raising the spectre of the Queen Mother’s horse performing the splits on the Aintree

[Sepmre]

Well, My brain are going to explode!

regarding to the sentence below:
When Kenny was in charge at Blackburn, and they were out in front in the title race, I piped up: ‘Well, we’re hoping for a Devon Loch now.’ That stuck. Devon Loch popped up in every newspaper article. And Blackburn started to drop points. We ought to have won the League that year but Rovers held on. There is no doubt we made it harder for them by raising the spectre of the Queen Mother’s horse performing the splits on the Aintree run-in.

what want to say the words I underlined?

 

[Pangus]

To raise the spectre of - "to make people worry that something unpleasant will happen" ( raise the spectre of - Idioms - by the Free Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia. )

The splits - "he suddenly, and inexplicably, jumped into the air and landed on his stomach" ( Devon Loch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )


So the talk of Blackburn making an inexplicable collapse at the end of the title race made it more difficult for them.

 

[SoothingDave]

Blackburn is the Queen Mother's favorite team? Or this Loch is her favorite player? The idea is that this is the "horse" she was betting on, correct?

 

[5jj]

Blackburn is the Queen Mother's favorite team? Or this Loch is her favorite player? The idea is that this is the "horse" she was betting on, correct?

Devon Loch was her horse. She had probably never heard of Blackburn.

 

[SoothingDave]

I see I should have clicked on your link earlier. I thought "Devon Loch" was the name of a soccer player and the "horse" was an analogy.