Foaled in 1983 during an era of outstanding hunter chasers, Teaplanter won 24 of 38 races in that sport, finished second in a further eight such races and landed three of four point-to-points.
His form line looks like cricketer Sir Geoffrey Boycott's score card, comprising a succession of singles, the occasional two and a couple of boundaries as the innings comes to a close. Here's the evidence: 31/1F111/111U1112/11/F211/112121/12U/11212114/2411.
Owned and ridden for much of his career by Richard Russell, who later served on the first Point-to-Point Authority Board, Teaplanter was trained in Northamptonshire by Caroline Bailey and raced from the age of six for nine seasons through until he was 14. He was retired after a victory at his local course of Towcester.
He won not a single leg of the sport's Triple Crown, but finished second to two giants of hunter chasing at Cheltenham and Punchestown, and was so consistent at Towcester that a Racing Post feature (see below) entitled 'Horses for Courses' described him as '(almost) safer than the Bank Of England'. He won nine of ten races at the Northamptonshire track, and was beaten just half a length into second on the one occasion he suffered defeat.
Bred at Oakgrove Stud near Chepstow in Wales, Teaplanter was a son of National Trust out of Miss India by Indian Ruler. Russell recalls: "I bought a mare from Colin Davies of Persian War fame [Davies trained that horse to win three Champion Hurdles]. Named Crozanna I won four races on her and was placed eight or nine times, and when I heard Davies was selling some young stock I went back to take a look. There was a yearling [a half-brother to Crozanna and the smarter Miss Crozina] who turned out to be Teaplanter, and a filly foal, but Colin had decided they would go to Ascot sales.
"I went to Ascot, and when there were no bids for the filly I bought her for 500gns and picked up Teaplanter for just under 1,000gns. We had travelled down in a Land Rover towing a Rice trailer which we used for moving cattle, so they came home without a partition." The yearling was subsequently named Teaplanter, in part because of his dam's name, but also because Russell's aunt and godmother had married a descendant of Thomas Twining, who in 1706 had founded the eponymous beverages company by opening a tea room in London. Sadly the filly foal succumbed to colic a couple of years later while out at grass.
"When Teaplanter was five we broke him in and backed him, but he was at least 17.1hh if not 17.2hh and needed time, so we turned him away until the following season," says Russell.
Teaplanter with owner-rider Richard Russell in the saddle (copyright John Beasley)
Caroline Bailey, now a licensed trainer but then solely handling pointers under her maiden name of Saunders, was sent Teaplanter, and she remembers: "He was a very good-looking horse, absolutely charming. Richard was working in London five days a week at the time and getting fit by going to a gym, but would come home every weekend to hunt Teaplanter – and he hunted him properly. In those days if a horse was big and gangly and backward you didn't run them in races, you hunted them for education and gave them time to grow.
"He became an outstanding horse, the one issue he had was that he would drip with sweat when travelling, and it didn't matter whether you were going up the road to Towcester or across to Ireland. He just got so excited, but in every other respect you couldn't fault him."
Making his pointing debut at Newton Bromswold, Teaplanter "ran out of puff" according to Russell and finished third, but next time out put up a dominant display to win a 17-runner maiden at the Guilsborough meeting run by the Pytchley Hunt with which he had qualified. Ian Mackenzie and Terry Selby's formbook for 1990 noted Teaplanter was "an excellent prospect".
On February 10, 1990, one week after the point-to-point season had opened, seven-year-old Teaplanter ran in a 21-runner restricted race at Cottenham, won again, and was deemed ready for hunter chasing – he ran in just one more point-to-point, and that was to be six years later.
Words of advice from the master
His first run under Rules resulted in a fall two out when apparently set for victory, and Russell was not to spared when walking off the course, for he says: "Dick Saunders [Caroline's father, and a Grand National-winning amateur rider] told me the fall was my fault because I had looked around and unbalanced the horse." The lesson was learned, and the partnership completed the season with wins at Leicester, Huntingdon and Southwell, the latter two victories coming on good to firm ground.
Teaplanter's goal for the 1991 season was Cheltenham's Foxhunter Chase, and he headed there off the back of wins at Wetherby, Warwick and Newbury. On the last-named occasion the second horse, beaten 10 lengths, was the smart and consistent hunter chaser Wellington Brown.
After six straight wins Teaplanter was sent off the 6/4 favourite for the Foxhunter Chase, and Russell admits: "We had high expectations," but a ninth-fence blunder dislodged him as victory went to Lucky Citizen, trained by Eugene O'Sullivan and ridden by his brother Willie. The winning trainer had no idea he would wait another 29 years to land the race again, which he did last month when It Came To Pass (66/1) scored under his daughter Maxine.
Unscathed when unseating, Russell and his horse turned out a week later and strolled to victory at Towcester, they returned to the course the following month and again cantered up the steep finishing straight for an easy win, had no trouble adding to that at Bangor, but on his eighth start in three months had to accept defeat by the Tocky McKie-trained Risk A Bet, ridden by husband Ian, at Cheltenham's May meeting. Despite that defeat Mackenzie & Selby's annual described Teaplanter as "a Halley's Comet among stars, and now deserves to get his stripes among handicaps".
Deep-girthed, good-looking and a great jumper - Teaplanter in action
Few owner/riders with a City job would be swayed by such advice, although the following season Russell missed out on Teaplanter's February wins at Towcester and Newbury because of a cracked bone in his back and Marcus Armytage deputised. After the Newbury win some heat was found in Teaplanter's leg and he was roughed off, but barring accidents and on anything like his best form he would have been placed in Cheltenham's Foxhunter Chase – whether he would have beaten the winner, the brilliant seven-year-old Rushing Wild, will never be known.
Teaplanter gained a new nickname at the start of the 1993 season after a fall at Sandown. Russell says: "Four of my front teeth were knocked out, and when I returned to work my City colleagues renamed the horse Teethplanter." A minor injury meant Teaplanter missed Cheltenham – where Rushing Wild finished second to Jodami in the Gold Cup, and Double Silk glittered in the Foxhunter Chase – and while back in action in April his return at Bangor resulted in defeat at the hands of Toureen Prince, ridden by Julian Pritchard and trained by Henrietta Knight. Huntingdon and Towcester wins were to provide an uplifting conclusion to the season.
Playing cat to Double Silk's mouse
Two defeats as an 11-year-old did not mean Teaplanter's talents were waning, for his conquerors were from the very top draw. Wins at Wetherby and Kempton teed him up for a second assault on Cheltenham's Foxhunter Chase in which he faced just four rivals, but they included the previous year's winner Double Silk. It proved to be a cat-and-mouse affair, with Double Silk setting off in front and Teaplanter stalking, the pair steadily drawing clear of the opposition.
Double Silk was not to be denied, and while Teaplanter kept on gamely he could not find the extra gear to reel in the pace-setter, eventually finishing second five lengths adrift, with a distance back to the third. "We hoped to beat him, he beat us," says Russell.
The winner's time was just 3.8 seconds slower than that taken by The Fellow in the Gold Cup, yet despite the physical effort involved in running to such a quick time Teaplanter was out again two weeks later and hacking up once more at his beloved Towcester. This proved the precursor to another top-class performance at Punchestown, where, in the Champions Hunters' Chase, Teaplanter led his dozen rivals going to the final fence, but could not repel a six-year-old trained and ridden by Enda Bolger for J P McManus. The horse in question, Elegant Lord, had been so impressive in three earlier victories that he was sent off the 1/2 favourite, and he subsequently landed the Punchestown race twice more, plus the Cheltenham and Aintree Foxhunter Chases. Bailey looks back on that challenge by saying: "At that time it was quite a novelty to take a hunter chaser to Ireland – it was Richard's idea, and we had such a good time we later went back there with Gunner Welburn and Castle Mane. Teaplanter was beaten by a very good horse, one who was up there with the best."
The owner and trainer decided on one more run to complete the season, and opted for Cheltenham's evening meeting. It was the horse's fourth visit to the venue, and at last it proved a winning one. It would be stretching things to say Russell outrode the runner-up, for he simply had to push Teaplanter out for a comfortable win, but it may have been fortuitous that second-placed Rusty Bridge had dropped out (as was his wont) before running on too late to challenge the winner, for he was ridden by a 16-year-old called Richard Johnson, who even at that age resembled a human dynamo.
A deserved Cheltenham win for Teaplanter, who is foot-perfect at the final fence
As a 12-year-old Teaplanter opened his account for the season with another trip to Wetherby and another win (he won four of five races at the Yorkshire track), but then came up against the hugely-talented but fragile Cool Relation at Kempton and was well beaten into second, albeit clear of Double Silk who hated the heavy going. The next stop was to be another attempt on the Foxhunter Chase, and with Elegant Lord and Double Silk in the line-up Teaplanter set off at 12/1. On the final circuit those who backed him knew their money had gone as he began weakening out of contention, and seven fences from the finish he blundered and ejected Russell. It was to be his final ride.
He says: "I broke my neck, and was placed in traction in Cheltenham Hospital. I was told not to reapply for my licence. I still have two bits of titanium in my neck, but recognise I was very, very lucky."
Teaplanter was roughed off for the season, and as a 13-year-old became a new mount for Bailey's no.1 rider, Ben Pollock, 21, who worked at her yard. Their first outing came in a decent men's open race at Barbury Racecourse, where Teaplanter beat 13 rivals, they followed up at Wetherby, and while then beaten into second at Kempton the winner was a progressive younger horse called Cool Dawn. Russell recalls: "Robert Alner [winning trainer] spoke to us after the race and said, 'Don't be too disappointed, we think ours is a nice horse'." A Gold Cup victory the following season confirmed the opinion.
Teaplanter went on to give Pollock another three hunters' chase wins that season, and two more in 1997, when, at the age of 14, he ran four times and concluded his career with a pair of victories at Towcester.
Retired to the hunting field
Russell recalls: "I decided to retire him on a win. He was showing no signs of age or wear and tear, but he had run poorly on one occasion [at Kempton] and we felt he had done enough.
"I continued to hunt him after he retired from racing, although he was much better over timber, which he respected, than a hedge. I would always jump a gate rather than a hedge. At 19 I took him to the opening meet of the Pytchley, just across the fields from his stables, and although it wasn't a hard day's hunting he came back lame behind.
"We roughed him off, but in the following month the muscle on one side of his quarters disappeared. There was something in his back that was troubling him although vets couldn't tell us what the problem was. We gave him another summer at grass but I decided it would be unkind to leave him standing in a field through the winter and he was put down."
For such a big, deep-girthed horse Teaplanter had been a remarkably sound horse who raced for nine seasons, testament to Bailey's training and Russell's patience. Today his son John dons the family's familiar colours of Gordon Highlander tartan and is known for his association with another grand old horse, 15-year-old Gunmoney, who was still sprightly and competitive in a pair of runs earlier this year.
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