EILEEN BATTERSBYponders the Parthenon Frieze, Arkle, and all hail Kauto Star
A LONG CAVALCADE of riders, determined faces, each intent on the road ahead, form part of a procession. Their horses strain under the restraint, eager to race on. But this is a celebration, not a military manoeuvre. Energy undercuts the smallest gesture; a powerful awareness of being part of something magnificent speaks to us across the centuries. The Parthenon Frieze was created by Athenian master craftsmen more than two and a half thousand years ago when decorating the great temple dedicated to the warrior goddess Athena, daughter of Zeus. A crowning achievement of western civilisation, the Parthenon has a dramatic history that includes being moved from the famous Acropolis hilltop outside Athens to the stately setting of London’s British Museum. It is a journey shaped by controversy, righteousness, emotion and ambiguity. By the time Lord Elgin became involved, in the early 19th century, the Parthenon was in ruins, battered not only by time but by an unfortunate explosion in 1687 when the Turkish garrison, which then occupied Athens, reckoned wrongly on storing its gunpowder in the Parthenon and it was bombarded by a Venetian ship.
Elgin had begun purchasing Greek artefacts while visiting Constantinople. The frieze, which was set high up under the ceiling, spanned the four sides of the temple and was almost 160 metres (524ft) in length of which 128 metres (420ft) survive, some 60 per cent of which is now housed in the British Museum; the remainder is largely in Athens. Commentators are outraged that such a seminal example of Greek art is not only displayed in another country but is commonly referred to under the name of the British statesman who orchestrated this relocation.
Meanwhile horses dominate the north and south sections of the frieze on display. On a rainy Sunday morning, a teacher informs her students that they are looking at “one of our great national treasures”. One might wonder at the use of “our”, still it is easy to fall into possessory mode.
Next week horses take centre stage at the Cheltenham Festival and while Hurricane Fly looks certain for the Champion Hurdle, hearts continue to will the maestro double Gold Cup victor Kauto Star, five times winner of the King George VI, to a fairy tale victory. Now 12, the elegant French gelding whose name attracts contrasting pronunciations is currently hovering between immortality and extreme vulnerability. How much better to see him paraded safely as the glorious champion he is and the only horse to regain the Gold Cup, than attempt this race for the sixth time? May the gods, common sense and decency protect Kauto Star. Last year he was third, behind Long Run, also French-bred, who was only six, and the first six-year-old to win since 1963, and that winner was Mill House, a great steeplechaser overshadowed by the greatest of them all, Arkle, who won three times, 1964, 1965 and 1966 between the ages of seven and nine. His career cut short by injury, Arkle was putdown in 1970, at 13, due to crippling arthritis.