As for Poethlyn's win in 1919, he had behind him winners of 5 past or future Grand Nationals - Sunloch (1914), Ally Sloper (1915) , Vermouth (1916), Shaun Spadah (1921), and Sergeant Murphy (1923). The going was described as 'not too bad' by a jockey who had ridden in a chase the previous day - apart from a section of plough after Becher's, and 'an expanse of something like swamp' into which the horses sunk deeply as they approached the last fence but two. They had had to get large pumps onto the course to deal with waterlogged areas, and a blizzard hit the course as the horses were parading and they had to return to the paddock before the race got under way. Nevertheless, Poethlyn won under 12-7 by 8 lengths and 6. It was then considered not that likely that he would reappear for a repeat victory in the Lancashire Chase, run at Manchester on Easter Monday just over 3 weeks later, but when his name appeared amongest the entries for not only that race, but also the Chester Cup, it was presumed all was well with him. He was given 12-9 at Manchester, and, sent off a 1/3 fav, won by 4 lengths and 10 from 2 horses carrying less than 10st in an 11-runner field. He bypassed the Chester Cup.

..........continued from 15th Oct 1639

And so Golden Miller and Thomond II returned to Aintree.....so did Miss Paget - just. She was always late. Her plane landed from Germany, where she had just spent the past eight months, just 30 minuted before the `off` in the Gold Cup and arrived in the parade ring as the jockeys were mounting.
Golden Miller looked well in the preliminaries in the Grand National. As the runners were on the way to post the spectators attentions were diverted to the spectacle of a wild hare sprinting down the course in fright. It headed straight at the water jump, tried to leap it but landed in the water and drowned. Dorothy`s old father, Lord Queensborough joked, to much laughter, Damn! there goes my daughter`s last chance of a husband. The old upper classes always did have a very droll sense of humour.

In 1835, exactly a 100 years earlier, the haughty and arrogant Lord George Bentinck (self-appointed absolute ruler of the Turf) and Squire Osbaldeston (great all-round sportsman and popularly known as "The Squire of England") clashed over a scandalous meeting at Heaton Park, Lancashire - then considered the Goodwood of the North. Osbaldeston bought a horse from Ireland called Rush for a gamble. He entered it for two races at Heaton on consecutive days. On the first day he `roped` the horse and it finished last. The handicapper dropped it a stone overnight. Rush hacked up next day with the consequence that Lord George owed Osbaldeston £200 over a private bet. "A great robbery has taken place" he whined. Bentinck looked down on Squire Osbaldeston because he hadn`t got a title. The Squire in turn looked down on Bentinck, considering him ill-bred because his family were descended from Dutch stock. Nevertheless he had to pay. As Lord George very reluctantly and slowly counted out the money into the outstretched hand he enquired:" I suppose you CAN COUNT?". Back came the reply, "I could at Eton".

The starter let them go and they were off. Golden Miller was in 3rd place on the first circuit when, at the ditch after Valentines he propped, then from a virtual split-second standstill jumped the fence, screwed slightly as he landed and Gerry Wilson was unseated.
Bob Lyall, who was commentating for the BBC, opened the door of his box and excitedly gave repeated thumbs-down signals.....The Miller had gone! Conformation of this soon became apparent as a horse with the no. 1 number cloth was seen cantering back to the paddock:the crowd gasped in disappointment. At 2/1 he had been the hottest favourite in over eighty years. Basil Briscoe had backed him to win £10,000.......Dorothy Paget far more. There was a post-race inquest where, to Briscoe`s amazement and disgust, Wilson told them that the horse was never going properly and felt lame - even on the way to post. Miss Paget immediately blamed Briscoe, saying he hadn`t prepared the horse properly. Basil Briscoe felt betrayed and was being made to feel incompetent. From the head on view it did look a very soft unseat considering Wilson`s experience and competence in the saddle. A spectator with a side-on view later confirmed the horse did prop momentarily as he was about to jump.

Dark rumours soon began to spread that Gerry Wilson had been bribed. It was said that Wilson`s father was celebrating in the Adelphi Hotel that night, having won a lot of money laying the horse and that the drink had loosened his tongue. As a matter of fact Gerry Wilson openly declared that he had been offered a bribe of £3,000 a week earlier to stop the horse and had immediately reported the fact to the owner, trainer and stewards. There were other rumours too which stretched even the wildest imaginations. Gerry Wilson failed to turn-up for Golden Miller`s final piece of exercise on the morning of the race, which is true - Harry Beasley substituted. However, the word was that he was away meeting nobblers whose only question to him was:"How much!". Another even more fanciful story was that on a road leading out of Liverpool, a man identical to Gerry Wilson was seen at the roadside receiving bundles of cash from a man dressed in full AA uniform. Even Basil Briscoe wondered if the bribe had been doubled or trebled, thus setting up Wilson for life. These rumours persisted even after Gerry Wilson`s death in 1969.

Two vets inspected Golden Miller straight after the National and declared him sound. Against all advice, Miss Paget decided that he would run in the Champion Chase the following day. Very well said the trainer:Eric Brown rides. No I own the horse and Gerry Wilson rides, she said. The horse made a terrible blunder at the first and Wilson was again unshipped, to a chorus of booing from the stands.
Briscoe was ordered up to her box where an almighty row broke out. He finally snapped and hurled his gold cigarette case at the door and shouted: "well then, take your bloody horses away". Recriminations were issued, via the press, from both sides. The highly-strung Briscoe wrote a final letter to Miss Paget requesting she take all her horses out of his yard within a week otherwise they will be released onto Newmarket Heath. The letter was made public and all the DP horses were gone within four days.

It was a huge wrench to all concerned with the yard; Briscoe himself claimed he hadn`t had a holiday during the years Golden Miller was with him, so devoted was he to the great horse. Similarly, the horse`s lad, Mick Boston, worshipped his charge and even slept in his box leading up to big races and when rumours were about that nobblers were preparing to strike. He had the chance to go to the new stable but declined as he was very happy at Beechwood House. Golden Miller went to the yard of DP`s cousin, Donald Snow, but was soon moved on to the stable of Owen Anthony, but not before he warned DP:" I will not be accepting any night-time phone calls; 10`clock is my bedtime; I then take the phone off the hook". Gordon Richards and Frenchie Nicholson also gave her a similar message. They were not prepared to go through the same torture that the likes of Walter Nightingall and Fulke Walwyn had to endure, with late, very late, calls lasting anything up to three hours.

Gerry Wilson kept his partnership with the horse.......but not for long. On his seasonal debut Golden Miller was ridden by an amateur, coming 3rd. Next time out, ridden by Wilson he won the Andover Chase carrying 12st 10Lbs. On his next outing he ran-out, with the result that Gerry Wilson was taken off the horse and replaced by Evan Williams who won the 1936 Gold Cup on him. Golden Miller then went to Aintree again and refused. The following year he refused again. It was now abundantly clear that he hated the fences. Billy Stott, who in earlier years had developed a great rapport with him and won on all six occasions when he had the mount, including the 1933 Gold Cup, opined that the horse was a low, economical jumper and would be unsuited to Liverpool: he was sacked for giving this opinion. Evan Williams switched from Golden Miller to Royal Mail for the 1937 National and won under 11st 13Lbs. Needless to say he was never given the ride on The Miller again. In between those last two Grand Nationals, Fulke Walwyn managed to get him round into 2nd place in the Becher Chase of 1936, reporting that, "the old fellow groaned as he touched down over the drop fences".

He would probably have won a sixth Gold Cup but snow and frost intervened on the day. He was beaten just 2 lengths into 2nd place by the useful Morse Code in what was to be his penultimate season. He won three of his six chases that season, including the Prince`s Chase at Sandown Park over 3m 5f giving the 2nd 34Lbs. Sadly there was to be no triumphal send-off. Just one unplaced appearance at Newbury on 23rd February, 1939 at the age of twelve.

Dorothy Paget had some great days with her horses, even though dearly bought. There was the hat-trick on the same day at cheltenham which included the Champion Hurdle of 1946; there was 1932 when Insurance won the Champion Hurdle and Golden Miller won the Cheltenham Gold Cup on the same day - and repeating the dose a year later; There was the day Golden Miller completed a nap-hand of Gold Cups. But almost certainly it was Golden Miller winning the 1934 Grand National that gave her the greatest satisfaction.

Golden Miller probably made the Cheltenham Gold Cup into the race it became; it gradually overtook the Grand National as the Blue Riband of steeplechasing - the National had previously been the be-all-and-end-all of jumping ambitions.
Golden Miller`s five Gold Cups were then known as £1,000 Plates, with £670 to the winner and £330 to be shared amongst the placed horses. Over seven seasons he won 31 races of a total value of £15,176 - almost half of this came from his Grand National win. He had seventeen different jockeys.
Golden Miller spent his long, well-earned retirement at his owner`s Essex stud, where he was finally put down at the age of 30.

Cottage Rake made the gold cup imo !

Ramruna - just to offer a few snippets in part answer to your question...

In 1853-54, there were 92 different places where steeplechasing took place. You can find a list of them here....(from p388/9 of a book 'Manual of British rural sports').

https://archive.org/stream/manualofbritishr00wals#page/n447/mode/2up/search/388


Writing in the Times the day after Easter Hero had won his first Gold Cup (1929), the writer says that the Cheltenham meeting in March is 'really intended for amateur riders and for hunters', but that the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup were "two great races".

(Easter Hero won the Gold cup by 20 lengths in both 1929 and 1930, and would probably have won it in 1931 too, but the race was lost to frost. Golden Miller's first Gold Cup win in 1932, as a 5yo, was, in the end, something of a non-event. The only 3 of his 5 rivals with serious form failed to complete. Gib, who had given Easter Hero a race until the 2nd last in 1929, fell on the first circuit; the 2nd fav fell at the first fence on the 2nd circuit, and brought down the odds-on fav, Grakle, leaving Golden Miller to beat an 8/1 shot and a complete no-hoper, which he did with no trouble. That's not his fault, of course, but the race didn't take much winnig, as it turned out).


Writing in the Times in 1946, when previewing the 1946 Grand National, and the mighty Prince Regent's prospects of winning with top weight of 12-5, the writer refers to the horse having won his 'public trial' when winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup the previous month - so despite Golden Miller's (and Easter Hero's) fine efforts, the Gold Cup was still very much a minor race compared with the Aintree spectacular. 1946 was, of course, the first post-war Grand National, so crowds could have been expected to be inflated, but the expected crowd at Aintree that year was 300,000, so even if NH was still a poor relation of the flat, the Grand National had long been an exception.

Cheltenham has been a spa town for centuries; it was made popular when King George III decided to go there and flush-out the royal gut and bowels. Racing first took place at Cheltenham in 1815. In 1819 the first race for a Gold Cup took place, attended over the two days by a crowd of 30,000, bolstered by the presence of the Duke of Gloucester. At times the crowd swelled to around 50,000. The success of the meeting lasted 10 years but the large crowds attracted many undesirables: card sharps, prostitutes, pickpockets etc. All this did not escape the notice of the firebrand Reverend Francis Close, vicar of Cheltenham Parish Church (later Dean of Carlisle). He preached sermons of Fire and Brimstone from his pulpit. "It is scarcely possible to turn our steps in any direction without hearing the voice of the blasphemous, or meeting the reeling drunkard, or witnessing scenes of the lowest profligacy. Heathen festivals of Venus and Bachus are exceeded on a Christian raceground. I verily believe that on the day of judgement, thousands of that vast multitude who have served the world, the flesh and the devil, will trace-up all the guilt and misery which has fallen on them either to the racecourse or the theatre".

He worked his congregation and other parishioners into such a frenzy that in 1829 they threw stones and bottles at the horses and riders. In 1830 the grandstand was burned to the ground. The racecourse organizers then moved the course to Prestbury Park. The first Cheltenham Grand Annual Steeplechase was run and won by Fugleman in 1834 at the Vale of Prestbury (Captain Martin Henry Beecher won it on Vivian in 1937). Mixed meetings took place until flat racing ended there in 1855 after Hothorpe and Duet dead-heated for the Consolation Scramble Handicap over 4 furlongs - Hothorpe winning the run-off. Steeplechasing thrived with large crowds in attendance (no official figures were ever announces). In 1876 Master Mowbray completed a hat-trick of Grand Annual successes.

More regular steeplechasing took place after Mr. Baring-Bingham bought the course and built a grandstand. A new course was mapped out and the first Cheltenham Festival meeting took place in 1902. It was re-mapped again and the meeting, and particularly the races, more imaginatively framed by Frederick Cathcart of Pratt & co, who managed and administered several racecourses. There were too many handicaps, resulting in an old tale hanging over the course and other courses` heads, namely: A horse is blatently `stopped` at a country meeting."What are you going to do about that?" enquires a young steward of his much older colleague. "Do!" said the old boy. "Do!" Back it next time out of course". Improvements have been evolving ever since, but Cathcart was probably the most influential of all those that ran Cheltenham.

You`re right sparrow, today`s clergy are a proper shower. The Rev Close and Brian Close would soon put the world to rights. I not only spelt Captain Becher wrong but typed in 1937 instead of 1837 - only 100 years out. As Alfie Bass would have said in The Army Game, "Ne`er mind aye"

Another one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnStf-TzT60

Basil Briscoe was born in 1903 into a wealthy family who owned a hardware business in Australia and sheep farms in New Zealand. They lived at Longstowe Hall in Cambridgeshire, an Elizabethan country house with about 4,000 acres of shooting grounds. The walls were lined with portraits by famous artists such as Gainsborough, Raeburn and Sir Joshua Reynolds. The father William Briscoe was a top class tennis player and many famous sportsmen would visit the house, including the Australian cricket team. Up until then horseracing had hardly ever been mentioned; however, William Heath, the family butler not only trained young Basil to be a good shot but also encouraged him to take an interest in horses. It was said Heath was a loader to King Edward VII.
At the age of thirteen he was sent to Eton, where there was something of a horseracing culture amongst the boys. There was several young noblemen there and young Basil got off to a shaky start: "many a thrashing did I receive from the Duke of Beaufort when I was his Tea ****". Also he was made to sit on the lavatory seat for ten minutes to warm it up in cold weather for another senior boy when he was his Laundry ****. However this was compensated for by the hot tips which were flying around and were received by boys whose families owned horses. Briscoe and his best pal each won £25 one day and thought they were millionaires. A lady who ran a nearby sweet shop would put their bets on for them. When circumstances allowed, the two of them would go into Windsor, swap their Eton dress for some old clothes and sneak into the Silver Ring.

From Eton he then went on to Cambridge University which was just eleven miles from Longstowe Hall and not too far from Newmarket either. Now horses and racing really took hold. After gaining his degree, instead of pursuing an academic career, he realized training racehorses was the only thing he wanted to do, and so joined the stable of Joe Orbell, an old fashioned trainer-farmer who had a small string and a reputation for really being able to lay one out for a gamble. After a few years of learning the profession with Orbell he branched out on his own, and after family arguments, set up a training establishment at Longstowe Hall. He bought a few horses himself and gained a few owners after some early successes.
Of all the horses he bought, by far the most significant was May Crescent, who was out of Miller`s pride, and so later encouraged him to buy his half brother Golden Miller. He purchased May Crescent chiefly as a mount for himself to ride out hunting and to go point to pointing. He pulled off a gamble when riding the horse himself in an Amateur Rider`s race at Lingfield, only to sell him shortly afterwards for £1,000 after two vets condemned him for having heart problems - the same two vets who were also to condemn Golden Miller for supposedly having a sprung tendon and so encouraged Briscoe to sell The Miller (his stable name) to Philip Carr for £1,000.
The Miller was so slow early on that he became the laughing stock of the stable. Briscoe phoned Captain Farmer at John Drage, the Northampton horse dealers to tell him, " I wanted a racehorse, not a carthorse".

After the sale of Golden Miller and Insurance to Miss Paget, the stable expanded rapidly - together with hunters and hacks the numbers rose to over eighty, necessitating the move to Beechwood House, Exning, which is about a mile from Newmarket.
Basil Briscoe enjoyed some early success on the Flat as an owner with Elton, the 1929 winner of the Lincoln, trained by Harvey Leader and which he jointly owned with Mrs Foster. At first sight it might seem as if the horse was unbacked at 100-1 but shortly afterwards Briscoe and Harvey Leader bought some virgin land and founded the Brickfield Stud. He claimed that land which had never had a horse on it was best for breeding and rearing young horses: "many studs are unsuccessful because they are farmed to death; they are not limed, manured or rested properly".
He also became Master of the Cambridgeshire Harriers that year and hunted them with trainer Jack Leader. Yet another Leader, Ted Leader, rode Golden Miller nine times, winning a Gold Cup on the horse. Where are all those families now who for generations filled the racing pages? Leader, Rickaby, Anthony, Darling, Nightingall, Beasley, Elsey, Day, Smyth, Watts, Rimell, Lambton, Waugh etc.

His big new owner, Dorothy Paget, often seemed to attract unwanted and unwarranted attention from the popular press, whom she hated with a vengeance. She was quite a shy person and seldom sought publicity, unlike some of her more controversial female Society contempories such as Diana Mitford and Nancy Cunard. No doubt she was aware of the asides expressed concerning her dowdiness and the s****ing remarks on her household and personal life.
One of the oddest gambles on one of DP`s horses was for a horse named Tuppence, which was bet from 100-1 down to 10-1 for the 1933 Derby. Nobody knew where the money came from. He finished out the back, where his form suggested it would. He later ran in a small hurdles race at Huntingdon where he ran-out at one of the hurdles, careered into some spectators, killing one of them.

It was 1935 and the seven-year association between BB and DP was now severed. This meant there was a diminution in the numbers at Beechwood House, necessitating a move to a smaller more manageable and economically more viable premises. Laurence Stables at Royston, Herts. was the chosen new venue. Royston is an historic training centre - said to be even older than Newmarket. King James I built a palace there where he entertained his boyfriend, the Duke of Buckingham, courtiers and other friends. He used to go out hawking on Royston Heath.

Basil Briscoe and an owner, George Foster, bought a horse called Commander III for 3,000 Gns. It was prepared for the 1934 Cambridgeshire, but was just run out of it by Wytchwood Abbot. The horse was then prepared for the 1935 Lincoln and was backed to win a total of £60,000 by it`s owners after making a very useful stable companion called Gay Dancer look like a common hack on the home gallops. Commander III failed completely in the Lincoln, but Gay Dancer won the Liverpool Cup a couple of days later. " So much for home gallops" lamented Briscoe. That same week was the Grand National/Champion Chase debacle with Golden Miller and the consequent fall-out, making it one of Briscoe`s worst ever weeks.

He then set about giving Commander III a long and thorough preparation for the Cambridgeshire in the autumn in order to avenge the previous years defeat in the race and to retrieve the heavily incurred Lincoln losses, plus plenty more besides.
It was the morning of the Cambridgeshire and he was short of ready money. He was sat at home playing some records and chatting to Rufus Beasley, then said to him, "Well, I must get down to the racecourse and saddle Commander III for the Cambridgeshire. I cannot believe he will win as my luck is dead out, but if he does win I shall net £10,000 and get married". Commander III was drawn right over on the far side, which was ideal as he hated being bumped around by other horses. The horse won easily and Briscoe and his fiancee got married two days later. George Foster, the other joint owner was so ill he could not take in the result and died not long afterwards.
At about this time Briscoe`s brother, Richard, was standing for re-election as Conservative MP for the local constituency. Basil had no interest in politics whatsoever but decided to help out the best way he knew how - by driving around to all the towns and villages and tipping them Commander III for the Cambridgeshire. His brother retained the seat. Labour took a dim view and put the result down to "local gossip". The horse finished its preparation at Royston but Newmarket claimed the result.
In 1937 the stable housed one of the best fillies in the country, called Laughing Water. She didn`t quite last the mile of the 1,000 Guineas and was run out of it close home by the brilliant Rockfel.

Basil Briscoe pulled off some big gambles but could sometimes be a mug punter. One Newmarket October meeting it poured down for the whole four days, flooding the paddock. "I had the biggest bet of my life on a filly called The Leopard :I had £2,800 on her. The form for the meeting was turned upside down and I finished the week losing £8,000. It was a terrible week for punters and on the Friday everyone was trebling their stakes trying to get out. One South of London trainer spent the last two races in the bar and on leaving the course shouted to his friends, `I can`t pay, I shall just have to refer them to my bankers!`"
Briscoe tried to get out on one at Hurst Park but it was beaten a head by an animal that had never won a race before.
He paid £2,000 for a horse trained in Ireland by Mick Collins in order to land a gamble at Newmarket. He was trained "under cover" out on Royston Heath with the help of Harry Beasley. He had £4,000 on this horse, named Slieve Donard - half for himself and half for others. The commission was worked by Major Charles Moss. Briscoe told him, "It won`t be last, I promise you". He said it was one of the best-worked commissions he had ever seen, with everything on at 8-1. In the race it was a desperate finish with Slieve Donard and another one locked together. There was no photo-finish camera but the majority of spectators were sure Briscoe`s horse had won - but the judge gave it to the other horse. It was a result that was badly needed but just didn`t quite come off.

Basil Briscoe admitted betting high stakes at the Monte Carlo and Cannes casino`s. Even higher stakes were punted by an owner-friend called Sidney Beer who one night broke the bank at Monte Carlo. He left a few days later losing money. He then took on the Betting Ring, and lost. Sidney Beer gave up gambling to become a highly respected orchestral conductor.
Now war was declared and the stable was disbanded. Employees who had been with Briscoe from Longstowe through Beechwood House to Royston said fond farewells. Head man Stanley Tidey had been there from the very start and rode some of the minor jumps winners when the money was down. Mick Boston who had taken over as groom to a temperamental Golden Miller and becalmed him to such effect that the horse was totally relaxed at all times - even in the febrile atmosphere of Aintree on Grand National day. In that well known picture of Golden Miller being led in by Dorothy Paget and her father, Mick Boston is right behind them wearing a cloth cap. People who saw him 40 years later said he had hardly changed. A few yards behind the police horse is Clive Graham, for many years The Scout of the Daily Express. He is the one with binoculars in left hand and wearing an ill-fitting, ill-perched bowler hat.

Basil Briscoe was now in uniform - he hated the war and could not wait for the last shot to be fired and the final All-Clear to be sounded. He had some quaint theories about war and politics, insisting that the fault lay with the German people and their lack of sporting instincts. Perhaps it was `The playing fields of Eton` coming through.
"Really true sportsmen try to help their fellow folk, but I`m afraid the German people, on account of their leaders, have not been brought up in this faith; had they been, they would have helped many small countries on their boundaries instead of invading them and using brute force. Had Hitler been a sportsman, had he attended race meetings, hunted, played cricket or entered into any field of sport he would not have plunged the whole world into the state we find it today. Sportsmen will realize that the fuhrer could not have any of these sporting instincts in him. The present war has hit all lovers of sport pretty hard, but still, sportsmen are hard nuts to crack".

He dearly wanted to get back into training and go hunting again. His brother lost the 1945 election. They were both de-mobbed in 1946. The following year his brother gave Longstowe Hall to his nephew and went out to Australia and New Zealand to attend to his businesses.
Basil was by now hard-up and in ill-health. His parents had been dead a few years - his father died while visiting New Zealand and was buried in Christchurch. His beautiful young wife had died just five years after their marriage. His ill-health no doubt had a lot to do with his habit of smoking 60-100 du Maurier cigarettes a day for over 25 years.
A dapper man, it was said he was always immaculately dressed whether on the Heath or on the racecourse and that he was introspective, highly-strung and slightly eccentric. The betting ring always knew when he fancied one and, very unusually for a trainer, after he had got his own money on, would go around the ring urging anyone who would listen to back his horse. He liked to share in his successes. They didn`t always win of course, so at times he was less than popular.
Arthur Basil Briscoe, died 21st August 1951, aged forty-eight.

Sni...gxxxxg..erxxin..g     as in a sort of snide and cunning laughter. Good God!

Your father certainly clerked through some interesting times sparrow. I bet he had a razor-sharp brain. He must have known all the personalities in the ring.........William Hill, Parkers (Stein), Billy Chandler, Willie Preston and others from the Midlands and North like Beau Goldsmith and John Joyce.
I don`t know if you ever read the story of William Hill`s clerk, Pat Moore. He earned far more than other clerks - about £100 a week. He strongly fancied the Pat Beasley trained Sterope for the 1948 Cambridgeshire. He was on good terms with the trainer`s wife, Lady Beasley and she confirmed that the horse had been readied for the race and was cherry ripe. It romped home at an SP of 25/1. It ran in the race the following year and Pat Moore lumped on again. It was a repeat win at 25/1 and he won a fortune all told for a ton-a-week man.....£110,0000. Of course everyone got to hear about it and the vultures began to circle. He was introduced to a football pools syndicate that were setting up in Hong Kong and were going to make millions. He "invested" it all in the business. The syndicate melted away, and so did Pat Moore`s money. He lost everything. He could have bought 20 detached houses during that post-war austerity period with that sort of money. Just how did a man who must have seen it all on the racecourse ; pro gamblers going skint, con-men, spivs - fall for such an unlikely scheme?
I see they`re all making a fuss about offshore accounts.......rich people putting money into tax havens, well what a surprise! I wonder if they will mention the hundreds who lose their money in these accounts. I know two families who have been cleaned out. To put all your hard-earned money into the hands of people you`ve never even met is lunacy. I remember the story of Anita Harris who had  hit records in the sixties putting all her million pounds into a Swiss bank: the bank went under and she lost everything, with no recompense. She has never recovered - I very much doubt if Pat Moore did either.

William Hill did not take to the arrival of betting shops when they first opened their doors on May 1st 1961, nor for many years after. Ladbrokes took a similar view and were cautious; Corals were quicker off the block and by 1962 had opened 23 shops. Most were owned by small chains and one-man concerns. They were more or less made to discourage punters by making these premises as uninviting as possible, with bare floors, little in the way of seating and definitely no televisions allowed. You were supposed to put your bets on and then leave straight away. No member of the passing public was allowed to see the inside of the shop from an outside view. Those that came and went often had a kind of furtive look about then. The police had a saying back then: "If you want to find a crook, have a look inside the betting shops first".
Betting shops had been banned since the early 1850`s. Often, after punter`s had had a good win on, say, the Derby or a Lottery, they would turn up the following day to find the shop stripped bare and boarded up. Many times a riot broke out and the place was set alight,  so the authorities closed them all down.
William Hill had by the 1960`s groomed himself into some sort of racing elder statesman and called betting shops "A cancer on society". However the big chains soon began to feel the "wind of change" blowing through the betting industry and by the end of the decade Ladbrokes had opened 400 shops. William Hill were the lagards with just 90 shops.

Ladbrokes began at Ladbroke Hall when Mr Pennington and trainer Harry Schwind formed a partnership to back runners trained by Schwind and to act as commission agents to other punters. (Ladbroke is the name of a village in Warwickshire). They were joined in 1902 by a Mr Arthur Bendir, who virtually founded Ladbrokes. As Pennington and Schwind dropped out in 1906 so Ladbrokes moved to the Strand, from there to Hanover Square and finally to legendary Six Burlington Street, Mayfair, where they were to remain for the next 49 years.
One of Bendir`s Lieutenants was Jim Santry who became the firms first on-course rep. One evening he and his wife were going to the theatre in a carriage and two when he decided to pop into his Club for five minutes. He couldn`t resist a hand or two at cards. He came out of the Club and said to his wife, "you`ll have to get out, we`ll have to walk, I`ve lost the lot".

Arthur Bendir developed Ladbrokes into bookmakers to the titled classes; so exclusive that one had to be Listed in Debrett in order to open an account. Even if you were among the richest in the land but were a commoner, you were not welcome - especially if you had made your money in Trade.
The telephone accounts were handled by well dressed elderly clerks speaking from curtained-off cubicles: they could be heard whispering respectfully, "would that be win only or each way Your Grace?"......"you have 6/1 on that one Your Lordship"......"that`s all settled then Sir John". They used quality paper on copper plate and wrote with a feathered quill pen and ink. Lunch was served by dinner-jacketed waiters and many accounts were settled by cheque over cigars, Brandy & Port in the Front Room at Six Burlington Street. Of course there was the exception. Bendir hired an ex sergeant as a general assistant and minder. He still had a very military bearing and was once involved in an embarrassing situation to his boss. He knew very little about racing, and even less about racing`s protocols. One day, in the 1930`s, Arthur Bendir was having a chat over drinks with two members of the Jockey Club in the Front Room when in walked the ex sergeant, stood to attention and announced, "Sir, a Mister Stephen Donoghue is on the phone for you".

Ladbrokes employed a Scottish female racecourse rep called Helen Vernet, known as the "Lady Bookmaker". In 1890, at the age of 13, she      inherited £8,000 on the passing of her father and quickly lost it all when she came of age - a folly which never left her. Because Helen developed a Tubercular condition she was advised to take an outdoor job. Gambling appealed to her and so she applied for the vacancy at Ladbrokes and got the job - coming from aristocracy no doubt helped. She soon got to know which punters were shrewd and in the know, and those who were just wealthy guessers. She made a lot of money during the two post-war betting boom periods and accordingly spent prodigiously. Helen had a real taste for the high life, had two husbands and a weakness for Giggolos. Even though eventually wheelchair bound she worked right up past normal retirement to 1955. She died the following year - the same year that Arthur Bendir retired.
The only time she angered Bendir was over the 1913 Derby when the favourite, Craganour, was first past the post, but then disqualified. Aboyeur, a 100/1 shot was called the winner - she had layed AP Cunliffe of the `Druid`s Lodge Confederacy` £250 at 100/1, thus wiping out all off-course and ante-post profits.

The company was then bought in 1956/57 by on-course bookmaker, Max Parker, for a reputed £100,000, although Cyril Stein later said it was £250,000. Max was one of four brothers operating on the racecourse - Harry, Jack and Isaac were the other three. (Harry was also often, confusingly, called Dick and Snouty). They were the sons of Russian immigrants named Stein. Harry was known as the "King of the Knock-out". He also had a flourishing off-course SP business. In early 1937, James Park, probably the greatest-ever racing journalist, advised Harry that Royal Mail was a certainty for the Grand National. Harry backed it continuously for the next 3 months and when it won he cleared £100,000. He celebrated by putting a bottle of champagne on every restaurant table and telling James Park to go down to Saville Row and treat himself to the best and most expensive suit money could buy. They may have been a shade fortunate however. The mare who was 2nd home by 3 lengths, Cooleen, was impeded during the race when a loose horse tried to savage her. Then a horse right in front of her at one of the fences took off too early and landed on top of the fence, so Cooleen had to not only clear the fence but the stricken animal too.
There is a sad postscript to the Royal Mail story. Its owner, Hugh LLoyd-Thomas, who at one time was Equerry to the Prince of Wales and a member of the British Embassy had decided to ride Royal Mail in the following years` National but was killed in a fall at Derby a month before Aintree. Derby closed the following year to great disappointment. At the final meeting in August 1939 all 19 owners and trainers boycotted a handicap race, which was then declared void.
James Park wrote a 3,000 word piece every day for decades. He formulated his own handicap and was the first journalist to incorporate Timefigures into his calculations. He would produce an analysis of all the previous days` races, making special note of the most noteworthy performances. He also performed a comprehensive essay, together with summaries of `today`s` races.

In 1941 Harry Parker was Warned-Off for allegedly bribing jockeys and died in 1945 of a heart attack.
When Max Parker took over the running of Ladbrokes, he and nephew Cyril Stein could not but help laugh at the antiquated, almost Dickensian, set-up at Six Burlington Place. They were going to change almost everything, but slowly. At first, to the horror of their clients, they advertised, but only in Tatler and Country Life. They cleared out the elderly clerks and the waiters, recruiting younger staff - it was sandwiches and luncheon vouchers from now on. Lines of telephones were installed, and the cubicles were gone.
After 49 years at Mayfair, Ladbrokes moved to Ganton House in September 1962, next to trendy Carnaby Street in 3 days and installed 100 telephones.

Ladbrokes then began a new venture: Fixed Odds Football, which was to almost ruin the business. First they had to overcome a court action instigated by William Hill, stating "Infringement of Copyright". Hill`s had been operating in this arena for several years and objected to a big newcomer treading on its toes. The upshot of it all was that William Hill were awarded £1 damages, but Ladbrokes could proceed to operate in fixed-odds football........the lawyers scooped-up £30,000.
Ladbrokes issued their first coupons for the 1960/61 season. There were various types of bets: Homes, Aways, Draws etc. 5 Homes, 6 Homes, 7 Homes accumulators were very popular, as were 4 Aways and 3 Draws. On some coupons some bankers were excluded, and on another it was `Nothing Barred`. The big risk with fixed-odds is that there is no way of laying-off if the vast majority of results are predictable. Many other firms came into the fixed-odds scene after the court case, including, Corals, Littlewoods, Vernons, Zetters etc; the last three named had been operating the Treble Chance coupons for many years, where a large amount can be won for small stakes eg (Perm any 8 from 11 = 165 lines @ 1/2d per line etc). 8 draws on a low-draw day was the Holy Grail.

One Saturday in the early sixties these fixed-odds operators had a nightmarish experience. The `Nothing Barred` coupon had what looked like an unusually large number of Home bankers, and one in particular which was a gift....Jock Stein`s mighty Celtic at home to little Raith Rovers - it was on everyone`s coupon. Five Homes was a certainty, Six Homes was almost `Past the Post` before kick-off and even Seven Homes looked a cinch.
The results were coming in thick and fast. Every home banker had won; all that remained was the 5 - 0 score from Hampden Park. In it came: Celtic 1  Raith Rovers 1. The baritone voice of Len Martin reading out that scoreline reverberated around the nation resulting in a chorus of groans and disappointment. Ladbrokes admitted that result saved them £500,000, Hill`s far more.
At that time top players were earning less than £30 per week, so there was a deep suspicion by many that the Celtic players had been `Got-At` before the match. Collectively, those eleven players would have earned not much more than £5,000 in today`s money that week. It was estimated that by only managing a draw, Celtic saved the fixed odds firms £2.5 to £3m million (£40 to £50 million in today`s money) on that Saturday afternoon.

In 1966 Max Parker died. He was not a popular man, neither with the punters, nor with his fellow bookmakers: he was the hard face of the Parker family. Peter O` Sulleven recalled that after just one winner out of seventeen horses he had owned he was about to have his second winner after getting encouraging messages from the trainer. It was 1958 and his wages at the Daily Express were meagre. He had a good bet on the horse at what he thought was 6/1 - he missed the 10/1 opening show. Just Friendly won. A delighted owner went to collect his winnings from Max Parker. "You had 3/1" said Parker. After a long and heated exchange of words, Max Parker delivered what O` Sulleven called the unforgettable line, "If I returned you any bigger I`d lose on the race". Salt was rubbed into the wound when the bookie next door, Laurie Wallis, said to O` Sulleven, "There was plenty of 7/1 and I layed Maxie £1,000- 70 twice". Just over a year earlier Max Parker had bought Ladbrokes. Cyril Stein, son of the charming and mild-mannered Jack Parker, served his apprenticeship with his uncle Max. Cyril had already failed as a bookmaker: he had his own credit office business but went bust. He was much happier punting.

In September 1967, a year after Max Parker`s death, a third of Ladbroke`s shares were offered to the general public and institutions, via the Stock Exchange, at 10 Shillings (50p) per share. They were massively oversubscribed and Cyril Stein became a millionaire.
Cyril Stein used to eat and sleep Finance, Mergers & Acquisitions and Business Management. He took his Company into the property and Hotels business in a big way. He was a darling of the City and his shareholders and seemed unstoppable, until........the London casino scandal. By 1979 Ladbrokes three casinos represented 27% of the British casino market. Much of this consisted of oil-rich Arabs who had become incredibly wealthy in the wake of the Yom Kippur War. Stein wanted more of the action and hired a dodgy Dane called Andreas Christenson to head the casino division. Christenson dreamt up a scheme to steal other casino`s clients by noting the car reg. numbers  parked outside their casinos, then passing them to a crooked policeman who had access to the Police National Computer Centre at Nottingham who then forwarded their home addresses to Christenson at `Unit Six` as the scheme was known. Champagne and flowers were delivered to these addresses by pretty girls, together with an invitation to be entertained at Ladbroke casinos. The scheme was of course illegal.

When it was exposed by Private Eye the police opposed the renewal of Ladbrokes` casino licence, which was backed-up by the Magistrate`s Court. Cyril Stein denied neither he nor his top manager`s knew of the scheme and appealed. It all blew up in their faces in Court however when Stein`s personal secretary, Jane Ballard, an upright, middle-aged, church-going lady found that she could not hold the Holy Bible in her hand, swear on oath to tell the whole truth, then lie. She told the court that Cyril Stein had come into work one morning and ordered her to shred all the files relating to `Unit Six`. The judge threw out the appeal and ordered that the casinos close that afternoon - permanently. It was estimated that their loss amounted to £100 million.
Cyril Stein`s closest associates and main shareholder`s asked him to resign, but he refused, insisting,"I have done nothing wrong". He must have been going through an amoral phase. He made some bitter enemies along the way, especially Victor Lownes of the Playboy empire and its casinos with their Bunny Girls. As a result of evidence produced by Stein, Playboy casinos were shut down too - two years after the Ladbroke closure among all sorts of corruption allegations. Clement Freud, a director of Playboy and Liberal MP was also involved. Ladbrokes` casinos had come to rely on the casinos as they produced half of all Company profits at that time. Things looked bleak but over the following 10 years Cyril Stein completely turned the Company around - getting half their profits from their Hilton Hotels division and just 25% from racing.

Ladbrokes` shares have performed poorly since Cyril Stein`s departure, which reinforces that old City saying, "don`t back the Company, back the man behind the Company".

Great stuff.

wonderful tales much appreciated

The nostalgic threads are always the best. This one ranks up there with a few others that have recalled bygone days with interesting  anecdotes. Much appreciated.

Well spotted Ramruna.....tenner with free delivery,much obliged.

Not all the stories are taken from the book, but where they concern Dorothy Paget, there are probably different accounts of them in the book, but I can't say I've checked.

Great stuff , a very interesting read this thread !

HENRY - you write, of Alex  ...

'Maybe he was bankrolled by his father in those early days, for within two or three years of demob he would be flying from Manchester Airport to the racecourses most days of the week and betting in thousands'
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Indeed - that could well  be true - as I am sure I recall Alex saying that the family 'did very well' out of both the Coal Royalties Cmpensation scheme (during the second World War) - By 1946, over 26,000 claims by 13,000 different owners had been met - and  the nationalisation of the Coal industry, through the formation of the National Coal Board in 1947 (2 years after the end of the war, and around the time of Alex's demob) - Alex's father having held shares in various coal mines, aswell as being a Coal Merchant.

It's a while since I read Alex Bird's book so it was good to read again Henry. As I recall the bookmakers own men referred to were top greyhound racing people to judge them photo finishes.

Terry Ramsden was once listed as one of Britain`s wealthiest individuals. Not quite in the top 50, but closing fast; an amazing feat when one considers his North London council flat beginnings. Starting out as an insurance clerk, he was much too ambitious to stick with a mundane job. He left it to work for a stockbroker where he specialized in Japanese warrants. He eventually became dissatisfied with being just another City employee and purchased his own company. It was a small Edinburgh-based shell company called Glen International for £18,000 in 1984. Working a 90 hour week he took the company annual turnover from a miniscule £20,000 to £3.5 billion in just 3 years, and with a billion pounds worth of credit lines to call upon.
Once again he specialized in Japanese warrants. These were warrants issued by Japanese companies in conjunction with companies` bonds. Bonds are issued by companies to raise money. In return, purchasers of the bonds get interest and a possible capital gain. Warrants are a kind of hedging insurance, and so by attaching the warrants to bonds as a kind of insurance against a fall in the value of the bond value and/or interest, the issueing company gives the company bond purchaser insurance against volatility, and in return, the company issueing the bond pays a lower rate of interest to the bond purchaser.
It`s similar to Stock Options; a CALL option on a main share, say, BP, which is priced at £5 per share, gives the buyer of the CALL of the main share a larger piece of that underlying share (BP) for a fraction of the full £5, and the profit on the CALL is magnified if the price of the underlying share goes up. The drawback of course is if the the main share price falls, then the loss on the CALL option is magnified.

Then there are PUT options, which are the reverse of CALLS. Basically, investors by CALLS on a main share when they think the price of that share will rise; however, they can sell any CALL they hold if they think they`ve got it wrong and the price of the share is about to fall. A CALL option gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy an underlying stock (BP) at a certain price, quantity and at a future time.
Conversely, investors will buy PUTS if they think that the price of the underlying stock will go down. Of course they can sell any PUT options they hold if they think they`ve got it wrong and that the price of the underlying share is about to rise. For the most part, options are used for hedgeing purposes, but can also be bought separately for speculation.

A warrant is a security which doesn`t have the flexibility of a Traded Option but is similar in some respects. The main difference is that a warrant is issued by a company and is attached to its bond, whereas an option is an independent instrument of the Stock Exchange. Options, warrants futures etc. are often, collectively, referred to as Derivatives, and sometimes, confusingly, as Futures; although futures are normally classed as trading in commodities: metals, livestock, crops etc.

If things go badly wrong, derivatives can leave the investor highly leveraged, and so, in certain cases, vulnerable to sudden market volatility. What Terry Ramsden did was to split the warrants from the bonds and offer them as two individual entities. These warrants in isolation, therefore became highly speculative.
One financial journalist wrote: " Ramsden does something in the Japanese commodity markets that no one else had thought of, and it works".

`Black Monday` October 19th, 1987 saw a huge one-day Stock Market crash around the world. There had been a 5 year Bull Market which was becoming overheated and it all got completely out of control. Billions of dollars of "Junk Bonds" were being issued by companies at high interest rates in order to attract investors and so obtain money in order to facilitate what were highly leveraged buy-outs of other companies that looked vulnerable to a speculative takeover bid. (The mantra at the time was that the more companies the core company owned, then the more profits the core company would make, and as a consequence, the share price of that core company would rise ever higher). This all caused high inflation, which indeed cause company share prices go ever higher, which in turn, fed the appetite for yet more borrowing, so creating a self-perpetuating upward spiral.

The investing public saw all this and couldn`t but help get involved, and in doing so, exascerbated the buying frenzy. It seemed that everybody wanted a piece of the action in this, in what we now know, was a lemming-like rush towards the cliff edge. It was a classic bubble in the best traditions of the Dutch Tulip Bubble and the South Sea Bubble; so much so, that at one stage Tokyo became worth more than the entire USA. This all reached a point where institutional money managers became alarmed and rushed to hedge their positions in order to protect their clients` portfolios.

On October 19th 1987 there were unusually large early selling orders on the the Stock Index Futures market. This soon became a flood, which then affected the main share market index. Panic set in and suddenly it was all "Sell! Sell! Sell!". Many investors could not sell because brokers were so overwhelmed with sell orders that they took many of their phones off the hook. All these investors who had bought shares during the manic buying spree and the Call derivative speculators could do was to stare at the graphs showing steep declines in their markets, and in many cases, observe their financial ruin. On Wall Sreet, over $500 billion was wiped off the value of the main Dow Jones Stock Market Index. Worldwide, many people lost very heavily. In Japan there were suicides and in America some stockbroker employees were shot when ruined investors burst into their offices and started shooting brokers.
Terry Ramsden was caught up in all this mayhem, and, as is well know by racing people, suffered badly. he once famously said, "Swimming with the sharks is how I live".

Terry Ramsden and Glen International went spectacularly bust. In no time at all the luxurious possessions were gone: the fine Georgian mansion; multiple overseas homes; jet & helicopter; fleet of high-end cars; racehorses etc. had all been repossessed at the request of pursueing creditors. Total losses are not known exactly but, by general consensus, have been put at around £100 million. In addition there are the gambling losses, estimated by bookmakers to be in the region of £57 million during the 3 year period 1984 - 1987. It is thought there were losses prior to that period, but of course that money had long gone.
He would place a £1,000 yankee, and sometimes a £5,000 yankee, meaning a layout of £55,000 - in todays` money that`s around £120,000.

Terry Ramsden really did bet on a prodigious scale. Of course there were some big wins along the way. He won millions on his filly Katies when she won the Irish 1,000 Guineas and then followed up in the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot. Winning a Classic and a Group One at the Royal meeting is almost the pinnacle for many racehorse owners.
He pulled off a tremendous win when the Alan Bailey trained Cry For the Clown won a Seller at Ripon on Monday August 4th 1986. Opening at 20/1 the horse saw bets of £50k at 12/1, £100k at 10/1 and £150k at 8/1, much of it on credit with Ladbrokes, amounting to £2.8 million, getting on for £6 million today. However, by 1988 he owed Ladbrokes £2 million. One day, the company credit manager, Ron Pollard, pulled the plug and reported Terry Ramsden to Tattersall`s Committee, who then reported him to the Jockey Club, and as a consequence he was Warned Off.

His life as a bigtime, risk-taking stockbroker, multiple racehorse owner and plungeing gambler was over.......for the present. There are some similarities in the Terry Ramsden/Nick Leeson sagas: the far eastern highly leveraged stock market gambles and disasters; the extraditions; jailings; wives leaving them etc. I think the film producers slipped-up here. The Nick Leeson book and film were boring - the film was a Box Office disaster: Budget, £18 million....Box Office, £1million. A film which was made at about the same time called Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels: Budget, £800 thousand.......Box Office, £19 million.
A Terry Ramsden centred film would have had so much more scope for a good screenwriter than the Leeson film. There are a lot of top class actors out there in the provincial theatres who would act a part in in a film for next to nothing in order get a part on screen. It could be made for very little. Hedge Funds, groups and individuals invest in these sort of projects. Film producers definitely missed a trick there. It`s hard to believe Terry Ramsden is now a pensioner.

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Joe Sunlight was born Kadish Schimschlavitch in Belorussia in 1888/89; at that time it was a part of the Russian Empire. He was not much more than a baby when his parents moved to Britain in order to lead a more secure life and to escape the harassment of Tsarist/Soviet Russia.
The family settled in the Manchester area. He adopted the name Joe Sunlight, thought to be taken from the model village, Port Sunlight on the Wirral, which impressed him. It was designed by enlightened employer William Lever to house his workers.
Joe Sunlight was a bright lad who studied architecture, and such was his workrate and success that by his mid-forties he had designed and overseen the building of over 1,500 houses, factories, warehouses, offices and arcades and Sunlight House, then the tallest building in Manchester.

He became so consumed by his work that he realized he needed a hobby. Horseracing and betting seemed to come naturally to him. Eventually he became hooked; so much so that betting on horses became almost an obsession. Surprisingly, for somebody so intelligent, he became a mug punter supreme. In the second half of the 1940`s when many were still earning £300 a year, Joe Sunlight was making £200,000 a year; this was confirmed by the size of his settlement payment cheques to bookmakers. His main account was with William Hill; he also had an account with fellow Mancunian, Gus Demmy and one with Ladbrokes after they had been taken over by Max Parker.
Not only was he one of the highest earners in the country, he was one of the most consistent losers. At the bookmakers` offices, special direct telephone lines were set up to take Sunlight`s bets. He would often bet in every race of the day, punting four or five runners in each race, with William Hill accepting the largest wagers. The extraordinary thing about that account with William Hill was that Hill never once had to write out a cheque - every account over a near thirty year period was a losing one. No bets were ever layed-off or questioned by Hill and nothing ever went through the books - ever pound went in his back pocket.

Sunlight had some strange habits; he would travel to the racecourse via public transport 2nd class, leaving the Rolls Royce in the garage. He always wore the same old coat and trilby, with sandwiches in the pockets. He lived quite frugally, carefully checking every bill down to the last penny, although this is common practice with self-made people, even the wealthiest of them. He would often make William Hill wait for his account money, then on the racecourse offer to settle immediately for a sizeable discount. Hill was thought never to refuse his munificent benefactor. There was the odd occasion when he didn`t have sufficient funds to settle and so handed over deeds to some property as surety.

Joe Sunlight died in April 1978 leaving a £5 million estate to his son Ben. From 1970 - 1980 there was enormous inflation. Property prices multiplied five-fold during that decade. As it would have taken around 18 months to sell his properties, it can be assumed that in 1970 the Estate would have been worth around £1 million. This would have been a tiny fraction of what he would have earned and lost over the preceding forty years or so. Allowing for inflation, his losses today would have amounted to £120 to £140 million. Terry Ramsden`s losses overall, using the same inflation criteria form the 1980`s would have been roughly the same, so Terry and Joe might have fought out a photo finish, so to speak.
Of course Sunlight`s losses were spread over decades whereas Terry Ramsden`s were in quick-time and spectacular.

Joe Sunlight is down as marrying in 1940. His son, according to Hislop`s Art Price Guide is recorded as being born in 1935 so perhaps he was previously married. It`s hard to imageine those Matchmakers allowing such a successful man to remain a bachelor past fifty. lol. They used to run a race in his honour at one of the midland racecourses.
With both Joe Sunlight and Dorothy Paget on his books and constantly plungeing, William Hill must have thought he had been blessed twice.