Tom Meirs sits with his wife, Sam Quek, and mother, Jane, on a bicycle pioneered by her grandfather, Percy Stanton. Photo: Paul Cooper/Telegraph
If you happen to watch Sunday's Eurovision opening ceremony, around 3:50 pm you can see Sam Quek, the host, doing a little jig of pleasure.
Her mood won't be depend on the quality of her interview in Liverpool, but instead he will focus on events 200 miles from Newmarket, where a horse she partly owns, Stenton Glider, has a real chance of winning 1,000 guineas.
This is the horse that Quek, her husband Tom Meirs and his mother Jane bought for the price of a “used Volvo” named after the bike, and was bought in part because its lot number matched Jane's birthday. And while Kwek seamlessly transitioned from hockey gold medal at the 2016 Olympics to TV presenter, her husband will be in the paddock ahead of the 215th Classic filly race; their first and so far only encounter with the cream of the cavalry regiments belonging to the Aga Khan, Godolphin, Tabor, Smith and Magnier, Juddmonte and Amo Racing, the list goes on.
(From left to right) Mel Gedroits, Scott Mills, Rylan and Sam Quek during the BBC media presentation on the Eurovision Song Contest. Photo: James Stack/PA Wire “Time couldn't get any worse!” says Quek, who is now best known to sports fans as the captain of the team when it comes to sports. “If I had magic power for a day, it would be splitting myself in two. My live broadcast from the opening ceremony starts at 3.00 and ends at 5.30. If you see me clench my fists during an interview with the Armenian delegation, you will understand what happened!”
However, she admits that based on superstition, having missed both fillies so far, once because she played hockey and the other because she looked after their two young children, her absence may be a good thing.
“I won’t miss it despite all the tea in China,” her husband says with barely contained enthusiasm. “I'm sure Ed Chamberlin would want the Aga Khan or John Magnier on stage, not 'Thomas of the North!'”
He has been racing since childhood in nearby Chester and most recently married there. , Marse was more into racing when he was at university to keep in touch with his mother after he gave up season passes at Tranmere Rovers.
On her 50th birthday, he bought 1/12 of each of the syndicate's horses, Miss Avonbridge, from the stables of Michael Owen's estate, Cheshire's nearest Flat Court to the Wirral. When she won a modest Wolverhampton race on a November evening in 2012, according to Mars, it was more adrenaline than he had ever experienced at that stage.
While he was into racing, his mother fell in love. with horses – “I distribute gingerbread and he keeps statistics,” she says – and they dabbled in a few more syndicate horses, which basically tried to outdo each other in their mediocrity.
Two years ago he sold real estate, his mother sold her country house in Tenerife and they set aside a lump sum to buy their own horse and finance it for two years.
“Syndicate is fun, but we wanted to call it our own silks,” he says. “We didn't want him to end up in Lingfield, we wanted a wiry colt that could run around Chester all his life. We wanted to be Marwan Kukas [the owner who keeps all his horses in Chester] on a smaller scale!”
They contacted bloodstock agent Ed Sackville and traveled to Tattersalls in Newmarket on a budget of around £25,000. Sackville chose 10 horses he liked, nine of them were over budget, and then came lot 459 (Jane was born in April 1959 – a sign. Obviously).
knocked. for £35,000, they were so new that when the filly was brought to them for a meeting (supposedly for a photo), they wondered how they would transport her home by car.
The title required less thought. At the beginning of the last century, Jane's grandfather, Percy Stanton, invented what was at the time cutting-edge in cycling – the first folding handlebars. He named the bike the Stenton Glider and it was used in the 1928 Olympics. As a child, sitting on his lap and watching horse races on TV, she told him that if she ever had a racehorse, she would name it after a bicycle.
“There was a little commotion in the yard — Tom Dascombe. , who was instrumental in buying the filly and was infatuated with the Dandy Man, moved in and Hugo Palmer moved in with 100 of his horses,” says Marse.
“Hugo didn’t have the Dandy Mans so we weren’t sure if he liked them, we thought she would leave, she put on weight and had a little growth spurt, we wanted her to run at two and when we got to September, we thought we missed the season.
“But there was one meeting left in Chester, and Hugo said he flunked it in class 3. It was a chance for nothing. against the favorite 1-4 Prepense. We were totally shocked when she won. Afterwards Hugo said that she was “black type material” [capable of being placed in a pattern race]. We were such newbies that we thought: “It is chestnut – how does it work?”
As she came second in the Newbury 1000 guinea trial, Fred Darling defeated Remarque (she 7-1, Stanton Glider 25-1) in her first start of the season, they were offered 10 times her original cost. .
'Stenton Glider reminds me of Sam'
“What started out as fun suddenly became serious,” Myrs muses. “We were drinking with Ed after the Newbury race when he got the call. And then another. It's not that I'm the Aga Khan, but it's quite different. Sam said something that would make me feel worse; sell what turned out to be the best in the world, or leave it, and it turned out to be rubbish – this is definitely the first.
“I told my mother that we need to talk, then the excitement goes a little differently. It hits you like a bullet. It is not taxed. You are thinking about raising children. But mom doesn't want to sell, it's like her dog, and Ed said if you don't need it, enjoy it.
“Stenton Glider reminds me of Sam. Her father was a good swimmer, her mother was an all round healthy athlete, but together they produced an outstanding athlete and that is Stanton Glider.”
Kwek loves that racing has become a part of her life. Since her wedding in Chester in September 2016, the circuit has named The Sam Quek Celebratory Gold Stakes in honor of her heroism in Rio, and her fellow Sportsmen usually look to her for help when racing is on the agenda.
< p >No, but compared to everyone else, yes! laughs Quek when asked if she considers herself a racing expert on the show. “I knew the answer to the question: 'who rode the Papillion?' [Ruby Walsh] And where is the Derby? [Epsom]. But there are plenty of sports to keep you distracted.”
If Stanton Glider wins, then one day a three-year-old might even be the answer to the question, and there's no doubt Myres wants the day to be as dark and damp as possible to make that possible.
“I want it to rain on Sunday, that balances out, let's have shitty ground,” he said. “She is a northern girl who stood out in the Cheshire weather. Let's see how they cope with the hurricane blowing in their face. No one likes to play Northern teams away!
“We wanted to add 'I Bar' to her name because she went 18-1 in both starts and never appears on screen when placing bets! Who buys a horse for the price of a used Volvo, runs for two to appease the owners, wins, and you end up with guineas? If she is in the top half, I will be very excited. If she's there, I said I'd ride Rowley's mile!
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