A bold-jumping grey in the King George at Kempton: for a dozen years from the mid-1980s, it was a Boxing Day tradition as Desert Orchid, One Man and Teeton Mill racked up seven wins from nine appearances between them. And as Robert Kirkland, a racehorse owner for nearly 40 years, still recalls, there might have been another.
"The first horse I ever had a share in was called High Edge Grey," Kirkland said this week. "He won the Charlie Hall at Wetherby in 1988 and the plan was to go to Kempton, but then he hurt his back in the Hennessy at Newbury. In those days, you didn't have chiropractors for horses, and he missed it."
Kirkland has been hoping to find another horse good enough to run in a King George ever since, and will finally get his wish when Grey Dawning, one of the favourites, brings memories of Desert Orchid and his fellow greys flooding back as he goes to post for the feature event at Kempton today.
The seven-year-old is a throwback to a different age in steeplechasing in more ways than one.
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There have been many renewals of the King George VI Chase in recent years which revolved around a clear market leader but there is no obvious starting point for weighing up this year's race at Kempton today, as nine of the 11 runners already have at least one Grade One victory over fences to their name and at least four - Spillane's Tower, Banbridge, Grey Dawning and Il Est Francais - could conceivably set off as favourite.
