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- Herausgeber: Merlin Unwin Books
- Kategorie: Lebensstil
- Sprache: Englisch
A sport based on one animal sitting on top of another and trying (usually) to be the first pair to reach a wooden stick is a curiosity in itself. So it's no surprise that horseracing is full of curiosities. The curiosities in this collection have been chosen to arouse interest. They are stories of those curious creatures – people, and of horses. The curiosities are arranged in themes so that the reader can dip in and out, as the mood takes them. The collection should leave them with a benevolent view of an intriguing sport, if they didn't already have one. Owners, jockeys, the horses, racecourses, officials, prizes, trainers and staff, racing journalists, betting, bookmakers, punters, skulduggery – one of Britain's best loved racing journalists David Ashforth has found the stories to capture the readers attention on all these topics and more.
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RACECARD
Before You Begin
A sport based on one animal sitting on top of another and trying (usually) to be the first pair to reach a wooden stick is a curiosity in itself. So it’s no surprise that horseracing is full of curiosities.
The curiosities in this collection have been chosen to arouse your interest, as they have engaged mine. They are stories of those curious creatures – people, and of horses.
The curiosities are arranged in themes but dip in and out, as the mood takes you. If you get bored with one, try another. Eventually the law of averages should come to your rescue.
I hope the collection will leave you with a benevolent view of an intriguing sport, if you don’t have one already.
Dedication
To the friends I have made through this intriguing sport, some of them very curious.
Chapter1
Owners
Lord Lade has his teeth filed
For the heirs of wealthy aristocrats, 21 was a golden number. In 1780, Sir John Lade, having survived for the necessary number of years, gained control of the considerable fortune left by his late father.
Lade’s uncle was Henry Thrale, a close friend of Dr Samuel Johnson. Johnson quickly deemed Sir John unfit for his inheritance and greeted Lade’s 21st birthday with his poem, To Sir John Lade, On his Coming of Age. The opening lines were:
Long-expected one-and-twenty
Ling’ring year, at length is flown
Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty
Great Sir John, are now your own.
Loosen’d from the minor’s tether,
Free to mortgage or to sell.
Wild as wind, and light as feather
Bid the sons of thrift farewell.....
Johnson’s opinion of Lade did not improve and when Lade asked him, “Mr Johnson, would you advise me to marry?” received the dismissive reply, “I would advise no man to marry, sir, who is not likely to propagate understanding.”
Johnson proved a sound judge, as Lade diligently disposed of his wealth by the tried and tested means of racing, gambling, womanising, drinking and dedicated profligacy.
Lord Lade once sat still long enough for Joshua Reynolds to complete a portrait of him with his dog and, unusually, without his whip. Lade was habitually dressed in riding clothes, carrying a whip, as it was never long before he either mounted a horse or a carriage, from which he drove his team of six greys or, often, those of the Prince Regent.
As well as dressing like a coachman, Lade had his front teeth filed, so that he could mimic the loud whistle coachmen made through the spaces in their teeth. Thomas Raikes, a noted dandy, remarked that Lord Lade’s “ambition was to imitate the groom in dress and in language.”
Lord Thurlow, a former Chancellor, doubtless had Lade’s emulation of coachmen in mind when, at a dinner with the Prince Regent, he was appalled to find Lade among the guests. “I have no objection, sir,” he told the future King George IV, “to Sir John Lade in his proper place, which I take to be your Royal Highness’s coach-box, and not your table.” 11
The bold Lady Lade as seen by George Stubbs (1793).
If Lade’s dress and language were not enough to alienate high society, his penchant for excess, outrageous bets and choice of wife did the trick. Lade bet that he could drive the wheels of his phaeton over a sixpenny piece, and that he could drive a four-in-hand rig around Tattersall’s small sales yard at Hyde Park Corner.
Notoriously, Sir John once bet the burly Lord Cholmondley that he could carry him from opposite Brighton’s Royal Pavilion twice around the Old Steine. When the time came, Lade demanded that Cholmondley strip off, on the grounds that he had bet that he could carry Cholmondley, not his clothes. Unwilling to be seen naked in public, especially as there were women among the spectators, Cholmondley conceded the bet.
Not all his bets were successful and his betting at racecourses was generally disastrous. Lord Lade usually settled his debts quarterly, on a 12Monday, enabling him to leave his mark by coining the expression, ‘Black Monday.’
Until it was no longer possible, Lord Lade owned and bred many racehorses, including the distinguished grey, Medley, later a successful stallion in America, and Crop, runner-up in the 1781 Derby.
In 1787 he subjected society to a further shock when marrying a woman from such an obscure background that even her name was uncertain. Letitia or Laetitia’s maiden surname was either Smith or Derby. According to John Robert Robinson’s The Last Earls of Barrymore, 1769–1824 (1894), she “had been a servant at a house in Broad Street, St Giles, whose inhabitants were not endowed with every virtue.”
A relationship with ‘Sixteen String Jack’ Rann, so called because he wore 16 coloured strings attached to the knees of his silk breeches, ended abruptly in 1774, when the highwayman was executed at Tyburn.
Moving up in the world, Letitia became the mistress of the Duke of York, the Prince Regent’s younger brother. Her looks and skill at riding and carriage driving attracted attention, particularly that of Sir John Lade and the Prince Regent.
Robinson wrote, “She was a smart, bold woman and became, under her husband’s tuition, as deft a ‘whip’ as Sir John himself. Lady Lade also became a skilled horsewoman, and regularly attended the Windsor hunt. It was at one of these meetings that she attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales by her bold riding.”
The Prince Regent became so well disposed towards Lady Lade that in 1793 he commissioned George Stubbs to paint a portait of her. Appropriately, Lady Lade appears sitting calmly, side saddle, on a rearing horse.
She and Lord Lade were well matched, for Letitia was a disciple in betting and leader in slang. She once challenged a rival lady ‘whip’ to drive a four-in-hand eight miles across Newmarket Heath for 500 guineas, ‘play or pay.’ Lady Lade was willing but her rival was not. When it came to swearing, Robinson noted that, “Sir John Lade and his lady were both skilled in ‘stable’ and other slang.” The Prince Regent was prone to say of someone, “he swears like Lady Lade.”
Her behaviour did not enamour her to the wives of other aristocrats, many of whom ignored her. In Brighton in 1789 Lady Lade prevailed on the Prince Regent to dance with her, thinking this would improve her standing but, led by the Duchess of Rutland, several ladies promptly left the room. The following day they left Brighton for Eastbourne, in protest.
As Lord Lade’s fortune shrank and his debts rose, his racecourse and social appearances diminished until, in 1814, he arrived at the King’s Bench debtors’ prison. Yet, unlike his inheritance, his luck hadn’t vanished 13completely. He, or his friends, paid for the privilege of being allowed to live not in but in close proximity to the prison, where Lady Lade joined him.
Late that year, enough of Lord Lade’s debts were cleared to obtain his release, whereupon the Prince Regent generously bestowed an annuity of £300 a year on him, eventually raised to £500. The payments were disguised as a salary for acting as the Prince Regent’s driving tutor, with the bank drafts made out to the ‘Reverend Dr. Tolly.’
Lady Lade died in 1825 while her husband lived on at his stud farm in Sussex, defying decades of unhealthy living until expiring, aged 78, in 1838.
Even then, Lord Lade wasn’t completely dead, nor Lady Lade, for both were resurrected by William M. Reynolds in The Mysteries of the Court of London (1849), by Conan Doyle in Rodney Stone (1896), and by Georgette Heyer in The Corinthian (1940).
In 2021, Lady Lade reappeared as a racehorse, winning twice for trainer Keith Dalgleish.
Joe thrives on mincemeat
Vincent O’Brien was one of the best, arguably the best, trainer of all time. Based in Ireland but twice champion jumps trainer and twice champion Flat trainer in Britain, the trainer of six Derby winners, including the Triple Crown winner Nijinsky, O’Brien achieved the remarkable feat of winning the Grand National three years in succession.
In 1953 O’Brien triumphed with Early Mist, in 1954 with Royal Tan and in 1955 with Quare Times. The first two were owned by fellow Irishman ‘Lucky’ Joe ‘Mincemeat’ Griffin, and the celebration Griffin led at Liverpool’s Adelphi Hotel after Early Mist’s success was without equal, which took some doing.
Before the guest list was expanded to, as Griffin recalled, “whoever was there, Irish or anyone else,” there was a formal dinner. The dinner cost Griffin £1,500 (about £45,000 today), partly because he had bay prawns and asparagus flown in from France.
The dinner did not go altogether smoothly, thanks largely to the host having invited an Irish Cabinet Minister and an Irish Senator to join the celebrations, along with the Mayor of Liverpool. At midnight, when the band struck up God Save the Queen, the Minister, who had crossed the threshold into drunkenness, refused to stand up. “I’m not standing up for any fucking English Queen,” he shouted. Afterwards, revellers danced through the night to a full orchestra.
Later, in Dublin, a civic reception was laid on for Early Mist and Griffin, with both paraded along O’Connell Street to the Mansion House, where the 14Lord Mayor, Andy Clarkin, held a reception for them. There were yet more parties in the Gresham Hotel and Kilcoran Lodge Hotel near Vincent O’Brien’s home, with poker games around the clock, paused for trips to the races.
The cost to Griffin was academic or, as he put it, “money was no object at that time. I had so much of it I didn’t know what to do with it.” He gave £10,000 to Early Mist’s trainer, jockey and stable staff.
The prize money for the winner was £9,255 (about £260,000 today) but, encouraged by O’Brien advising him to “have a good bet,” Griffin won far more by backing Early Mist at odds from 66-1 down to 20-1, the price at which the horse started. He was said to have won £100,000 (about £2.8 m today), mainly from bets via the English bookmakers Wilf Sherman and Jack Swift.
Two years earlier, aged 35, Griffin had moved into Knocklyon House, near Tallaght, south-west of Dublin, with his wife Peggy and their four (later six) children. It was a 21 room Georgian mansion, complete with ballroom, set in 30 acres. The staff included a cook, nurse, gardener and housemaid, plus a chauffeur to drive Griffin’s Buick, Dodge and Hillman cars.
That year, Griffin boasted, “I can make money out of anything,” which pleased Peggy, who told one reporter, “Life with Joe is just like a fairy story. This ring came from Amsterdam – it’s worth over £1,500.”
Griffin’s wealth came from mincemeat. After the Second World War, with rationing still in place in Britain, an English friend told him, “Joe, we haven’t seen mince pies for years.”
Griffin promptly bought a £100,000 shipload of dried fruit on credit from the Greek government after an order from a British grocery chain had been cancelled. He used the fruit to make mincemeat and, exploiting a loophole in restrictions on the import of fruit, sold it in jars to British grocers for £1.2 million. In 1950, his Red Breast Preserving Company bought all Ireland’s available stock of dried fruit. At its peak, the company employed 500 workers and was exporting 400 tons of mincemeat a week to Britain at £140 a ton. In 1951 Griffin boasted, then complained, “Last year I sent over £1,500,000 worth of mincemeat, and now you don’t want it any more.”
The Ministry of Food had recently placed restrictions on the import of mincemeat. Griffin remained confident. “If the British don’t want my mincemeat I don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll sell it to the Germans instead.”
Royal Tan’s success in the 1954 Grand National masked the fact that Griffin’s luck had run out. An economic downturn as well as obstacles to exporting his mincemeat to Britain led to the collapse of his company, not helped by Griffin’s gambling reverses. A year earlier, following Early Mist’s success, bookmaker Jack Swift had signed a cheque to Griffin for a five figure sum; by the time the Grand National came around again, Griffin owed him £56,000. 15
Before it all went wrong. Joe ‘Mincemeat’ Griffin leads in Early Mist after winning the 1953 Grand National, ridden by Bryan Marshall.
In July 1954, Griffin petitioned for bankruptcy and Early Mist and Royal Tan passed into the custody of the Official Assignee, who was soon given permission to sell them, together with nine other horses. In November, eight horses were sold at the Ballsbridge Sales, with the Aly Khan buying Royal Tan for 3,900 gns and Vincent O’Brien paying 2,000 gns for Early Mist.
Three months earlier, the first public sitting to deal with Griffin’s bankruptcy was held, marking the start of over two damaging years in court. Creditors, including Bryan Marshall, the rider of Early Mist and Royal Tan, claimed a total of £53,656 (about £1.5 m today).
Marshall, it emerged, had come close to refusing to ride Royal Tan. After Early Mist’s success in the 1953 National, Griffin had given him £3,500. The usual riding fee at that time was £7. Marshall testified that Griffin undertook to give him the same sum if he won on Royal Tan but that he already owed Marshall £600, which was proving difficult to get. £500 of the £600 related to 16the unpaid half of the £1,000 retainer Marshall had accepted in August 1953, for Griffin to have first call on his services.
Griffin had sent Marshall a cheque for £600 but it bounced. A day or two before the Grand National, Marshall received another cheque but while staying at the Adelphi Hotel got a message to inform him that the cheque had been stopped. Marshall told Griffin that unless he was paid, he wouldn’t ride.
That evening he received an envelope containing £250, followed by an invitation from Griffin to join him for dinner. Griffin told him that he had found another £50 lying on his bed. Marshall agreed to meet him for a drink. Griffin said he would have his money in the morning, which he did, together with another cheque, conditional on him winning the National. Later, Marshall realised that the cheque was for £3,000 rather than the agreed £3,500.
Two weeks after the National, Marshall received £1,000. Griffin explained that he was owed £10,000 by a bookmaker and Marshall would be paid the rest when the bookmaker paid him. During the bankruptcy hearings, Marshall claimed a total of £2,781. Ultimately, judgment was given for just £31 but it was another blow to Griffin’s battered reputation.
In July 1955, in Dublin High Court, Mr Justice Budd made clear his frustration with Griffin’s failure to supply satisfactory answers during his bankruptcy examination. As a consequence, Griffin had been sent to Mountjoy prison and when he returned to face more questions, Budd sent him back to prison for the same reason.
Among other sins, Griffin was alleged to have failed to disclose the sum of £28,300 received as the result of business dealings with a Colonel Tickler of the St Martin’s Preserving Company in Maidenhead, a manufacturer of mincemeat. Griffin had deposited £14,000 of this in the Munster and Leinster Bank.
Having given two different explanations for the deposit, Griffin now, without apology, produced a third. Mr Justice Budd was incensed. He accused Griffin of having no respect for the Court and no consideration for his creditors. It was worse than discourtesy, “it was plain untruth, plain lying, flagrant perjury.”
1956 was equally disastrous. Griffin had offered to pay ten shillings in the £ of the £53,656 claimed by his creditors. Griffin said that he had friends in England prepared to put up the money and, to persuade the Court, he produced a letter dated 25 January 1955 purporting to be from Gilbert Reeves, offering to supply £10,000 as evidence of good intent.
When examined again in April 1956, it was suggested that the offer indicated that Griffin must have assets in England. In June, he went missing, a warrant was issued for his arrest and police were sent to Dublin and Shannon 17airports to look out for him. Griffin soon reappeared, but not at Knocklyon House, which the Official Assignee had sold for £15,300.
The following month Griffin appeared at Dublin District Court charged with having forged the 25 January 1955 letter with the intention of deceiving the High Court. In January 1957 he was given a surprisingly lenient suspended six months prison sentence for the offence.
Speaking in his defence, Mr Noel Hartnett said that Griffin could have wound his business up and still been a wealthy man but “the belief in his luck was almost pathological.” He had given personal guarantees to the Red Breast Preserving Company’s creditors, “with the result that when the ship sank he sank with it.”
The sea bed had yet to be reached. In February 1960 Griffin was charged with having, on Christmas Eve, stolen two cheques valued at fourpence, with forging a cheque and stealing a wardrobe. That June he was convicted of presenting a forged cheque and obtaining £20 by false pretences, for which he received a suspended sentence of 12 months in prison.
Griffin was said to be “in poor circumstances” and they did not improve. In 1966 he was convicted on six charges of having obtained credit by fraud. In 1963 he had obtained goods including weighing machines, a cash register and a refrigerator on credit and never paid for them.
After slithering down the slope to ruin and disgrace, Griffin moved to Britain. He once said, “For me, money is for spending and for making people happy. I have made a lot of people happy. I realise now that a lot of them were just hangers-on.”
It was a sad end to so much success and laughter. Peggy, his wife, stuck by him until Joe died in 1992, aged 75. He was buried in Beckenham Cemetery, in Kent.
Prince Khalid chooses his curtains
Every racefan recognised Prince Khalid Abdullah’s racing colours and had done for several decades before his death in 2021, aged 83. The colours – green, with a pink sash, white sleeves, pink cap – first entered the winner’s circle when Charming Native won a small race at Windsor in 1979. After that, they were worn by the fortunate riders of many top class horses. The list is a long one – from Known Fact, Rainbow Quest and Dancing Brave in the 1980s through to Kingman, Frankel and Enable.
A member of the Saudi royal family, Khalid Abdullah had a gentle, quiet demeanour and his racing colours were muted, too, yet easy to spot. A long time ago, he told me, “I like to see my colours from a distance but I have a 18problem with my eyes. When I decided to buy horses, Lord Weinstock visited me and said, ‘You don’t need to find colours, these are your colours’, and pointed to the curtains. The curtains were green, white and pink, so he chose the colours for me.”
Well done, Lord Weinstock, well done Prince Khalid and well done the curtains. Good choice.
Prince Khalid Abdullah’s curtains aboard the mighty Frankel after winning the 2012 Juddmonte International, ridden by Tom Queally.
The Duke of Devonshire promises straw
Modern horseracing could not function without racing colours but in the early 18th century there were far fewer races, over longer distances, dominated by the landed aristocracy. The use of colours was haphazard.
As racing became more popular, the number of runners greater and the distances shorter, this laissez-faire attitude to colours caused confusion and led to disputed results. Initial attempts to encourage the use of coloured jackets were undermined by different owners choosing the same colours while some individual owners used more than one set of colours. 19
On 4 October 1762, at a meeting in Newmarket, the fledgling Jockey Club resolved that, “For the greater convenience of distinguishing the horses in running, as also for the prevention of disputes arising from not knowing the colours worn by each rider, the undermentioned gentlemen have come to the resolution and agreement, of having the colours annexed to the following names, worn by their respective riders.”
There followed a list of 19 Jockey Club members, including six Dukes, five Earls, two Knights, one Marquess, one Viscount and a Lord.
The Stewards expressed the “hope, in the name of the Jockey Club, that the above gentlemen will take care that the riders be provided with dresses accordingly.”
The Duke of Devonshire and his descendants deserve credit for having continued to race with the “Straw colour” specified in the 1762 resolution right through to the present day. Many owners, however, ignored the Jockey Club’s invitation to register their colours. By 1794 only 38 appear to have done so out of about 300 known owners and in 1833 the figures were 150 and 700 respectively.
In some cases, owners had colours but did not register them while some colours continued to be used by more than one owner. In 1808 six owners raced with plain black colours and four with plain white.
By then a ‘Registry of Racing Colours’ had existed for over 20 years but the proper registration of owners’ colours was only established in 1870, with compulsory registration arriving in 1890.
Nowadays owners are presented with a choice of two colour schemes, standard and bespoke.
They have 18 colours to choose from for display on the body, sleeves and cap, with 25 different designs available on the body, such as large spots or a triple diamond. On the sleeves, there are a dozen designs to choose from, including a diabolo, stripes and chevrons. On to the cap, with 10 options, including diamonds or a star.
If that isn’t enough, since 2017, for a fee of £5,000, owners can design their own colours, within reason. “The colours must be distinguishable by judges and describable by commentators, as well as clearly identifiable to members of the public.”
Once your colours have been registered for five years, they can be advertised for sale. At the time of writing, royal blue and yellow diabolo, striped sleeves, quartered cap are yours for £1,000 while the more distinctive black, white chevrons, black sleeves, white cap is advertised for £9,500.
Personally, I hanker after the colours once worn by horses owned by the notorious ‘King of the Ringers’, Peter Christian Barrie (see curiosity 82). 20
Death stretches out its hand
The Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup is one of jump racing’s most famous races, or was until 2017, when it became, more mundanely, the Ladbrokes Trophy.
From its creation in 1957, the roll-call of winners was littered with great horses, particularly in its early years, when there were fewer suitable conditions races for the best chasers, who therefore contested the most valuable and prestigious handicaps, of which the Hennessy was very much one.
Mandarin (1957, 1961), Arkle (1964, 1965) and Denman (2007, 2009) all won the Hennessy twice and nine winners also won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, including the same trio of Mandarin (1962), Arkle (1964, 1965, 1966) and Denman (2008). Many Clouds, winner of the Hennessy in 2014, went on to win the following year’s Grand National.
It was a great race won by many great horses as well as by a few less great ones, which brings us to Ghofar. In 2002, the racing historian and statistician John Randall cast his cool eye over the list of Hennessy winners and found Ghofar wanting. As he put it, “If the 43 Hennessy winners are assessed on the merit of their best form, Ghofar ranks at the very bottom.”
Ghofar’s future had looked rosy in 1989, when the David Elsworth-trained six-year-old narrowly beat Brown Windsor to win the Hennessy in record time. It was an exciting race but the wielder of a bucket of cold water could have pointed out that Brown Windsor was giving the blinkered Ghofar 15lb, that the going was fast and the field uncharacteristically small, only eight strong. It was to be more than four years before Ghofar won another race. Not that it matters because Ghofar is incidental to this story. It is his connections that matter.
By virtue of their Hennessy successes, Ghofar and Mandarin were connected. When Mandarin won the 1957 Hennessy he was ridden by an amateur jockey, Mr John Lawrence. Lawrence’s sister, Enid, married Hugh Dundas, who was in little danger of becoming a jockey himself, as he was 6ft 4ins tall.
Lawrence, later Lord Oaksey, was a distinguished and much loved racing journalist, broadcaster and fund raiser. In 2011, he resurrected his connection with the Hennessy by breeding and part-owning the winner, Carruthers. None of that matters much, either, because it is Dundas who is the subject of interest.
If Lord Oaksey encouraged his brother-in-law to become a racehorse owner, his encouragement was only partially successful. Dundas was the half-owner of Ghofar but Ghofar’s glorious success did not prompt Dundas to expand his portfolio. Ghofar raced on in his colours until 1994, the year before Dundas’s death, and thereafter in those of Lady Dundas, but there were no more equine 21purchases. None of that really matters, either. What matters is Hugh Dundas’s life before Ghofar.
Born in 1920, in 1939 he fulfilled his ambition to join the Royal Air Force and become a pilot. The Second World War started that September and in March 1940, aged 19, Dundas flew his first mission in a Spitfire. In August, during the Battle of Britain, he was lucky to escape alive when his plane was shot down by a German Messerschmitt 109. He just managed to force his way out of the cockpit and open his parachute in time.
Winston Churchill had urged soldiers to display “a sincere desire to engage the enemy.” It wasn’t easy. “When it comes to the point,” Dundas observed, “a sincere desire to stay alive is all too likely to get the upper hand. That was the impulse which consumed me at that moment that day. And that was to be the impulse which I had to fight against, to try and try and try again to overcome, during the years which followed.”
Hugh ‘Cocky’ Dundas. In 1944, aged 24, Dundas became the youngest ever Group Captain.
22In eight days straddling August and September 1940, the 616 Squadron to which Dundas belonged lost five pilots killed or missing and five others wounded. “Death stretched out its hand to touch me every day,” he wrote. “Everybody was frightened and everybody knew that everybody else was frightened.” Dundas felt fear but faced it down.
In November 1940 his brother John, also a pilot, was killed. In May 1941, Dundas was shot down again and survived a crash landing. The following year he again managed to crash land without being killed. In 1944, there was a repeat performance.
By then Dundas had set some remarkable records, a testimony to his courage and character. At the end of 1941, aged only 21, he became a Squadron Leader; in 1943, a Wing Commander in charge of five squadrons of Spitfires. Towards the end of 1944, Dundas became the youngest ever Group Captain, aged 24.
That year, his team were flying in support of the Allied invasion of Italy, and facing intense flak on a daily basis. “With good luck,” Dundas wrote, “you would get through the barrage unscathed. With only a bit of luck you would sustain a hit but would still be able to fly home.
“With bad luck you would be forced to bale out or to crash land. With no luck at all you would be killed. It was my job to ensure that fear was held within restraint.”
In a macabre twist, a consignment of bombs arrived with faulty fuses. In mid-flight, the Spitfires carrying them exploded. One pilot, his nerves in shreds, fired at Dundas’s plane.
Dundas led from the front, incredibly brave. Jockeys risk their lives and break their bones but no one is doing their best to kill them on a daily basis, except perhaps for a particularly malevolent novice chaser.
After the war, Dundas eventually became managing director then chairman of BET, an industrial conglomerate. Subsequently he was chairman of Thames Television. In 1987 he was knighted.
The following year, the year before Ghofar won the Hennessy, Dundas’s account of his wartime experiences was published. Flying Start. A Fighter Pilot’s War Years tells a remarkable story. I’ve given away a lot of books but I’ve kept the signed copy Hugh Dundas gave me after interviewing him in 1989; a special curiosity.
Chapter2
Jockeys
Liam bares his teeth
Raceriding poses a threat to virtually every part of a jockey’s body, including their teeth. Fortunate the jump jockey who retires with as many teeth as he started out with, or avoids smiling in front of a camera to reveal unflattering gaps.
Unusually, Liam Treadwell’s smile revealed a set of his own teeth yet led to him displaying a different set a year later.
The smile that triggered the transformation was forced out of him by Clare Balding during a television interview after Treadwell won the 2009 Grand National on 100-1 shot Mon Mome.
With trademark enthusiasm but subsequent regret, Balding said, “Give us a big grin.” When the victorious but shy jockey kept his teeth hidden, she galloped on with “No, no, let’s see your teeth.”
Treadwell’s teeth were unusually small with conspicuous gaps between them. “He hasn’t got the best teeth in the world,” Balding remarked, “but you can afford to go and get them done now.”
It was unintentionally insensitive, the BBC received 2,000 complaints and Balding apologised, but the interview turned out to be the proverbial blessing in disguise.
Liam Treadwell’s victory on Mon Mome at 100-1 in the 2009 Grand National led to a change of teeth.
The exchange came to the attention of Dr Thang Nghiem, a leading dental practitioner and co-founder of the Ultrasmile practice in London. Nghiem 25offered a complete makeover of Treadwell’s teeth without charge. After months of treatment the jockey emerged with a set of teeth anyone would be proud to smile with. “Clare Balding did me a favour when she teased me on television,” Treadwell said. “Because of the way my teeth were, I’ve spent years hiding them and now I’m discovering a new confidence. My teeth are gleaming. It’s amazing.”
Ultrasmile were smiling, too. Having reported a pre-tax profit of less than £70,000 during the year ended March 2010, six years later the figure had shot up to over half a million pounds. Perhaps Treadwell’s teeth helped things along.
There was a sad end to the tale. In 2016 Treadwell suffered a head injury in a fall at Bangor which had lasting effects. The Injured Jockeys Fund gave help, as it has given help to so many jockeys in difficulty, but in 2020, aged 34, Treadwell committed suicide.
Stan Mellor, champion jump jockey from 1960 to 1962 and the first to ride 1,000 winners, also disliked displaying his teeth, the paucity of which prompted Mellor to acquire a false set.
For safety reasons, jockeys were not allowed to wear false teeth when riding so Mellor tucked them up his sleeve, in case of a post-race interview. One day he had a fall and lay on the ground in agony, clutching his arm. Elain, his wife, dashed up. “Have you broken your arm?” she asked. “No,” groaned Stan, “they bit me.”
Elain once feared that worse had happened. Stan had a fall at Cheltenham. The feeble protective headgear worn by jockeys in those days shot off and rolled away. In the grandstand, Elain screamed out, “Oh my God, his head has come off!”
Stan kept his head until 2020, when he died, aged 83.
Lester licks ice cream .....
Colin Fleetwood-Jones was ghosting a weekly column for Lester Piggott in the Daily Star, and finding it hard work. It was proving difficult to extract information from the notoriously monosyllabic jockey.
Fleetwood-Jones lived in Sussex and on a day off he drifted across to Brighton for a relaxing afternoon at the races. Walking back to his car after the last race, he heard a familiar voice behind him. “Hello,” said Lester, “are you driving back to London? Can I have a lift?”
“I’m sorry, Lester, I only live a few miles away. I was going back home.”
“That’s a pity,” said Lester, “I’ve got some good stuff for your column.”
Fleetwood-Jones took a deep breath. “All right, then.” 26
Lester ‘Stoneface’ Piggott, a connoisseur of ice cream.
They got into his car, drove down the hill and turned on to the London road. “No,” said Piggott, “not that way, go this way.”
Puzzled and increasingly irritated, Fleetwood-Jones followed Piggott’s directions, turning this way and that through the back streets of Brighton. Eventually his passenger told him to pull in.
Lester got out, crossed the road and disappeared into a small shop. After a few minutes he came back, sat down and started to lick the ice cream he had just bought. “They sell the best ice cream in the country there,” he said. 27
It was too much even for the compliant journalist. “I don’t suppose you thought to buy me one?” said Fleetwood-Jones, a touch sharply.
“Oh,” replied Lester, looking surprised. “I didn’t know you liked ice cream.”
..... And Prefers a cheque
It was Robert Ellis’s dream to have a horse ridden by the great Lester Piggott. In 1973 he had a chance to make his dream come true.
Ellis owned a three-year-old called Pirate Way. On 9 July, ridden by Roger Wernham for trainer Ron Vibert, Pirate Way was unplaced in a six furlong handicap at Windsor. Ellis then went on a business trip to Brazil.
While there, he had a call from Vibert, who told him that Piggott had phoned and asked to ride Pirate Way in a race he was entered for at Nottingham. According to Piggott, the horse had been given a poor ride at Windsor. If Piggott was given the ride, he would win.
Ellis didn’t usually allow his horses to run if he was unable to be there to watch but this was different. He gave his permission.
On 19 July, over a mile at Nottingham, Pirate Way, at 7-1, won the Playhouse Handicap with Piggott in the saddle.
Ellis was delighted. As a present for the winning jockey he bought a set of stone ashtrays made in Brazil. A few days after his return, he went to Windsor races and presented the ashtrays to Piggott, telling him how much it meant to have the great man ride one of his horses, and to win on it.
With a distinct lack of enthusiasm, Piggott studied the ashtrays. In the ensuing quiet, Ellis asked if Piggott liked them? “I’d rather have a cheque,” said Lester.
Ellis got his cheque book out, walked to the weighing room table and wrote out a cheque. Then he took the ashtrays home with him.
Frank goes legless
After the First World War, Frank Wise still had two legs but one of them was wooden. Warfare had also reduced his allocation of ten fingers to seven.
It was a particularly vexing development as Frank, following his father’s example, was a keen horseman, a pursuit most easily pursued with a full complement of legs, feet and fingers.
Major Francis Hubert Wise, Frank’s father, was a prominent figure in hunting, polo and racing circles in Ireland. Master of the Limerick Hounds from 1899 to 1908, he was also a notable breeder. 28
When the First World War started, Frank senior went to Canada to purchase horses for the British War Office. By 1917 he was back home, at Rochestown House, Cahir, Co.Tipperary, where he died at the age of 48.
As well as losing a leg and three fingers, Frank junior soon lost the use of Rochestown House, which was burnt down in 1923, during the Irish Civil War. He and his sister moved to the nearby Shamrock Lodge from where, undeterred, Frank, following his father in the possession of a moustache, became Master of the Tipperary Hounds,
In 1928, riding his five-year-old mare Alike, he finished fourth of five finishers in an attritional Irish Grand National. Later that day he won the Fairyhouse Plate on his own Ardfinnan, who won again less than a fortnight later, at Punchestown. The Sport newspaper observed, “Mr Frank Wise who, as the majority are aware, wears an artificial limb, is one of the most remarkable horsemen of this or any other era.”
As the 1929 edition of the Irish Grand National drew near, The Irish Times echoed the Sport’s accolade. It remarked that, despite the great handicap of having been badly wounded in the War, Wise was “one of the best amateur riders in Ireland today.”
In 1927, his admirable efforts included a remarkable comeback at Powerstown Park (Clonmel). Riding Glengarnock in the Tipperary Hunt Clonmel Harriers Cup, the Sport’s correspendent watched as, in a field of four, “Glengarnock made the running until three quarters of a mile from home, when he fell and Jenny took command, with Royal Sheila next. Approaching the straight, Glengarnock, who was remounted, resumed the lead to win by one length.”
In 1929, Wise and Alike returned to Fairyhouse for another try at the Irish Grand National – and won easily. According to The Irish Times, Alike took up the running going out onto the final circuit and “jumping all the fences in flippant style, she maintained the foremost position and scored a very easy victory.” The victory was, the reporter reported, “extremely popular, if one was to judge by the rousing cheers which greeted horse and rider passing the winning post and on reaching the paddock.”
The Sport glowed with pleasure, believing that “the success of Alike – or to put it better, the success of Mr Frank Wise – made it a red letter anniversary. Those who did back Alike wanted her to win and those who did not back her were delighted to see her gain such a gallant victory. Not since Loch Lomond’s Irish Derby victory (1919) has such a scene of enthusiasm been witnessed as that which signalled Mr Wise’s return to scale, the vociferously expressed admiration being, of course, in the main for the rider whose pluck is on a par with that of anyone recorded in history.”
Wise was not alone in being short of a leg. Many limbs were lost during the First World War but Lieutenant Colonel Gerald William Frederick Savile 29Foljambe, later the 3rd Earl of Liverpool, managed to return from the battlefront intact. That happy state ended, as a local newspaper reported, when Foljambe “had the misfortune to lose a foot as the result of a riding accident at the recent Southwell races. He was riding his own horse, Francis II, and was dragged by his foot getting caught in his stirrup-iron.”
Frank Wise, minus one leg and three fingers, returns after winning the 1929 Irish Grand National on Alike.
Armed with his remaining foot, in 1925 Foljambe rode a memorable double on Bombaria and Lady Biddy at the Melton Hunt NH meeting. Shortly afterwards, less memorably, he was unseated from Lady Biddy, knocked unconscious and taken to hospital with severe concussion.
Concussion was one of several occupational hazards that, before more stringent medical checks were introduced, countless jockeys concealed, denied or downplayed in order to continue riding.
Leading the field in grim determination was the remarkable Beltran de Osorio y Diez de Rivera, the 19th Duke of Alburquerque. From childhood, it was the Spanish monarchist’s ambition to ride in the Grand National. Finally, in 1952, aged 33, he did. 30
Riding Brown Jack III, the Duke fell on the first circuit, at Becher’s Brook, broke two vertebrae and was despatched to the nearby Walton Hospital. Four months later, he represented Spain at the Helsinki Olympics, for the Duke was often down but rarely out.
What he needed was a suitable horse and in 1963, aged 44, he reappeared on Jonjo. The pair reached the 21st fence before falling. Unusually, a visit to Walton Hospital was not needed.
That became necessary two years later, after Groomsman fell at Valentine’s Brook. The Duke’s broken leg brought his career tally of fractures to 22. Utterly undaunted, in 1966 he was back, on L’Empereur, who reached the fourth fence from home before being pulled up.
Hope springing more or less eternal, the Duke bred Nereo and sent him to Fred Winter, who had already won the Grand National four times, twice as a jockey and twice as a trainer. Nereo was the horse the gallant Duke had been waiting for and in 1973, when Nereo was seven and the Duke 54, he tried again. While stablemate Crisp, carrying 12st, jumped magnificently in the lead, only to be cruelly caught by Red Rum, carrying 10st 5lb, the Duke of Alburquerque fought his own battle with a broken stirrup leather. At the eighth fence, the Canal Turn, he finally lost.
The following year Red Rum was back at Aintree, and so was Nereo. More remarkably, so was the Duke of Alburquerque, who had recently had 16 screws removed from his leg and, a week before the National, broke his collar bone in a fall at Newbury.
To Winter’s annoyance, the Duke managed to pass a medical inspection. “Fred was furious that I was riding in the race,” the Duke recalled, “and his instructions were monosyllabic. Ironically, it was my best performance in the National, when I was in the worst condition. The poor animal had to do everything on his own. He didn’t have a jockey on board, but a sack of potatoes.”
The 55-year-old potatoes finished eighth. The Duke of Alburquerque had finally succeeded in completing the course. “It gave me enormous satisfaction,” he said, “and if I had been in decent shape, we wouldn’t have been far away.”
A multiple compound fracture of his right leg forced the Duke to miss the 1975 National but in 1976, with another seven screws securing a metal plate in his leg, he partnered Nereo for a third time in the National, falling at the 13th fence. Nereo was unscathed but the Duke was taken to Walton Hospital. The next day, the hospital issued a bulletin, “The Duke’s fracture of the right thigh bone and concussion have been dealt with and he is comfortable. It is hoped he will be fit to travel within a few days.” “I spent most of my time there unconscious,” the Duke remembered, “but when I did wake up, the staff were charming.” 31
Like the poor, wars are always with us and 80 years after Frank Wise won the Irish Grand National when riding with an artificial leg, Captain Guy Disney had his right leg amputated below the knee after his vehicle was blown up during a war in Afghanistan.
Disney belonged to a cavalry regiment and race-riding was one of his impressive list of ambitions. When the British Horseracing Authority initially refused him a licence, Disney filled in the spare time by trecking to the North Pole and then to the South Pole.
In 2015 the BHA relented and Disney, riding with a prosthetic leg, promptly finished third in the Royal Artillery Gold Cup at Sandown Park. Two years later, riding Rathlin Rose, he won the same race and the following month, on the same horse, won the Grand Military Gold Cup, also at Sandown.
In 2018, Disney and Rathlin Rose again won the Royal Artillery Gold Cup and the following year, riding Shanroe Tic Tec, he won an amateur riders’ handicap hurdle, again at Sandown.
Frank Wise would have been proud of him.
Seb takes his boots off
The thing about Seb Sanders’ racing boots was that he wasn’t wearing them. He’d worn them for the previous 25 years but on 1 September 2015, at Goodwood, at the age of 43, he didn’t.
At about quarter to five, to everyone’s surprise, Sanders walked into the parade ring before the Clancy Docwra Charity Stakes without his boots on. He mounted Langley Vale without them on, rode to the start without them on and raced back bootless, finishing fourth of nine to Pettochside.
Everyone except Sanders was puzzled and the racecourse stewards wondered whether or not he had committed a riding offence. After studying the rules, they decided that he hadn’t.
Sanders declared himself puzzled that everyone else was puzzled.
“I got held up getting to Goodwood,” he explained, “and didn’t have time for a sweat, so I left the boots off to make the weight. That’s all it was and I think a mountain’s been made out of a molehill.”
The weight Sanders wanted to make and succeeded in making was 9st 5lb. As riding boots weigh between 7ozs and 10 ozs, the contribution made by their absence was small.
During the previous quarter of a century Sanders had experienced considerable success. He had ridden over 100 winners in each of ten seasons and in 2007, when he was joint champion jockey with Jamie Spencer, he rode 213 winners. 32
Seb Sanders rides Langley Vale bootless at Goodwood in 2015.
His career was dotted with Group 1 successes, including the 1997 July Cup, 2004 Irish 2000 Guineas and Nunthorpe Stakes, 2008 Oaks and Golden Jubilee Stakes, and the 2010 Cheveley Park Stakes.
In 2004 he had succeeded George Duffield as Sir Mark Prescott’s stable jockey, a significant feather in a jockey’s cap, and rode over 400 winners for the yard, including at Group 1 level on Albanova, Confidential Lady and Hooray. But in 2008 there were setbacks.
On 10 August, Sanders was at Jagersro racecourse in Malmo, Sweden, to ride two of Prescott’s horses. He failed the strict breath test in force on Swedish racetracks, was given a two week ban, and was replaced on Sourire by Fredrik Johansson. Sourire won his race.
More seriously, at Chester on 30 August Sanders was brought down on Speed Gifted, broke a leg and was sidelined for eight months. Towards the end of 2009, he had a further operation to remove the metal plates in his leg. Subsequently, Sanders struggled to keep his weight down, was less successful and in 2012 his retainer with Prescott ended.
2015 was Sanders’ final year and his bootless ride a final, curious entry in the record books. 33
Christopher does what he shouldn’t
Racehorses set off covered in tack. There are four horseshoes, one per foot, a saddle, to keep the rider in place, and a girth, to keep the saddle in place. There are weight cloths and number cloths. There are reins, a bridle and a bit, and nosebands, to help the jockey control the horse’s speed and direction. Sometimes there are sheepskin nosebands, to help the horse’s owner work out which one is his. There are tongue ties, to help the horse breathe, and blinkers, visors, hoods and cheekpieces, to try to persuade their wearer to concentrate on winning. When the horse reaches the winning post, if it does, not every item is always in the same place as the horse.
Shoes come off, bits slip, saddles slip, weight cloths fall to the ground and, one way and another, jockeys, trainers, owners, racegoers and punters are given another reason to believe that the Lord, in his infinite malice, has singled them out for another dose of misfortune and misery.
And so it was that on 23 January 1975, at Huntingdon, Mr Christopher Thomson-Jones set off on Even Sail to tackle the three mile Wyton Handicap Chase. The task the promising amateur rider faced was seemingly straightforward. Even Sail had won two of his three most recent races, the latest on Boxing Day over the same course and distance. When he was beaten, it was by the useful Even Dawn. Even Sail was in top form.
