100 Favourite Horses: An inspired response to a glorious celebration of the best-loved racehorses.

ALL right, all right. But it wasn't easy, you know, picking just five winners from the vast number of excellent letters we received nominating your favourite horses.

Those that appear here, the writers of which win a copy of the Racing Post Flat Horses of 2003 annual, are deserving in every respect.

As chronicled elsewhere, the response to the search for the nation's favourite has been phenomenal, and if your letters have proved one thing it is this: once the politics of the sport have been set aside - gently, of course, as we don't wish to bruise any egos - what remains is a glorious celebration of the inviolable relationship between horse and human.

Whether you were writing having owned the animal in question, whether you were inspired - as so many were - by a love-at-first-sight relationship struck in childhood, or simply enjoyed a happy accommodation between the horse and your wallet, a glass was well and truly raised to all: the good, the bad and, quite possibly, at least in the case of Prof Mary McCabe's beloved Sir Desmond - "He was a strange shape when I first saw him; head too small for his body" - the ugly.

And lest anyone is tempted to perform a double-take at the brevity of the letter in celebration of Rondetto, consider the first sentence properly and ask yourself whether anything you have read has better captured the spirit of this entire exercise.

Mind you, if someone had suggested to me, as a schoolboy, that Rondetto should be kept in the bedroom, I would have thought it ridiculous, even then. I mean, where would I have put Red Rum? The bathroom would have been far too small . . .

MARTIN SMETHURST

Letters editor

My hero never flinched in the face of adversity

Brigadier Gerard's groom explains why the champion's brilliance is unlikely to ever be equalled

BORN in a stable on March 4, 1968 of humble parentage, his mother a lightly raced maiden and blind in one eye, his father a rather lowly rated and inexpensive sire, my favourite racehorse succeeded in putting the great firmly back into British racing and breeding, at a time when it needed it most.

Like the star of wonder, his brilliance shone again and again during three magnificent seasons and his achievements will surely never be equalled.

Answering the call to arms on ground he loved and on ground he hated, over all distances, racing from the front and from behind, in sickness and in health, never once did he desert the battlefield or flinch in the face of adversity.

During this, an incredible era, my hero challenged their finest on the Heath at Newmarket then whupped 'em with all guns blazing in a never-to-be-forgotten Mayday Massacre.

He was rated the best he has trained by a great British trainer, the best he has ridden by a great British jockey, the highest-rated-ever British Flat racehorse by Timeform and was nominated the British Flat Horse of the Century in the Racing Post.

At a time when hyperbole and superlatives are too freely used, he is the one British Flat racehorse who can genuinely and unequivocally claim the mantle of greatness. My favourite racehorse is, of course, Brigadier Gerard.

LAURIE WILLIAMSON

Brize Norton 

Oxon

The most ill-tempered horse in training?

Kind Emperor, who has such a following at Yarmouth his trainer doesn't run him anywhere else

HE won't make the top 100 (he didn't - Ed.), but my favourite horse has been described as quirky, enigmatic, unco-operative and a complete rogue.

Having taken 30 attempts to register a victory, this horse has only ever won at one track, Great Yarmouth (albeit four times now), and has been branded an impossible ride by one jockey. He must rank as the most

ill-tempered horse in training.

I nominate Kind Emperor, the seven-year-old gelding trained at Newmarket by Pat Gilligan.

I have followed the (mis)fortunes of this equine maverick since his two-year-old days with Mark Polglase.

Actually persuading the horse to race is a complex operation in itself. He is usually taken down to the start early and skulks around at the back before being hooded for stalls entry and led in last. Kind Emperor works alone as he hates other horses and will permit only the trainer's wife to exercise him. His owner/breeder recounted the time he was shown his new quarters and responded by trashing his stable!

Given his unpredictability, last season's achievements are all the more remarkable as three further course victories testify.

The horse has quite a following among the Yarmouth holiday crowd, so much so that his trainer doesn't bother to run him anywhere else.

Kind Emperor - mean, moody and magnificent!

CHRIS BROOKS

Wilford

Nottingham

He is my first, second and third favourite

Arkle, the greatest steeplechaser who ever lived and a measure for any modern-day champion

IS it really 37 years since Dad and Grandad took me, aged 11, to Kempton Park on that fateful day in 1966, to see the greatest steeplechaser who ever lived?

My childhood hero was the incomparable Arkle.

Runners at Kempton, in those days, would walk across the middle of the racecourse prior to racing and my Dad and Grandad walked out there with me in the hope of seeing the great horse.

And there he was, walking along with his lad and two security guards just feet away from me. I was so excited, I said: "Look, look! There's Arkle!" He stopped in his tracks and looked straight at me, those lovely big ears pricked. His lad laughed and said: "Well, you did call his name." I was enthralled.

When Arkle died I was 15 and was sitting eating my tea when his death was announced on the 6pm national news. Can you imagine the death of a racehorse being announced on the national news? That was the immensity of his greatness and his popularity.

To this day, almost 40 years since he ran in his last race, all modern-day chasers are measured against Arkle. He was truly the greatest and no horse, in my eyes, has ever, nor will ever, come close.

Really he is my first, second and third favourite horse - I just loved him.

MRS LESLEY PERKINS

West Hoathly

West Sussex

Excitement mounts and the seed is sown

Kif Kif is responsible for a love affair with racing that is still growing 46 years later

IT'S July 17, 1958. The pits have shut down and Dad's at home all day. As far as a near 50-year-old can remember, being then three, I remember the train to Catterick.

A small girl sings The Happy Wanderer to her grandfather's harmonica accompaniment.The long walk from station to course is tiring for little legs and I hitch a ride on Dad's shoulders.

The picnic is set out on tartan rugs in the middle of the course and we drink Tizer and savour the special taste of egg sandwiches, always somehow different eaten

al fresco.

The talk among the men is all about Kif Kif in the last. At a time when Dad's bets were scattered like confetti, the powder would remain dry all afternoon.

It soon becomes clear that `going to see the horses' is different to the regular visits to the pit ponies enjoying their summer break at the pithead.

They're all brown, for one thing, and they have little coloured men on their backs. But the impression burns deep in the consciousness of one small boy.

I gaze in wonder at the shine on their coats and at the speed and power as the legs flash past the rails at eye level.

"Come on Kif Kif" I parrot, as wild excitement mounts. I have no idea why.

The seed is sown. A precocious love affair has begun. Forty-six years later and it's still growing stronger.

ERIC NAPIER

Banham

Norwich

He deserved to win the National

Rondetto, an all-time favourite

RONDETTO. I kept him as a pet in my bedroom and took him to school every day, but no-one knew! Should have won a Grand National - certainly deserved to do so. My favourite horse of all time.

LIZ CRESWICK

Horsham

West Sussex

CAPTION(S):

Rondetto (left) was very unlucky to not win a National, and finished third in the race at the age of 13 in 1969