The Cremation (part 1) – Meeting the Sponsor
ITV RACING STUDIO — PRESENTER SPEAKS TO CAMERA
“Now, before we turn to this afternoon’s card at Newbury, we cross live to Upper Deddington where our colleague Nigel Pembridge has a quite extraordinary story — a once great race, a remarkable revival, and a sponsorship deal that has brought one of British racing’s most storied but troubled fixtures back from the brink. Nigel — over to you.”
CAST OF CHARACTERS:
NIGEL PEMBRIDGE — Once the voice of British racing on BBC Television. He has called the big ones — Gold Cups, Grand Nationals, Royal Ascots. The voice a generation associated with the sport. Now reduced to BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra, rattling around the minor tracks of the UK with a microphone and fading dignity. Today however — today — ITV have the cameras rolling at Upper Deddington and Nigel is back in the frame. Literally. He has ironed his shirt twice.
EARL PERCIVAL ASHBY-SMOLDERTON, 9th Earl of Smolderton — Octogenarian board member of the Upper Deddington Jockey Club, and proprietor of The Final Furlong Funeral Home and Knackery, originally founded by the 5th Earl in 1736 as Smolderton & Son Undertakers , now the title sponsor of The Cremation. Means well. Slightly deaf. Prone to mixing his metaphors across the funerary and equestrian worlds. Genuinely cannot understand why people find the company name uncomfortable.
LORD HUNTINGTON — Chief Steward and Manager of the Upper Deddington Jockey Club. Old establishment. Impeccable appearance. Quietly dying inside. Approved the sponsorship himself and will never forgive the financial circumstances that made it necessary.
THE COMPANY — The Undertaking business was begun by the fifth Earl of Smolderton in 1736. Then as mortality rates dropped dramatically in the early 2000’s the current Earl was forced to look for a new revenue stream to help pay for the Company’s new Cremation furnaces, so they were dual purposed to render deceased farm animals and slow racehorses (of which he had bred plenty) and the new Final Furlong Funeral Home and Knackery rose from the ashes.
UPPER DEDDINGTON RACECOURSE:
Nigel
Thank you, Clare.
Hello folks. Nigel Pembridge here at Upper Deddington Racecourse in Berkshire in the heart of the English countryside, and I have to say — it is wonderful to be back on camera.
(clears throat)
For those of you too young to remember, The Cremation has a history stretching back to 1847, when Upper Deddington was considered one of the finest racing venues in England. Kings attended. Champions were made here. The roll call of great fillies who have graced this track reads like a who’s who of British bloodstock — Midnight Empress, Lady Cavendish, The Duchess of Pale. For decades The Cremation was the race for three year old fillies in the early summer calendar. Cheltenham had its Gold Cup. Epsom had its Oaks. Upper Deddington had The Cremation.
Then came the lean years.
Declining attendances, ageing infrastructure, a series of unfortunate administrative decisions which Lord Huntington, standing beside me, has asked me not to go into in any detail, all contributed to a slow and painful decline. By the early 2020s The Cremation was in very real danger of disappearing from the racing calendar entirely. Prize money had dwindled to a level that could no longer attract the quality of runner the race had once commanded. The grandstand required what surveyors described in their report as “urgent and substantial attention.” Sponsors were not forthcoming.
And then, quite unexpectedly, salvation arrived — in the form of The Final Furlong Funeral Home and Knackery, and its proprietor, Percival Ashby-Smolderton, the ninth Earl of Smolderton.
The sponsorship deal, announced quietly last autumn, has transformed the race overnight. A prize fund of one million pounds — six hundred thousand to the winner alone — has attracted a field of three-year-old fillies of genuine and outstanding quality. Racing correspondents who had long since stopped making the journey to Upper Deddington are making it again. ITV Racing is here. The Cremation, it appears, is very much alive.
I am joined now by the race’s new sponsor, the ninth Earl of Smolderton, and by Lord Huntington, Chief Steward and Manager of the Upper Deddington Jockey Club.
Gentlemen — good afternoon.
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LORD HUNTINGTON: “Good afternoon, Pembridge.”
(nods with the measured authority of a man who has been nodding with measured authority for sixty years)
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EARL PERCIVAL ASHBY-SMOLDERTON: “Delightful. Quite delightful. Are we on the television? Marvelous. My mother watched the television. Remarkable woman. Held on until ninety-four. We did her ourselves of course.”
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NIGEL PEMBRIDGE: “Quite. My Lord, if I may — The Final Furlong Funeral Home and Knackery is not, shall we say, a conventional racing sponsor. What drew you to The Cremation specifically?”
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EARL PERCIVAL ASHBY-SMOLDERTON: “Well it’s the name, isn’t it. The Cremation. Speaks for itself. When Huntington here said at a board meeting last year that our premier race was in dire trouble of not running due to lack of a sponsor, I said good lord man, it’s practically on our letterhead. The Final Furlong. The Cremation. Synergy, I believe they call it. My grandson calls it synergy. Clever boy. Studying business. Or was it mortuary science. One of the two.”
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LORD HUNTINGTON: “The Earl was most generous in recognising the historic significance of the race and the importance of maintaining the, ah, tradition of quality fillies competition at Upper Deddington.”
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NIGEL PEMBRIDGE: “Indeed. My Lord Smolderton, the prize fund you’ve put up is extraordinarily generous — a million pounds in total. Six hundred thousand to the winner. That is a statement of serious intent.”
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EARL PERCIVAL ASHBY-SMOLDERTON: “We’ve had a good few years. The knackery side has been particularly brisk, I don’t mind telling you. People do underestimate the deceased equine market. Very steady. Very reliable. Not unlike the funeral side. You’d be amazed how consistent the throughput is once you get the furnace running at the right temperature. We run a very tight operation. Same furnace of course — different days, naturally, we’re not barbarians — but she runs beautifully. German engineering. Cost a fortune but worth every penny.”
(brief silence)
(Lord Huntington gazes at a point somewhere above the treeline)
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NIGEL PEMBRIDGE: “The, ah — the furnace. Yes. And the business itself has quite a remarkable history, I understand.”
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EARL PERCIVAL ASHBY-SMOLDERTON: “Two hundred and ninety years this year. Founded by the fifth Earl in 1736. We’ve seen off plague, war, the National Health Service — which frankly we thought would finish us — and now this wretched business of people simply refusing to die at a reasonable rate. Inconsiderate, I call it. The fifth Earl would have had something to say about it. Tremendous man. Very firm views on mortality.”
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NIGEL PEMBRIDGE: “And the diversification into — the knackery side of the business — that came more recently?”
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EARL PERCIVAL ASHBY-SMOLDERTON: “Early 2000s. Had to do something. The furnace was sitting there half the week doing nothing, and I had a paddock full of horses that frankly weren’t pulling their weight. Seemed sensible. You know, in our business we’ve always said — everyone comes to us eventually. Turns out that applies to horses as well. Ha.”
(chuckles to himself for slightly longer than is comfortable)
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LORD HUNTINGTON: “The Earl’s investment has been, without question, transformative for the race and for Upper Deddington as a whole. The prize fund has attracted connections of the very highest calibre. We have runners here today whose entries at Epsom and Goodwood are — “
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EARL PERCIVAL ASHBY-SMOLDERTON: “And I’ll tell you something else, Nigel — may I call you Nigel — I’m announcing today, exclusively, an additional prize. For the connections of the last placed horse.”
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NIGEL PEMBRIDGE: “An additional prize. For — for last place.”
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EARL PERCIVAL ASHBY-SMOLDERTON: “Full complimentary premium package from The Final Furlong Knackery. Collection, processing, the lot. We’ll even do a little certificate. Very tasteful. My secretary designed it. She does all the certificates — we do a lovely one for the human side too, very popular with the families.”
(beat)
“Saves the connections a fortune, frankly. These things aren’t cheap. I should know, I run the business.”
(laughs warmly)
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LORD HUNTINGTON: (very quietly, to no one in particular) “Good God.”
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NIGEL PEMBRIDGE: “I — yes. That is — that is certainly a first in British racing. My Lord Huntington, as Chief Steward, do you have any — “
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LORD HUNTINGTON: “The Upper Deddington Jockey Club is, as always, deeply grateful for the Earl’s extraordinary generosity and his, ah, comprehensive approach to racing aftercare.”
(the faintest tremor in the left eyelid)
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NIGEL PEMBRIDGE: “My Lord Smolderton, before I let you go — what does it mean to you personally to have your family name attached to a race of this stature?”
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EARL PERCIVAL ASHBY-SMOLDERTON: “Everything, Nigel. Everything. The Ashby-Smolderton name has been associated with the great departures of this county for nearly three centuries. And now here we are, associated with a great race. It’s what the fifth Earl would have wanted. Though he was more of a cockfighting man, if I’m honest. Different times.”
(pauses, looks warmly at the racecourse)
“You know what I always say — everyone has a final furlong. Ours is simply a little more — literal.”
(smiles beatifically)
(Lord Huntington’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly)
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NIGEL PEMBRIDGE: “Indeed. My Lords — thank you both enormously.”
(turns to camera, the faintest light returning to his eyes after twenty years in the wilderness)
“A great race reborn, a remarkable story, and I think it’s fair to say — a sponsorship announcement that British racing will not forget in a hurry. Clare, back to you in the studio.”
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[ITV RACING STUDIO]
“…Thank you, Nigel. Remarkable scenes there at Upper Deddington. We’ll of course have full coverage of The Final Furlong Funeral Home and Knackery Cremation later in the program. Coming up after the break…”
Part 2 The Race follows