The Fugue was a racing mare that was born and bred in England under the eye of owner and veteran racing investor Andrew Lloyd Webber. She did not come from particularly rich stock, but some of those before her in the genealogy had managed some middle distance running feats. The young filly was hauled over to John Gosden’s turf for training.

Career

The Fugue had her maiden chance to shine in 2011, appearing as a two-year-old at a race in Newmarket. She was little known at the time and the bookies gave her very little exposure. Despite these challenges, she went on to win that race at the end.

2012 ushered new challenges, and the pressure was racked up in order to help the horse get used to the gig. She finished fourth in the 1000 Guineas. Two weeks later, she was ready to be in among the winners and notched the Musidora Stakes trophy. The rest of the year posed its bag of challenges for the mare, and she would struggle to find her footing, with her minders constantly tinkering with her distances and categories. She finished her year in California at the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf, where she finished third.

The rest of her career featured moderate successes and decent performances. Her retirement was announced in 2014 and is believed to have been as a result of injury concerns. Her major career victories included the Yorkshire Oaks, Irish Champion Stakes, Nassau stakes and Prince of Wales’ Stakes.

The Fugue had taken part in 17 competitions, managing to win 6 of those. Even though her career was riddled with challenges such as injuries, she did become one of the more recognisable mares in England and Europe. She took part in high profile races, which is how she managed to make her owners a cool £1,934,560 and a lot more when she retired.

 

Born in Ireland but trained and raced in England, Night Nurse was a hurdler who was known in the landscape in the 70’s. In 1972, the horse was sold to trainer Peter Easterby, who saw a potential career in horseracing for the bay gelding. At that point, Night Nurse could only fetch 13000 guineas for the sellers. Easterby was buying the horse for Reg Spencer and would go on to train the animal for almost all of its career. Night Nurse enjoyed a great career with Paddy Broderick, the Irish Jockey, on the saddles. Broderick was known for the long rein approach to racing, going on to establish a great relationship with the horse and working to ensure that this style was its correct fit.

Career

You could argue that Night Nurse simply wasn’t cut out for the flat racing thing, and the stats will show exactly that. At two years old, he went for the first 6 races of his career winless before scrambling for a single victory from the same number of attempts the following year. In 1975, after two seasons of trying and failing, he switched to hurdles, and this turned on the magic from his legs. It was clear from the first race that this was his sweet spot and he was ready to dominate. There was a spell between ’75 and ’76 where he ran amok, winning ten races on the spin. After winning almost everything in this category, Nurse became a steeplechaser, where he faired pretty averagely. At retirement, he had won classic hurdles in Wales, England and Scotland. He was rated at 182 by Timeform, which is the highest ever accolade given to a horse whose specialty was hurdles.

At the time of retirement, Night nurse had earned £174,507 from 35 starts on the tracks. He became a sire after hanging up his saddle.