 72, Franca Vittadini is every bit as active as she was in her riding days, and is also the longstanding Italian representative for Tattersalls and for the International Racing Bureau (IRB). Following some encouraging changes to the administration of Italian racing by the government's MASAF agency, she has also been appointed by Agriculture Minister Remo Chiodi to join the racing committee. 

“The ideas are there, we just have to realise them,” she says. “We're suggesting a lot of things, and Mr Chiodi is very keen to go a different way to help Italian racing, and try to save the group races. 

“The payments [of prize-money] was the biggest problem but that is now at 90 days, when it used to be six months, seven months, eight months. So it is improving.”

As we speak, she has just returned from her morning work preparing her own and clients' yearlings for the forthcoming SGA Sale in Milan on September 20. Appropriately, she breeds and races horses under the name Grundy Bloodstock.

Vittadini says, “You've got to try to keep busy, otherwise you get kicked out very easily.”

It is an admirable work ethic from one who remains a tremendous asset to her country's racing and breeding industry, and who was there in the heart of it on one of the greatest race days of all time.

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