Liverpool 1913

Liverpool  Thursday April 3rd, 1913

The opening race of the meeting was the Stanley Chase over 2m 2f, with a field of eleven turning out for a prize of £455.

1.  Carrigrue  a. 11-10   Hulme  10/1

2.  Babe  5y 10-3  J Burns  10/1

Dist  4 lengths   Trained by Whitaker   Time  5m 21s

Only two finished!

Not a distance they race nowadays on the National course, but I presume they started more or less in front of the stands and ran one full circuit. The notes provided indicate that three of the other nine runner fell at the first, three more had gone by the time they had jumped Bechers and the other three fallers came at Valentines and the fence after that. The 3/1 favourite, Jacobus, was one of those to fall at Valentines, the first of a number of hits for favourite backers on the day.

Carrigrue had finished second on his two previous starts, both of which came in races described as Optional Selling Chases, one at Newbury and one at Hooton Park - I've no idea how that sort of race operated, but the one at Hooton Park was called the Great Cheshire Chase and was worth £827, as much as the feature races at Cheltenham the same month, so they clearly bore no relation to selling races as we understand them today.

The remainder of the Thursday card was made up of six flat races, starting with a marathon selling handicap, and featuring the Liverpool Spring Cup, a valuable handicap run over 1m 3f - the latter was certainly still part of the program in the 1960's.

Although that feature was won by an 11/10 on favourite, the last two races produced major shocks, with the 5/1 on Ballyoukan (already a winner at Kempton) beaten a neck in the 2-y-old race over 5F, and then the 5/2 on Craganour beaten in the closing Union Jack Stakes for 3-y-olds over a mile. Both those beaten favourites were ridden by the same jockey, W Saxby.

Craganour and Saxby next appeared in the 2,000 Gns, where they were again the beaten favourites at 3/1, caught in the last strides by 25/1 shot Louvois, ridden by the American jockey Johnny Reiff. That was it for Saxby, who was replaced by Danny Maher for the Newmarket Stakes which Craganour won two weeks after the Guineas, reversing the earlier form with Louvois. But as Maher had a ride for his main retainer, Reiff took over on Craganour for his next race, when all hell broke loose!

Craganour started 6/4 favourite for the Derby at Epsom on Wed June 4th, 1913 in which a field of fifteen went to post on ground officially described as hard. What followed was probably the most notorious race of the 20th century.

The 100/1 shot Aboyeur set off in front at a strong pace and after half a mile, Craganour moved into second with the remainder well strung out. The leading pair remained in the same positions rounding Tattenham Corner, but as they straightened for home, behind them a woman suffragette ducked under the inside rail and ran across the course in front of several tailed off horses. She brought down one horse, which by a remarkable twist of fate, was owned by the King and forced another to pull up, but she suffered fatal injuries herself.

Up front, the favourite had taken over the lead two furlongs out, but he wouldn't stretch out on the hard ground and Aboyeur came again to challenge, the pair joined by old rival Louvois inside the final furlong - no photo finish then of course and the judge called Craganour the winner by a head from Aboyeur, with Louvois a neck back in third.

But the drama wasn't over as the stewards belatedly (the horses were about to leave the winners enclosure)lodged an objection to the winner on the grounds of interference and, after a thirty minute enquiry, found that he had bumped and bored the runner-up. They disqualified the 6/4 shot in favour of the 100/1 outsider Aboyeur, promoted Louvois to second and placed Craganour last. 

Craganour was owned by C Bower Ismay and you could say that his was not a lucky family, as his brother Bruce Ismay was the managing director of the company that owned the Titanic!

great stuff TA, keep'um coming!

Day two of the 1913 meeting featured the Grand National, then the most important and by far the most valuable race on the jumping calendar, despite being the centre piece of an otherwise all flat card!

The official distance is recorded in the form book as 'about 4 miles 856 yards', twenty two runners went to post and the race was off at 3pm.

1.  Covertcoat  7y 11-6  P Woodland  100/9

2.  Irish Mail  6y 11-4  Mr O Anthony  25/1

3.  Carsey  10y 12-0  Mr H Drake  100/9

Won by a distance and the same, trained by Gore, time 10m 19s.

Those three were the only ones to finish and only then after Carsey had been remounted. Two fell at the first fence, two more at the fifth, but the remainder were all over Bechers safely. There was another faller at the Canal Turn, where two more refused, and another two fell at the following fence, including the 5/1 favourite Ballyhackle.

The clear leader then fell at the water, along with one of the back markers, leaving eleven to set out on the second circuit - but mayhem ensued on the run to Bechers, with six fallers at various fences and two others ending up in the ditch at the third fence away from the stands. That left just three still going at Bechers second time, with Covertcoat and Carsey disputing the lead clear of Irish Mail. Covertcoat went on jumping the Canal Turn and was in front when Carsey unseated at the second last, going on to win easily by a distance.

Covertcoat had solid form having raced in three handicap chases over 3m 4f prior to the National, winning two, by 8L at Sandown in December and by 6L at Leicester in March. The other run was in the Liverpool Trial Chase at Sandown on the Grand Military card at the end of February, where he was beaten a head, with the National runner-up Irish Mail in third. One oddity is that Woodland, who rode Covertcoat in the National, was on board the horse that beat him at Sandown. In his three runs prior to the national, Covertcoat was ridden by the 1913 champion jump jockey, Ernie Piggott, grandfather of Lester. It seems likely that Piggott was injured in fall at Leicester on March 8th,  the day after his win on Covertcoat, as I can see no rides for him between then and the Liverpool meeting.

Regarding the prize money, the total on offer was more than three times as much as the next most valuable NH race, but about half the £6,450 paid to the winners of the Derby and St Leger. To demonstrate that very little changes in the world of racing, Franch prize money was much higher, with £6,772 on offer for the Grand Steeple Chase de Paris at Auteil (in which Piggott did ride) and £3,670 for the Grande Course des Haies D'Auteil.

The supporting flat races were ordinary, with the best performer on show proving to be the 3-y-old Taslett, who easily won the closing stakes race over a mile. He went on to start 6/1 fav for the 2000 Gns in which he was beaten a head. But much the most remarkable performer seen on that day was another 3-y-old called Light Brigade, trained by George Lambton and usually ridden by Rickaby. He won a minor race over one mile at Liverpool, which proved to be the first of 11 (eleven) consecutive wins in non handicap races below the top level - the last five wins all came in match races (i.e. only two runners), in one of which he started at 25/1 on. His run came to an end when he was tried in handicap company, being well beaten at Kempton and then in the Cambridgeshire.

The final day of meeting, Saturday April 5th, began with the Liverpool Hurdle, a handicap over two miles, with the hurdles set up presumably on the flat track.

Eighteen runners went to post for a prize of £825, with the Cheltenham County Hurdle winner Lord Ninian returned the 7/2 fav.

1.  Clin D'Oeil   5y 10-10   O'Connor  100/7

2.  Himan  6y 11-10  Butchers  10/1

3.  Lucus  a. 10-13  Mr J Anthony  100/7

Won by 3/4L and 1 1/2L, trained in France, winning time 3m 49 3/5th

I'd guess this result was fairly remarkable at the time, given that French trained runners aren't exactly common even now in UK handicap hurdles. Clin D'Oeil had clearly been sent over weeks in advance, as he had also run unplaced in the Jubilee Handicap Hurdle at Manchester on March 25th, where he'd finished behind the County Hurdle runner-up. But his victory suggests that one thing hasn't changed at all in the last hundred years - our NH handicappers still have no idea how to assess French form!

One other thing worthy of note from this race is the dreadful prices returned at SP, which read as follows:

7/2 Lord Ninian, 7 Lady Madcap, Gael Rhu, 8 Sir Colin, 10 Himan, Pollen, Meleager, Lillaline, 100/8 Generals pride, Braxted, 100/7 Clin D'Oeil, Lucus and others.

So in an 18 runner handicap nothing started at bigger than 14/1 - I make that about a 160% book!

Great read.

More than this the Ismay family were frowned upon in Society because Bruce had taken to the lifeboats rather than staying with the ship. There was some thought that the Epsom stewards took this fully into account when disqualifing Craganour!

That last post related to :

Craganour was owned by C Bower Ismay and you could say that his was not a lucky family, as his brother Bruce Ismay was the managing director of the company that owned the Titanic!

To complete the details on the jump races at the meeting, the third race on day three was the '33rd Champion Chase', run over 2m 7f and 110yds. Based on the modern layout of the track, that would involve a start close to the Melling Road crossing and then jumping the same fences as in the Topham and the Foxhunters.

A field of ten started for a first prize of £682 and the wide open nature of the race can be guessed from the betting, which had 9/2 jt favourites and 10/1 as the biggest price. Six of the ten runners had already raced at the meeting, three in the Grand National the previous day, three in the Stanley Chase on day one - none of the six had completed the course in those races and only two got round this time, filling 4th and 5th places.

1.   Twelfth Lancer  a. 11-12  Hulme  8/1

2.   Abbott's Choice  a. 11-5  F Morgan  10/1

3.   Lord Rivers  a. 11-12  Mr P Roberts  7/1

Won by 6 lengths and a bad third, trained by Whitaker, winning time 6m 21 4-5 secs.

The notes in the form book begin 'Pompadour made the running to the fence before the water, where Axle Pin refused and Finnigan fell'. That suggests that the fence we now know as The Chair didn't have that name in 1913, although Bechers, the Canal Turn and Valentines all feature in the notes elsewhere. The first two had met previously in a 3m handicap chase at Hurst Park, where they filled the places but in the reverse order of their positions here. Both had run again since without winning and there's nothing in the form of either to indicate that the title of 'Champion Chaser' was hard earned!

They met again three weeks later in a 2m 4f chase at Sandown, where Twelfth Lancer won again and Abbot's Choice finished third - the latter ran once more that season, winning a £62 prize in a 2m chase at Newport in mid May.

The flat races that made up the rest of the Saturday card were modest, with the best of them a mile handicap for 3-y-olds won by China **** (not sure that name would get past Weatherbys one hundred years on!). He turned out to be a Liverpool specialist, as after 13 subsequent defeats, he returned here on November 7th to win the Liverpool Autumn Cup at 20/1 and pick up a useful purse of £1372. That race was an indication of one thing that has changed significantly since 1913, as 11 of the 13 runners carried less than 8 stone, with the winner the bottom weight on 6st 7lbs. 

By contrast, in the Grand National, the top weight had 12st 7lbs and bottom weight was 11 stone - how odd that flat weights have gone up and jumping weights have gone down in the intervening years.

Indeed, I can now see that the name China C**k doesn't meet with the approval of the BF censors either!

You can't say coq? fffs...

riveting read though, ty :)