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No Snail - a book review

They called L’Escargot ‘The Wonder Horse’ but today, steeplechase barely remembers the American-owned Irish-bred and -based, globe-trotting champ

British author David Owen dug deep to turn his new release ‘No Snail’ into a page-turning thriller

When L’Escargot sliced the Canal Turn late in the 1975 English Grand National to gain four lengths in the air, owner Ray Guest’s heart fluttered. It was looking like his beloved jumper was perfectly poised to bring the chocolate and pale blue silks to the winners’ enclosure at last. (WATCH the 1975 race)

Guest had won the Epsom Derby – twice, and almost all of racing’s marquis races on the flat and over fences. But in 12 previous tries, he’d not captured what he considered the most important prize of all.

In the end, the American diplomat could at last count the Aintree classic in his tally when L’Escargot won pulling up by 15.

But in doing so, L’Escargot beat two-time National winner Red Rum and instantly became what many were vilifying as racing’s biggest killjoy, and L’Escargot became a somewhat forgotten footnote in steeplechase lore.

Research writer David Owen wanted to right – and write, history.

Owen had learned of the largely unknown story of L’Escargot when researching for another book. He knew a good story-line when he saw it, though, so he dug deep. Owen began tracing the snail-trail of L’Escargot’s entourage, casting a wide web – a thrice-lucky breeder, a blueblood owner, his Irish trainer and more.

Last month marked the release of Owen’s latest racing biography – “No Snail – The story of L’Escargot, the horse that foiled Red Rum.”

“What persuaded me to write at length about the 1975 Grand National winner almost half a century after the event?” Owen asks in his forward. “There were many reasons. Firstly, I was surprised that no book-length account of his career exists.

“I have no doubt that it is a hole worth filling – in large part because he was so, so good.”

Even Robin Oakley’s 2012 book, “Britain and Ireland’s Top 100 Racehorses of all Time” ranked L’Escargot number 20 – seventh among steeplechasers.

Yet, Owen says, from L’Escargot’s first race to his National win, it was uncanny how often the media took more interest in his beaten opponent than in L’Escargot himself.

The clincher for Owen was L’Escargot’s U.S. championship – 1969, and his participation in what was at the time touted as the fledgling world ‘chase championship – the inaugural Colonial Cup in 1970.

It lent a transatlantic dimension weaving together the story of horseracing.

Available in hardcover and on Kindle, the 220-page “No Snail” reads fast, at times at page-turner with non-stop action. Owen weaves in carefully footnoted research stitched neatly with his own interviews with living members of L’Escargot’s entourage.

By Betsy Burke Parker

Named for it, L'Escargot was no snail.

American-owned, Irish-based and from a line of French champion producers, 1970’s steeplechaser L’Escargot underlines the global nature of horse racing, wins on two continents in three countries all the more impressive born into the era when international racing was still headline news.

A beautiful, athletic chestnut with the tiniest of white stars on his forehead, L’Escargot was a winner from the very start – a gorgeous foal that was sales-topper when sold at auction at 3. On the training grounds and on the racecourse, L’Escargot possessed that magical combination of tactical speed and jumping ability, athletic good looks and charisma. He was fleet enough to win Cheltenham’s supreme novice hurdle, classy enough to win two Cheltenham Gold Cups and tough enough to be placed in two English Grand Nationals before winning the great race in 1975.

With the Aintree victory, L’Escargot became one of just two horses to ever complete the Gold Cup-National double – the legendary Golden Miller is the other.

But when British research writer David Owen dug into L’Escargot’s story a few years ago, he found a largely forgotten and never comprehensively connected story. L’Escargot’s victories spanned nine seasons, with wins on the flat, over hurdles and over fences, at distances from two miles to the National’s grueling four miles and 856 yards.

“I was surprised to discover that no book-length account of his career existed,” Owen adds, his career coming soon after the incomparable Arkle’s that L’Escargot was probably “caught up in an attempt to identify the next Arkle, like footballers were once labeled ‘the next Pelé’, or cricketers ‘the next Bradman’.”

Trainer tidbits: Dan Moore

Before his training career, first near Fairyhouse, later at the Curragh, Dan Moore rode races in England and Ireland.

For many years it appeared as if Grand National glory as either rider or trainer may elude Dan Moore: As a rider, Moore had just missed out in 1938, when Royal Danieli was judged – an era before the photo-finish camera, to have been beaten a head by U.S.-owned Battleship.

Moore had also handled future National winners Freebooter and Team Spirit early in their careers before selling them on.

Moore also had the golden touch with another American invader - dual 1973 Cheltenham winner, Inkslinger Maryland-bred and owned by Martie Sanger (then Martie Jenney.)

Rider tidbits: Tommy Carberry

Tommy Carberry, who was Dan Moore’s son-in-law, rode in the English Grand National 10 times, with one win aboard L’Escargot, fifth on Ray Guest’s Packed Home in 1967 and eight times failed to finish.

Carberry went on to train 1999 winner Bobbyjo, who was ridden by his son Paul.

Tommy and Paul Carberry with Bobbyjo.

The basic framework

L'Escargot was owned by Raymond Guest, Winston Churchill's cousin and U.S. ambassador to Ireland in the 1960s. By the time L’Escargot was active on the racecourse, Guest’s chocolate and pale blue hooped silks had already been carried to Derby glory by the Vincent O'Brien-trained Larkspur and Sir Ivor.

But Guest always said his eye was on another prize: the English Grand National.

Only two owners had previously won both, completing the unique Derby-National double.

Guest was determined to be the third. He told a racing writer he’d been obsessed with winning the Grand National since American raider Billy Barton finished a valiant second in 1928.

In L’Escargot’s first try at the National, the chestnut got no further than the third – the open ditch – when sent off 17/2 clear favorite. Rider Tommy Carberry later said the horse “took an instant dislike” to the big jumps, slow over the first two and nearly stopping at the ditch where they were brought down by another faller.

The next year was better, where L’Escargot was a competitive third behind Red Rum in 1973. In 1974, trainer Moore added blinkers, and L’Escargot finished second, eight lengths behind Red Rum.

L’Escargot was depicted a party pooper when in 1975 the 12-year-old scampered home 15 lengths clear of Red Rum. Many reports fingered L’Escargot as almost a villain, destroying media darling Red Rum’s chance at an unprecedented three in a row.

As Owen discovered, it made L’Escargot more of a footnote than a banner headline to news inevitably more focused on the loser than the winner. “This is their story as well as the horse’s,” Owen says.

L'Escargot in the Grand National winner's circle in 1975 with Guest (left) and trainer Dan Moore.

Meet the champ: L’Escargot

Born at Multyfarnham in Westmeath in 1963, L’Escargot’s pedigree always hinted at such promise: the big chestnut was a son of What a Daisy, by the same sire as, and from the same female family of, 1958 National winner Mr What.

In addition to L’Escargot, What a Daisy was represented in the National four times by his half-brother The Pilgarlic – who finished third, fourth (twice) and fifth. Her What A Buck finished sixth in 1977; her Flitgrove was pulled up in the 1979 race.

L’Escargot was sold at an April horses of racing age sale at Punchestown in 1966. Trainer Dan Moore purchased the unstarted 3-year-old for 3,500 guineas – sales-topper, for Raymond Guest.

Speed was initially L’Escargot’s calling card – he won his bumper debut at Navan in February of his 4-year-old year, adding another at Naas that October, ridden in both by subsequent Classic-winning trainer Ben Hanbury. He won his hurdle debut, too – at Naas in early March, 1968, and followed up with a win in the novice hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival with Tommy Carberry aboard.

Owner Raymond Guest lived in Virginia, and though he was in Ireland almost year-round when he was appointed ambassador by President Lyndon Johnson, Guest had deep ties to American steeplechasing. He was president of the United Hunts Racing Association 1936-1944, later chairman of the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association (today, National Steeplechase Association.)

One can only surmise that it was his idea to bring L’Escargot to America to race.

L’Escargot won over hurdles in February, 1969 at Leopardstown, finishing off the board in the Champion Hurdle a month later at Cheltenham. He made a successful switch from hurdles to the bigger ‘chase fences, winning May 1 at Punchestown and May 12 at Leopardstown before flying to New York’s Belmont Park to meet America’s top handicappers in the 53^rd Meadow Brook Hurdle on June 3.

L’Escargot jumped the first few carefully, the National Steeplechase report reads, but he figured out the big black stuffed fences jumped more like the British hurdles than a ‘chase fence, and L’Escargot was an easy winner.

L'Escargot and Tommy Carberry in the winner's circle after the Meadow Brook in 1969. Photo courtesy the National Steeplechase Museum.

The gelding had been aimed for the 3-mile American Grand National at Belmont nine days later, but he was a late scratch when he came up lame a day before the race. He didn’t race again until October, again on the Belmont turf with a dozen others in the $38,000 Temple Gwathmey handicap.

Rider Tommy Carberry tracked pacemaker, top-weight and, later, timber champion, Jacko, until the leader cracked on the approach to the last fence. L’Escargot and the Chilean-import Somaten burst through to jump together.

The 1969 Steeplechasing in America caption reads: Biggest upset of chasing season - David Washer on Somaten heads L'Escargot over final fence in Gwathmey. (NYRA - Sirico and Coglianese)

Somaten ran on to win by three lengths with late-closer Lake Delaware pipping L’Escargot for second. L’Escargot was voted 1969 steeplechase horse of the year title, his quickness over the American fences good enough to encourage the team to look west again the next year.

L’Escargot won his final 1969 start eight weeks after the Gwathmey, back home at Fairyhouse, and he came out in champion form to open the 1970 season: he won his debut at Haydock in January, and claimed his first Cheltenham Gold Cup in March.

L'Escargot (left) over the last at Cheltenham to win his first Gold Cup in 1970

Owner Raymond Guest was integral to placing Virginia horse racing on the world stage

Raymond Richard Guest (Peter Winants/NSA Archives photo) was born in 1907 in Manhattan to Frederick Edward Guest (1875–1937), a British Cabinet minister and his American wife, Amy Phipps (1873–1959.)

Guest attended the Phillips Andover school and graduated from Yale in 1931.

His maternal grandfather was Henry Phipps Jr., Andrew Carnegie's business partner in the Carnegie Steel. His paternal grandfather was Ivor Guest, 1st Baron Wimborne. His great-grandfather was John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, making Guest a first cousin once removed of Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

During World War II, Raymond Guest served with the U.S. Navy on mine sweepers, rising to the rank of commander and at the end of the war serving as head of the Navy section of the Office of Strategic Services in London.

Guest earned the Bronze Star and a Legion of Merit, both with combat devices; the Croix de Guerre with star; the Order of the British Empire; the Norwegian Cross and the Danish Defense Medal.

Guest was a member of the Virginia Senate 1947-1953, appointed by President Lyndon Johnson as U.S. ambassador to Ireland 1965-’68.

In horse racing, Guest's sister, Diana Guest Manning, owned and raced Be My Guest, a winner in England and Ireland as well as leading sire in Great Britain and Ireland in 1982.

In Ireland, Raymond Guest’s flat trainer was Vincent O'Brien, his jumps trainer was Dan Moore.

His racing colors were chocolate, pale blue hoops and cap.

Guest is one of only four owners to win both the Epsom Derby and the English Grand National, the others being King Edward VII (when he was the Prince of Wales,) Dorothy Paget and Jim Joel.

In 1960, Guest and his then-new trainer Vincent O’Brien purchased a yearling colt by 1954 Derby winner Never Say Die at the Ballsbridge yearling sales in Ireland.

Larkspur won the 1962 English Derby. Guest donated some of his prize money to finance building a new facility – Larkspur Park – in Cashel, the town closest to O’Brien’s Ballydoyle operation, for the benefit of the local community. Larkspur has a memorial in the park.

Guest’s Tom Rolfe, trained by Frank Whiteley Jr., won the 1965 Preakness under Ron Turcotte. Tom Rolfe also won that year’s Citation Handicap and the American Derby and was voted leading 3-year-old. Tom Rolfe raced in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe that October, ridden by Willie Shoemaker. They finished sixth, behind winner Sea-Bird.

Guest was British flat racing champion owner in 1968, the year his Sir Ivor won Guest’s second English Derby.

Jacqueline O’Brien, widow of Guest’s Irish trainer, Vincent O’Brien, told an Irish racing paper they viewed Guest “was the luckiest owner we ever had, the luckiest that could ever walk through your gate. Rarely did he have more than one horse with us, but he struck gold so often.

“I always thought there was something almost exotic about him, which came from his very aristocratic background. He was a large, often domineering person, but you couldn’t help enjoying his company.”

Guest was a member of the U.S. Jockey Club and president of the Virginia Thoroughbred Association in 1958.

Both he and his brother Winston Frederick Churchill Guest were skillful polo players – Ray Guest rated as high as 8, Winston rated 9 on the field, 10 in the arena. Raymond Guest twice won the U.S. Open as part of the Templeton team, and was posthumously inducted into the Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame in 2006.

Guest died of pneumonia at age 84, on December 31, 1991, in Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg, Virginia, near his beloved Powhatan.

L’Escargot was invited to take part in the inaugural Colonial Cup in Camden, South Carolina. Race founder and one of steeplechasing’s leading ladies, hostess Marion duPont Scott personally paid the fare for some dozen European horses and their entourages to take part in the November 14 race. Pundits were calling the $100,000 race the start of a true steeplechase world championship. A New York Times report trumpeted that the new race “could challenge England’s Grand National as the world’s premier event in a few years.”

One can only speculate as to trainer Dan Moore’s reaction on first seeing the Colonial Cup race program – on the cover was a portrait of Scott’s Battleship, the little chestnut stallion who had so narrowly deprived Moore of what would have been his greatest victory as a jockey in the 1938 Grand National at Aintree.

The 1970 Colonial Cup program cover, courtesy of the National Steeplechase Museum

In the end, the Colonial Cup wasn’t a great result for any of the European raiders. Herring Gull, after crossing an ocean to get there, ran out before the first of 18 jumps.

For a while, Crisp and Young Ash Leaf shared pace-making duties with an American runner called Peach II ridden by Ronnie Armstrong, but both had dropped back well before Leo O’Brien and Shadow Brook made the first serious move.

It wasn’t enough, though, with Joe Aitcheson and Top Bid closing late, a perfectly timed run to hit the line first for trainer Mike Smithwick, a cousin of L’Escargot’s trainer Dan Moore. (photo: final fence of the 1970 Colonial Cup, courtesy of the National Steeplechase Museum)

L’Escargot finished as the best of the Europeans – far from disgraced in fourth.

The next two Colonial Cup winners – Inkslinger, a Smithwick-trainee that won with Carberry in the irons in 1971, and 1972 winner Soothsayer – would carry on the increased interest in international campaigns to go on to become Cheltenham festival winners. (Read more about Inkslinger's Cheltenham successes in 1973 HERE and HERE from This is Horse Racing)

L’Escargot won his second Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1971, claimed the Sundew Chase at Haydock in 1972 and was third in the 1973 English Grand National. He was third in the 1974 Irish Grand National and the 1975 win at Aintree was his final victory.

L’Escargot was inducted into the National Racing Hall of Fame in 1977.

He died at Guest’s Powhatan plantation in Virginia in 1984 at age 21.

You ought to be in movies

“The Snail, The Diplomat and The Chase” is a 1976 documentary detailing the story of the 1975 Aintree hero, L’Escargot. Its titular subject matters were, in reverse order, a long-running quest to win the Grand National (“Chase”), prominent diplomat, democrat politician and racehorse owner Raymond Guest (“Diplomat”) and the talented ‘chaser L’Escargot (“Snail”).

L'Escargot by the numbers

Chestnut gelding, born in 1963 by Escart III out of What A Daisy

Breeder: Barbara O’Neill

Owner: Raymond Guest

Trainer: Dan Moore

Jockey: Tommy Carberry

(photo: at the 1969 Temple Gwathmey, Schafer / NSA Archives)

🏆 The 1975 English Grand National was the 13th time American diplomat Raymond Guest had tried to win the world steeplechase crown.

He had one attempt by Virginius, two by Flying Wild, two by Packed Home, one by Great Lark, one by Cnoc Dubh, one by Smooth Dealer, one by Ashville and four by L’Escargot.

L’Escargot was brought down in his first try, third in his second, second in his third and won his fourth attempt.

🏆 Racing 1967-1975, L’Escargot won 14 of 61 starts, 15 seconds, seven thirds. He fell twice, unseated his rider once and was brought down in the 1972 Aintree Grand National, his first of four runs in the classic.

🏆 Owner Raymond Guest “retired” L’Escargot after he won the 1975 National, and he reportedly gave the horse to trainer Dan Moore’s wife, Joan, to be pensioned.

Saying that the horse was fretful in retirement, the Moores put the horse back in training and ran the horse in the Kerry National in Joan Moore's silks that autumn. He finished second, but Guest was reportedly displeased and took back ownership of L’Escargot.

The gelding was brought to Guest’s Powhatan near Fredericksburg, Virginia. He lived out his days there, dying at age 21.

🏆 His earnings are tricky to translate to present-day values, but writer David Owen figures his 88,000 English pounds equal about a million pounds today.

🏆 L’Escargot was the first Irish-trained winner of the National for 17 years.

The interval before the next Irish-trained winner was even longer: 24 years: in 1999, Bobbyjo (pictured) won for Irish trainer – of all people, Tommy Carberry. The jockey was Tommy’s son Paul.

L'Escargot and Tommy Carberry (#5) winning the 1969 Meadow Brook Steeplechase Handicap at Belmont Park. (NYRA - Sirico and Coglianese)

Historic Powhatan

Situated on the fertile Virginia farmland on a wide peninsula between the Rappahannock River and the Potomac River, Powhatan is located south of Washington, D.C., 16 miles east of Fredericksburg, Virginia.

The red brick manor house is a classic example of an early Georgian plantation mansion. The construction date is uncertain, although it may have been designed by noted architect Richard Taliaferro, who designed several important Virginia plantations including Carter's Grove and Wilton, his own townhouse in Williamsburg and supervised repairs to the Governor's Palace in 1751.

By the time he was working on the Governor's Palace he was known to be living at Powhatan, on land inherited by his wife Elizabeth Eggleston Taliaferro west of Williamsburg.

Powhatan is marked by finely crafted glazed-header Flemish bond brick walls and massive T-shaped chimney stacks.

Architecturally, the house at Powhatan relates to the much larger house at nearby Westover. Both homes possess similar proportions and include off-center halls.

Powhatan passed out of the Taliaferro family in 1810. The interior of the house was destroyed by fire during the Civil War, although the Martin family rebuilt shortly thereafter.

Powhatan was inherited by Edward Thornton Tayloe in 1829.

The Slausson family, who operated a dairy farm on the property during the first half of the 20th century, undertook a restoration of Powhatan in 1948. A 19th-century gable roof was restored to the original steep-pitch hip roof form and colonial-era sashes were fabricated to replace the two-over-two sash windows installed after the Civil War.

In 1952, Powhatan was purchased by former U.S. ambassador to Ireland Raymond Guest to be his home and his thoroughbred operation base. Pat Graham was trainer at Powhatan.

Today, Powhatan is a Virginia certified boarding facility for thoroughbreds and standardbreds taking part in the lucrative Virginia residency program. There are 600 acres of pastures, training barns, turnout fields and a training track. The farm is also home to polo ponies.

Powhatan was listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

Son and namesake R.R. ‘Andy’ Guest Jr. helped bring pari-mutuel racing to Virginia

Raymond Richard "Andy" Guest Jr. was born in 1939.

Guest served 27 years as a Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates, minority leader from 1986 to 1992. He died in 2001 at his home, Rock Hill Farm in Front Royal, Virginia.

He was patron of many of the legislative bills that brought pari-mutuel wagering to Virginia, allowing development of the Colonial Downs racecourse near Richmond and pari-mutuel meets at Morven Park and Great Meadow.

The Andy Guest Shenandoah River State Park was established near Front Royal in 1995.

Like his father, Andy Guest graduated from Yale and served on the Besemmer Securities board. He was in the U.S. Marine Corps reserve.

Also like his father, Andy Guest was a high-rated polo player, riding for the U.S. on the International Polo Team and was on the board of governors of the U.S. Polo Association.

Meet ‘Snail’ writer David Owen

David Owen, 62, received a degree in modern languages from Oxford.

During his 20-year stint as a sports editor at the Financial Times, Owen worked from their Chicago, Toronto and Paris bureaus.

Owen says his interest in racing comes from a long family tradition. “I had an uncle who was very much into horseracing in the English West Country,” he says, “so to some extent it is 'in the genes.' But funnily enough, I've never really followed racing like I do soccer and cricket.

“What intrigues me about racing is the way it brings people together whose paths probably would not otherwise cross. In a British context, this is partly to do with the class system – often upper class owners, and sometimes trainers, (shoulder-to-shoulder with) working class staff and (most of the) jockeys.

“Every horse has this little world of 'connections', not to mention punters, revolving around it. What is more, these little worlds are constantly evolving – horses can switch yards, jockeys can switch horses, etc. So the social aspect underlying the basic competition really interests me.”

Owen’s first horseracing book, “Foinavon: The Story of the Grand National’s Biggest Upset,” won the Tony Ryan Book Award.

“Foinavon was the hugely unlikely winner of the 1967 Grand National,” Owen explains. “You can imagine – 44 starters, 44 little worlds to poke around in.

“It was perfect for me.

“I think I managed to speak to 28 of the jockeys who took part in the race, many of whom have since passed away, so you could say I wrote the book in the nick of time.”

Owen has written five books – two on cricket, one on rowing in the Olympic Games, “Foivanon” and “No Snail.”

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