Who’s the greatest is one the questions that helps to keep pub landlords in business but, when the subject turn to steeplechasers, the answer has been simple enough.

Arkle.

 The name has been a millstone around the neck of generations of horses who have followed him, weighing them down as they have attempted to reach the pinnacle of achievement on which he has been placed and remained unchallenged since his last race in 1966.

 As racing struggles for its share of the limelight now, it seems almost inconceivable that there was once a horse whose celebrity was such that fan mail made its way to Tom Dreaper’s yard at Kilsallaghan, Co Dublin, addressed simply “Arkle, Ireland”, letting fame take care of the details.

However, the details are what form students rely on when assessing the relative merits of horses, so is Arkle’s god-like supremacy forty years on fact or fiction? Phil Smith, in his role as the British Horseracing Authority’s head of handicapping, deals in the facts behind horse performances for a living and is planning to review the form of Arkle – and those other giants of the 1960s Flyingbolt and Mill House – to bring it within the context of the modern-day stars like Kauto Star and Denman.

“It came from the Anglo/Irish classifications’ press conference in May,” he explained. “We were looking at the ratings for Master Minded, Kauto Star and Denman and the question was posed ‘where would they rate in relationship to Arkle?’. I, in a silly moment said ‘in my view pretty close’ because I couldn’t believe Arkle was rated 212 by Timeform.”

This rating has been used ever since as the benchmark which no other horse has ever got close to matching. The next horse in Timeform’s all-time list is Flyingbolt – Arkle’s stable companion – on 210, followed by Mill House on 191, where he now moves over on the all-time pecking order  to make room for Kauto Star after his stunning display in the William Hill King George VI Chase at Kempton Park on Saturday.

The reason why Timeform stands alone as the guide is because the racing authorities of the time were not set up to provide evidential ratings as they are now. “In those days the Jockey Club didn’t rate horses in exactly the way that we do now,” Smith pointed out. “And I just couldn’t believe that he could give some much weight to the likes of Kauto Star and Denman. And then someone said ‘so prove it’.”

That is slightly easier said than done. Smith, and his colleagues, rely on a number of tools to make their handicap calculations, including video analysis, however he is not about to start combing YouTube in search of grainy black-and-white footage of Arkle’s trio of Cheltenham Gold Cup victories. “I’m going into it with an open mind and if the facts support that rating then I shall say it. It’ll be fascinating to see how it comes out but it’s going to be a difficult task because you need a starting position. In those days Arkle ran against fields of threes and fours, which makes rating races more difficult.

“It’s going to be purely from the form book and making a judgement call. I’m going to deliberately give the horse as much credit for the ease of his victory as you could conceivably do.”

The problem will be in finding a starting point from which to make his deductions. “For example, Kauto Star at Haydock in the Betfair Chase, where you couldn’t find a horse to base the race through. You knew that Imperial Commander had improved, that Kauto hadn’t done his stuff but they were miles clear of everything else. So, to come up with a figure, sometimes, you have to look at the race in historical context and that’s going to be the hardest part because I’ve got no historical context to base the races on.”

However, it is the way that those Timeform ratings appear to defy history and every horse that has followed Arkle that makes Smith believe that it is the figures that may not stand up to the test of time. “To have two horses rated over 200, according to Timeform, seems a bit freakish to me so I’m going to look at all those top horses,” he said. “But the one thing I know for sure is that there wasn’t the strength in depth then that there is now. But they were winning races by huge distances from ok horses.”

If nothing else this delve into the sport’s history will make a pleasant diversion from the day job which brings its share of brickbats from owners and trainers who believe their horses are rising too far in the handicap for their liking. Or maybe not.

“It’ll be an interesting exercise and I’m looking forward to it. And someone won’t agree with it. I get slagged off for rating horses in 2009 and now I’m going to get slagged off for rating horses in 1964.”

Either way, it will be a debate that is likely to carry on long after last orders at the bar.

Paul Wheeler