Nunthorpe Hero Borderlescott and the Story of Yorkshire’s Favourite Son

No two racing fans ever experience the same journey into the sport. For some the excitement of the punt comes first and a true appreciation for what the Thoroughbred is capable of comes later. Others have always known and still couldn’t care less how the bookies bet on the next big race in the calendar.

But if there is a common thread in it all, then it most likely comes in the shape of that one horse nearly all of us have, the horse who did more than any other to help speed up the realisation that this was the game for you.

Perhaps they won you enough money to pay for a nice holiday, or maybe they were the most stunning example of horseflesh you’d ever seen. It doesn’t matter which; what does matter is that they got you here today as the sort of racing nut we like to think of most TDN readers as.

For me that horse was Borderlescott (GB), the small, bay gelding who gained a devoted fan from the moment he stepped foot in the York parade ring on Saturday, October 8, 2005.

This nascent racegoer, aged all of 11, was one of the few paddock watchers to brave the elements on that particular afternoon, a day as miserable as any I’ve experienced on the Knavesmire in the near 19 years since.

As the horses filed out of the paddock for the day’s feature contest, the £75,000 Coral Sprint Trophy, my mind was made up. £1 win on no. 13 were Mum’s strict instructions, once I’d finally persuaded her to leave the dry and warmth of the grandstand.

The rest, as they say, is history. How I spent my winnings of a saturated £20 note I couldn’t tell you, but that Coral Sprint Trophy will always be remembered for it being the day I first started on the Borderlescott journey. And, boy, what a journey it was.

For Jim Edgar and Les Donaldson, the two men lucky enough to own Borderlescott throughout his 85-race career, spanning a remarkable 12 seasons in training, the story began a couple of years earlier in the autumn of 2003.

Whilst I left my first encounter with Borderlescott smiling from ear to ear, Edgar left his grateful that he still had a full set of teeth to smile with, looking forward to what the future might hold with the yearling by Compton Place (GB) out of the winning Touching Wood mare Jeewan (GB).

“We went down in October and it was a really windy day,” Edgar says of the trip to Goosemore Farm, near Wetherby in Yorkshire, to inspect the colt bought by trainer Robin Bastiman for just 13,000 guineas at Doncaster.

“They brought out this wee, scrawny-looking thing and when the wind got up he tried to headbutt me–I managed to get out of the way just in time! You could see the look on their faces, thinking that’s the deal kiboshed, but we decided to buy the horse and never looked back after that.”

Donaldson continues, “Jim said we’d take all of it and he was the first horse in the stable that Robin didn’t keep a wee share in. He never hesitated to remind us of that as time went on!”

Borderlescott raced four times at two, culminating with his first success in a Hamilton nursery, the 20-year anniversary of which recently passed on July 31. Lining up from a BHA rating of just 64, he ultimately ran out a decisive winner but not before giving his supporters a few anxious moments when threatening to boil over in the preliminaries.

“I was a teacher and we’d brought a full minibus loaded with teachers with us from the school,” Donaldson recalls. “Of course, I went and said to them, ‘Look, the trainer says he hasn’t got any chance at all because he’s already run his race’. You can imagine the stick I took after it when he actually coasted home.”

“Mr Bastiman, you have yourself a Group horse,” was reportedly the post-race feedback from jockey Paul Hanagan. How right he proved to be, but first Borderlescott’s three-year-old campaign was one of gradual progression through the handicap ranks, with his Coral Sprint Trophy win being his last of four that season.

“That was the day I nearly fell in the River Ouse,” Edgar says of the post-race knees-up in York city centre. “We were in this pub next to the Ouse and I was really drunk. I think if I’d taken one more step forward, I wouldn’t be sitting here now!”

“He was lucky he got into the drink,” Donaldson chimes in regretfully. “I had to drive the car back to Robin’s.”

Edgar avoided disaster, thankfully, and for Donaldson it wasn’t long before Borderlescott came up trumps again to satisfy his wish for a proper celebration, notably beating 26 rivals to win the following year’s Stewards’ Cup, one of the marquee handicaps in the Flat racing calendar.

“The wee horse coming from a small, small stable, compared to some of the trainers who were there, it was just marvellous,” Edgar says of that day, before telling a story which suggests Donaldson didn’t entirely lose the run of himself in the aftermath.

“We were sitting in the lounge at Gatwick Airport with two hours to wait for the plane, so we said we’ll go and get something to eat,” he remembers. “We get the menus and mister sitting next to me goes, ‘Oh my god, £2.50 for a plate of soup!’. I just looked at him and said, ‘You’ve just won 62 and a half grand and you’re worried about £2.50!’.”

“I tell you, he’s never let me forget that,” Donaldson laughs. “But we were drinking with the hoi polloi that day. When the horse won they took us up the stairs to the reception and we met the various people from Goodwood, etc. I’m just a wee boy from Whitecross and Jim a kid from Glasgow, but there we were drinking with Lord Derby–it was just surreal.”

Lord Derby was no doubt toasting the thrilling win of his beloved Ouija Board (GB) (Cape Cross {Ire}) in the Nassau Stakes which preceded the Stewards’ Cup, the sort of contest which showed this young racing fan just how enthralling the sport can be, even before Borderlescott had gained the biggest success of his blossoming career to date.

However, you soon learn that there are highs and lows to be navigated in this game, with no better demonstration of that for me than in the summer of 2008 when one of the wettest summers on record caused the Ebor Festival at York to be lost, so too my hopes of seeing Borderlescott race in the flesh for the first time since that Coral Sprint Trophy.

The Nunthorpe he’d been due to contest, along with the meeting’s other Group 1 events, the Juddmonte International and Yorkshire Oaks, was transferred to Newmarket’s July Course, but it was of little comfort to a 14-year-old resigned to watching on from afar as star names such as Duke Of Marmalade (Ire), New Approach (Ire) and Lush Lashes (GB) were rerouted away from Yorkshire.

Instead, it was left to local superstar Borderlescott to salvage a moment of cheer from the week for God’s Own Country, with the joy of my old pal’s Nunthorpe success overpowering the feeling of disappointment that I wasn’t there to see it happen.

“He just came flying up that hill,” Edgar recalls of the day Donaldson and himself became Group 1-winning owners. “That South African horse, the big grey [National Colour {SAf} (National Assembly)], went off at a tremendous pace that blew everything out of the water, bar the wee guy who came up on the outside. That was just a tremendous day.”

“To win it at Newmarket, the home of racing, was great,” Donaldson adds. “And for Robin, Pauline, Rebecca and Harvey, who all put so much effort into getting a win like that, it was fantastic for them, too.”

In 2009, Borderlescott’s whole campaign was geared around to trying to defend his Nunthorpe crown, back in front of his adoring home crowd at York, around 15 miles from where Bastiman had masterminded his stable star’s career, together with wife Pauline and children Rebecca and Harvey.

Sent off at 9/1, carrying the weight of my £2 having doubled my stake since 2005, Borderlescott typically found plenty to get the verdict by a neck, providing one of the most memorable days on a racecourse for myself and so many others.

“That was extra special for everybody,” Donaldson concurs. “When he won that day, I’ve never heard applause like it. Everybody was around the parade ring and Rebecca was in tears because that was her baby.

“Robin, Jim and I were stood out the back as he took over in front and we couldn’t speak. Tears were running down our cheeks. It was just a phenomenal experience and it will never leave me for the rest of my days. To win it at York was just something special.”

The word “special” comes up again when Donaldson describes the experience of travelling to Hong Kong with his pride and joy in December of that year, while the first few months of the 2010 season followed a similar pattern to previous years for Borderlescott, who took until Goodwood to give the impression of a horse at the peak of his powers.

With Kieren Fallon in the saddle for the first time, Borderlescott ran out a ready winner of the King George Stakes, on paper the perfect stepping stone to York where he was due to bid for a record-equalling third success in the Nunthorpe. However, it later transpired that he’d suffered an injury at Goodwood which threatened to curtail his season.

“When he took it up and they went by the line, he hit a bit of false ground,” Edgar explains. “Whilst he won the race, he injured a leg and was taken away to the vets. He was there for seven or eight days and had x-rays, the whole thing. It was nothing major, but I would say he was never the same horse again after that.”

The facts and figures tell their own tale. Though making it to the Nunthorpe just 22 days later, the injury said to be not as bad as first feared, Borderlescott was understandably not on his A-game in finishing sixth behind Sole Power (GB) (Kyllachy {GB}). All told, he won just one of his 35 starts after that King George and his days of being a factor at the top table were a thing of the past.

Regardless, his popularity with the racing public remained the stuff of legend, so too his enthusiasm for the game. The old warrior ran no fewer than 11 times in 2012 at the age of 10, with the day he won the Beverley Bullet under Freddie Tylicki threatening to take the roof off the grandstand at the East Yorkshire track.

The retirement of Borderlescott was announced in November 2012 before a U-turn on that call saw him return to racing in July the following year, with Bastiman reporting that the then-11-year-old was still annihilating his younger work companions on the gallops.

Though the final chapter of his career failed to deliver another success, he did achieve the notable feat of twice filling the runner-up spot in a race named in his honour, the Borderlescott Sprint Trophy at Musselburgh, in 2014 and 2015.

“Jim and I were delighted to sponsor that race,” says Donaldson. “And at the paddock it was just incredible, the number of people who wanted to see him. He was nothing stunning to look at, but by god, he had a heart beyond all hearts.”

The decision was made to bring the curtain down on Borderlescott’s career, once and for all, after he finished fifth of six in a handicap at Ayr on Saturday, June 20, 2015, fully 11 years and nine days on from his debut at York.

Back then I still had over a year left of primary school. By the end of Borderlescott’s racing life I was in my final term at university, hell bent on a career in racing journalism and forever indebted to my favourite racehorse for setting me on that path.

“There was a woman who used to send him a box of polo mints every month,” Donaldson says of my competition for the position as Borderlescott’s number one fan, with a heavy concentration of his fan base able to be traced to the ancient town of Linlithgow and its surrounding area.

“Where we come from, there’s maybe another seven or eight towns within a few miles,” Donaldson continues. “When he won every race, none of the bookmakers could pay out on that day–they didn’t have enough money. You have no idea how many people followed him. It all started with our pals and then it blossomed all over the place. It didn’t matter if it was a trainer, an owner or a punter–they loved him.”

Donaldson adds that he penned 76,000 words when he started to document the Borderlescott journey during Covid. Now a few days into this feature, I’m starting to see how it could easily happen, but it’s time for the final word from Edgar and Donaldson on a horse who is now living a happy retirement in the 35 acres of Goosefarm Farm, with the 27-year-old Maromito (Ire) (Up And At ‘Em {GB}), a seven-time winner for the Bastiman stable, for company.

“I just think we had a tremendous time with him,” Edgar sums up. “And I think it was tremendous for racing itself because there’s not many stories like that going about. Les was a school teacher, I was just a guy who worked in the railway, and we basically went around the world with this guy, starting at his home course at York and finishing up in Hong Kong. Not many horses will do that.

“We had several people trying to buy him, people telling us to take it elsewhere, but we did it the way we wanted to do it. They [the Bastimans] were good to us and we’d like to think we were good to them.

“Where he is now, he’s just running about with his old pal. There’s the two of them there and they’re chalk and cheese–a bit like the partnership that we’ve had through the years, chalk and cheese again! Sometimes I wanted to go down one path and he [Donaldson] wanted to go down the other, but we always met somewhere in the middle.”

“Jim moved into Linlithgow 30-odd years ago and we didn’t realise we both had this great enthusiasm for racing,” Donaldson says of the common ground they initially found.

“I can’t thank Jim enough for helping me at the start. I was a teacher and I wouldn’t have been able to go to very many things or afford it. Thanks to Jim, I was able to become a half-owner of Borderlescott with him. When I took early retirement at 55, little did I think that I would have the life that I had–and that was all through Borderlescott.

“As Jim said, we didn’t always agree and we had our moments, but the one thing we did agree on was how lucky we were to have a horse like Scotty.”

Hear, hear. And whoever your Borderlescott was, I’m sure you feel lucky, too.