Rarely does a racehorse mean so much to someone as Roy Rocket did to Newmarket trainer John Berry. The much-loved homebred, who raced for nine seasons and won nine times, all of them at Brighton racecourse on the English south coast, became so much a part of the family and so trusted and responsible that he was often allowed to wander around the yard on his own.
Imagine then how Berry and everyone at that yard felt on April 9, when Roy Rocket collapsed and died aged 11 after a suspected heart attack on the Newmarket gallops. Kate Johnson reports.
“You do and you don’t get used to it,” says John Berry, who had been riding Roy Rocket when he collapsed. “It leaves its mark. I always remember a sermon our school chaplain gave many years ago. He said you hear people say, ‘I want to put this behind me and get on with my life, I want to get my life back.’ He said that’s not the way to think about it. Your life isn't just the things that go well, it’s everything.
“The things that go well and badly are part of your life. You don’t put them behind you, you just have to get on and live your life.”
It’s a thoughtful response that shows how deeply he’s been affected, as have his wife and devoted team, and how hard it is to absorb the loss.
A personal project
Roy Rocket’s absence is felt as keenly as his presence and, while some trainers feel an empty stable after losing a horse is a blow to morale and prefer to fill the space with another horse, Berry is nowhere near ready.
“I haven’t put another horse in his stable yet,” he says. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing so. I will at some point. I don’t know what horse will go in there, but empty or with another horse, [Roy Rocket] still wouldn’t be in there.”
Roy was a Berry homebred (the mare, Minnie’s Mystery, a daughter of Highest Honor, boarded in France, where Roy Rocket was foaled) and arrived at Berry’s Newmarket yard as a yearling.
The mare had been covered 11 months before he was born, and the mating was planned the previous year. He was Berry’s personal project for two years before he even arrived, absolutely perfect, on this earth on April 2, 2010.
He was always a “lively” ride, Berry recalls. “Very busy. He didn’t like standing still in the horsebox, he didn’t like starting stalls, but other than times when you knew he’d get fired up he was very serene.”
The horse was a pleasure to have on the yard, and a willing competitor on the track. “He was the type of horse who wouldn’t need hard riding from a jockey. Even when he didn’t win, he quite clearly did his best every time.”
That is a trait it’s impossible not to find endearing. Roy Rocket raced 68 times over eight years, 31 times at Brighton, where he won nine races, becoming a local hero.
“Everyone made a fuss of him, and he really enjoyed that,” says Berry. “In the parade ring, everyone wanted to have a look at him and in races when he started to move forward the commentator would say ‘Roy Rocket moving forward’, and a big cheer would go up.”
Regular jockey John Egan, who has ridden all over the world for 35 years and known countless horses, partnered him on most of those glory days. He recently told Berry Roy Rocket was “the most like a human of any horse I’ve ever known”.
“You wouldn't have been totally surprised if he had just started talking to you,” says Berry.
After more than ten years, Roy had the run of the yard, much leeway was given to him with much pleasure (“in the same way you’d say to someone, make yourself at home, you felt happy to say that to him”), so the horse could usually be found, post work, loose, grazing, sauntering the property or investigating his personal canteen.
“Our tack and feed rooms are combined and, if they’re full of hay and feed, it’s a pretty congested space. He’d make his way in and inch round the obstructions. Most horses would do that and think, ‘Christ! How’ve I got myself in here!’ and do something stupid trying to get out. But with him, he wouldn’t even try and turn round, he’d just very gradually inch-by-inch retrace his steps when you told him he had to get out.”
Much loved and much missed, Berry can’t put into words all that Roy meant. He can’t choose a favourite memory, because it was all of it, every day.
“If you ask about a human why do you like them, you’d say we just get on well,” he offers as an explanation. His words catch in his throat as he says, “I’ll remember Roy as the most special horse I’ll ever have, and I’ll be very sorry I didn’t have him for longer. I count myself blessed to have had him as long as I did.”