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The idea of ‘Then and Now’ is to compare racing in 2020 against the sport as it was in 1990. I propose to write a piece each week throughout the year, contrasting the basics such as the fixture list, the racing program, the finances etc - but also indulging in some nostalgia and reminiscence. Hopefully each piece will lead to discussion and and the memories of other posters.
I chose 1990 as being far enough back to be quite obviously different, but also within the lifetime of (I hope) the majority on the forum. It also falls within the era recorded on the Racing Post database to provide results, meaning that I’m not entirely dependent on my memory and my diaries and Timeform books for accurate factual information.
This has been posted elsewhere, but with the recent infestation cleaned out, I thought I’d put it on here and see if it generates interest. The first four weekly pieces will be posted on here shortly.
I chose 1990 as being far enough back to be quite obviously different, but also within the lifetime of (I hope) the majority on the forum. It also falls within the era recorded on the Racing Post database to provide results, meaning that I’m not entirely dependent on my memory and my diaries and Timeform books for accurate factual information.
This has been posted elsewhere, but with the recent infestation cleaned out, I thought I’d put it on here and see if it generates interest. The first four weekly pieces will be posted on here shortly.
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January 1990 started on a Monday, with a two day meeting at Cheltenham and ended with the long standing Saturday card at Sandown. Whilst Cheltenham is down to one day since 1994, Sandown retains that fixture, with the Tolworth Hurdle as the feature.
But three other races that were the focus of my visits to the races in the years up to 1990, have since disappeared from the program. The New Year’s Day Hurdle at Windsor went with the ending of NH racing at the track, the 4M New Year Handicap Chase was dropped from the Cheltenham card in 2005, replaced by a race at 3M 2F that continues in 2020. And for me, the saddest loss, the Anthony Mildmay, Peter Cazalet Handicap Chase, run over the wonderful 3M 5F course at Sandown. That was a major race in the chasing calendar in 1990, won that year by Cool Ground. He was one of two future Gold Cup winners to take the Mildmay/Cazalet in the 80’s/90’s, the other being Burrough Hill Lad. The roll of honour also included three Grand National winners - West Tip, Rhyme ‘N’ Reason and Mr Frisk. It was last run in 2000, although it was part of the cards that were abandoned in 2001/02/03. But in 2004, it was replaced by a bog standard 3M handicap that survived until 2016, when that slot was taken by the Veterans Final. Whilst that is a thoroughly worthwhile and entertaining contest, it lacks the class of the Mildmay/Cazalet. I had intended to use these lost staying races as the basis for a diatribe about the wider decline in that type of race. But a search of the program for 2020 (using my access to the Racing Admin website as an owner), shows that I was missing the target. What has happened between then and now isn’t a decline, but a change of emphasis. The long distance chases still exist, but they are run on the smaller tracks midweek, not the top class tracks on a Saturday. Look at this list of races scheduled for January and February 2020, all run over a minimum of 3M 4F: Jan 5th Plumpton Sussex National Jan 9th Catterick North Yorkshire Grand National Jan 11th Warwick Warwick Classic Jan 18th Taunton Portman Cup Feb 1st Muss Edinburgh National Feb 7th Bangor Standard 0-120 (not called the North Wales National!) Feb 11th Lingfield Surrey National Feb 21st Exeter Devon National And in addition to those, there are the traditional Grand National Trial at Haydock and the Eider Chase at Newcastle. So despite the races that have been lost (and I’m old enough to remember races over 3M 5F at Kempton and Worcester in the 80’s), others have come along to replace them. Overall, it means that the GoldCup/Grand National type chasers have fewer options at marathon trips, but there are plenty of races for the lesser horses that would have been filling the fields from out of the handicap in the 70’s and 80’s. It would also seem that we’ve reached the stage where it would be easier to name the courses that don’t stage a regional Grand National, then to list those that do. Leaving the staying chases, the one thing that stood out from the fixtures for that first week of 1990, was the courses that have closed. Aside from the Windsor meeting on Jan 1st, there was also NH racing at Nottingham and Folkestone on Jan 4/5th respectively. The early months of 1990 also gave us that short lived horror story, hurdle racing on the AW tracks at Lingfield and Southwell, as those tracks switched daily between flat and NH racing. Interesting to look at the finances, with the Mildmay Cazalet (winners prize £14,300) by far the biggest race of the week. Forest Sun collected just £7,280 for winning the Tolworth Hurdle, which will pay £28,500 this year. Cheltenham then was nothing like the pinnacle of NH racing that we’ve got now and the two day New Year meeting was mostly quite run of the mill. The 4M handicap chase at £6,700 was the big prize, whereas every winner this week will collect over £15k and the regular 2m 5f chase offers over £39k. That growth is reflected in the crowd figures of 11,000 in 1990 and a probable 25 - 30,000 now - the modern record for New Year’s Day is 34,500 in 2016. Result of the Week: Haydock Friday Jan 5th Conditional Jockeys Handicap Hurdle 2m 7f 1st : Fleet Commander 14/1 Adie Smith (7) But it’s the name of the man recording his first ever winner under rules with this success that I suspect will come as a surprise to many - Martyn Meade. He was just a NH permit holder then and his only other winner in the 1989/90 season came in a novice hunter chase at Uttoxeter in February, that winner ridden by a Mr Donald McCain! He had his first flat winner in 1994, but was strictly low key and had two spells out of the game before moving into the big time in 2016, thanks to his first top class horse, Aclaim, winner of the Group 2 Challenge Stakes at Newmarket. And finally for this week, a replay of that 1990 Mildmay Cazalet Chase at Sandown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t7LkE202hU A rousing finish of the sort so often seen in chases at Sandown, and probably a politically popular result with the Esher crowd, the winner ridden by A Tory! |
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January Week Two
It was a quiet, low key week then, and it’s still much the same now. The biggest fixture change is the straight swap that moved the Kempton Lanzarote Hurdle card one week earlier to this weekend, with the Ascot Victor Chandler card going the other way. In 1990, the week began with four Martin Pipe winners in successive races at Chepstow, a once in a lifetime achievement for most trainers, but by then, sufficiently commonplace for Pipe that it hardly warranted a headline. Two days later, a (very) low grade handicap hurdle on the AW surface at Southwell saw a 5-y-old called Suluk break his maiden over hurdles, just three days after he’d won a flat race at the same track. Suluk had started his racing career in Ireland, running in the colours of Hamdan Al Maktoum, trained by Kevin Prendergast, and he won a 10F maiden at Phoenix Park. At the end of his 3-y-old season, he was sold to Reg Hollinshead, who gave him three runs in juvenile hurdles before switching to the flat. During the summer of 1989, he won five 12F handicaps round the North, which saw his handicap mark rise from 56 to 68. It really was a different world - can you imagine any horse nowadays going up only 12lbs for winning five races? Hollinshead was very much ‘old school’, a man that believed the word ‘racehorse’ indicated a horse intended to be raced. Suluk was a good example, as those five wins came from eighteen runs between Mar 27th and Nov 6th Then came the event that changed everything for Suluk, the opening of the AW track at Southwell. He went on to win eighteen hurdle races, all of them at Southwell, and he started favourite in each of the last seventeen. The first six were handicaps, the rest were claimers and sellers, of which there were plenty on offer at Southwell. Of course those races weren’t worth much, as his hurdling career (18 wins, 3 seconds, 1 third) generated just £31k in prize money. But Suluk was an early AW legend and he did wonders for the career of young conditional rider Steve Wynne, who partnered him in all those selling/claiming wins. Suluk’s career ended as an 8-y-old, when he finished lame running in an amateur riders hurdle at Southwell, beaten at 4/6 by the wonderfully named Hiram B Birdbath. He won 26 of his 79 career starts, 20 of them on the Fibresand by the Trent. The following afternoon saw the first of the regular fortnightly Thursday meetings at Wincanton, that were a highlight of my winter racing days out from my base in Swindon. This one featured the John Bull Chase, a conditions event over 2m 5f, won in 1990 by Toby Tobias with Pegwell Bay second. Both horses went on to run in the Gold Cup, finishing second and fifth respectively. There’s no possibility of seeing horses of this class at Wincanton nowadays and I’ll have more to say about the demise of these races next month. Then on to Saturday, when I was at Ascot to watch just about the most competitive renewal of the Victor Chandler, ten runners turning out for a first prize of almost £31k. That went to Meikleour, trained by the late, great, Jimmy Fitzgerald, with such 2M luminaries as Pearlyman, Panto Prince, Feroda and Long Engagement amongst his defeated rivals. Also down the field in ninth place was a longshot trained by a man nobody had heard of, but everybody would come to know just two months later, Norton’s Coin. The Victor Chandler Chase attracted top class horses back then despite being run as a handicap. I’m sure most readers will remember, or at least have seen a replay of the famous duel between Desert Orchid and Panto Prince. But Ascot has never attracted the crowds for NH racing and the contrast with the Cheltenham fixtures is marked. Whereas they’ve pushed the New Year’s Day attendance up from 11,000 to over 25,00 (and the other January fixture from 8,000 to 20,000), Ascot got 9,600 in 1990 and 9,900 last year. I used to enjoy going to NH meetings there before the redevelopment (I hate the new stand), but it was hard to avoid the feeling that the people who ran the place tolerated the jump racing, but had no real feel for it, or desire to promote it to a wider audience. Result of the Week Warwick Saturday Jan 13th Alderminster Handicap Hurdle 2m 5f James My Boy Adele Jackson (7) 20/1 Trained by Mowbray Dickinson It was that last name that caught my eye when browsing the results, because I’d never heard of him, and you’d think with that name, his career (however brief) might have registered in my memory. It turns out that I hadn’t remembered him, because he never really existed. The trainer of James My Boy was actually called Michael Dickinson, but not the one everybody remembers, who by 1990 was domiciled in the USA. This MD was apparently well known on the Midland point to point circuit and was a shrewd buyer of young horses that he developed before they went into training elsewhere - e.g. Waterloo Boy and Another Coral. When he opted to take out a full licence, having already spent years explaining the naming confusion, he chose to train as ‘Mowbray’ Dickinson - you can guess therefore where his yard was located. As those who know me will understand, I can fully sympathise with a man that finds his name appropriated by another individual. Although I never considered changing my name to Swindon Potts! His training career didn’t last long or produce many winners and I wasn’t able to trace any record of what happened to him thereafter - for some reason putting ‘Michael Dickinson Trainer’ into Google produces thousands of results, but none that refer to Melton Mowbray. And finally, here’s the video of that Victor Chandler chase at Ascot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGhA_YXwMCc&t=399s Note the NH parade ring in front of the Grandstand, the old Meccano number board located between the flat and jump tracks and the golf course in the centre of the track - all long gone now. And I’m pretty sure those are still wooden wings on the fences - the recent Capeland incident would have been a lot worse in 1990. Racing may be slow to adapt and change, but they do get some things right eventually. |
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January Week Three
One of the great mysteries of NH racing is the now almost eternal question ‘What happened to novice chases?’ The contrast between the week commencing Monday 14th now and the same week in 1990, highlights what is the biggest change in the NH program. In 2020, there will be four novice chases run in that week, and that includes one on Sunday 20th. One of those four is a Beginners Chase, thus unavailable to any horse that has already won a chase. And the one absolute certainty about those four races is that they won’t attract double figure fields, but they will very probably attract criticism online! Going back to 1990, there were fifteen NH meetings (excluding those on the AW), and only one of those meetings didn’t stage a novice chase. Kempton on Saturday had two, one at 2M and one at 3M, and on the same afternoon, Warwick ran two divisions of their novice chase. So that’s sixteen novice chases in six days, and they produced a total of 153 runners. There was only one race with fewer than seven runners, a three runner contest at Catterick, which probably came about because the official going there was good to firm. And they were competitive races, even when future stars like Royal Athlete and Antinous were winning at odds on. The eight runner contest at Towcester on Friday was won by Knight Oil for Oliver Sherwood, with future stars Garrison Savannah and Docklands Express filling the places. So what caused the demise of this type of race? My opinion (and it is only that) is that the changes to the handicapping of novices implemented by Phil Smith in the late 90’s were the initial trigger. Once he began to give novice chasers significantly higher initial ratings than his predecessor, two things happened. Firstly, trainers became wary of the risk of handicap rises if they ran close to the winner in a novice chase and secondly, the higher ratings given the winners of novice chases, opened up the possibility of running a novice in valuable handicaps, whereas they would previously not have been rated high enough to get into those races. A prime example of this that many will remember, was the novice season (1999/2000) of the staying chaser Beau, trained by Nigel Twiston-Davies. He ran four times in novice chases, winning one, a record that earned him a rating of 129 - and I reckon that was about a stone higher than he would have got for the same form ten years earlier. He then won the Great Yorkshire Chase at Doncaster from that mark, collecting a prize worth more than the Reynoldstown Novice Chase which was his next run. And even after that Ascot win, connections opted for the N H Handicap Chase (finished second to Marlborough) over the Sun Alliance Chase, and he ended his season by winning the Whitbread Gold Cup by 30 lengths. Combine that with the exhilarating performance of Gloria Victis in winning the Racing Post Chase off a mark of 151, after he had won the Feltham on Boxing Day, and it was a series of results that opened the eyes of the more traditional trainers. Back in 1990, spending an entire season running in novice chases was simply the accepted way to train. There wasn’t much difference then in prize money between the novice and handicap races and with a smaller fixture list and no summer jumping, the program of handicaps wasn’t actually a more attractive option. Once the fixture list grew and the number of handicap chases expanded, the gradual decline of numbers in level weight novice races was inevitable. The authorities have fiddled with the program, the definitions of what is a novice chase, massively increased the number of novice handicaps, but none of these changes have altered the basic financial reality. Which is that moderate chasers (rated 130 or less) have a better chance of paying their way in handicaps than taking on the big stables at level weights. And if trainers won’t run their horses in novice chases at what we might call the ‘midweek’ tracks, then those courses won’t schedule them, because they only get their full media rights payments for each way races. Ok, that’s enough on that topic and just one other point worth taking from the then and now comparison this week. In 1990, both Catterick and Kempton staged two day meetings on Friday/Saturday, and this was a common pattern for most tracks. Ascot raced on the Friday before the Victor Chandler on the Saturday, Doncaster did the same for their January meeting, as did Newbury for the Tote Gold Trophy. Only Doncaster have retained the two day Fri/Sat meeting during January and February. The other tracks have all spread their fixtures around, primarily to avoid losing two day’s business to a spell of bad weather. Newbury for example, now stage a meeting on the Wednesday of week three in January, and the big February meeting is Saturday only. With modern covering reducing the impact of frost on cancellations, they could probably go back to the old set-up, but even that would add the considerable cost of laying and removing the covers twice rather than just once. Result of the Week Sat Jan 20th Haydock Premier Long Distance Hurdle 3M Mrs Muck G Bradley 13/8 Fav Trained by N Twiston-Davies This was the final fling of her memorable career for the home bred mare that launched N T-D as a trainer. She started out in April 1985 with bumper wins at Hereford and Cheltenham and progressed to running in all the major races over hurdles, switching from 2M to 3M+ in successive races with no noticeable difference in her results. Throughout all that period, N T-D was just a permit holder, and I’m fairly sure this was her first and only win for him after he took out a full licence. Without her influence in raising his profile, I suspect he’d still be farming and keeping a few point to point horses. |
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January Week Four
As it is now, a midweek of moderate racing, leading up to major Saturday meetings at Cheltenham and Doncaster. But there were a couple of points of interest from the Monday meeting at Leicester (now moved to Tuesday). First was the fact that a seven race card that included two divisions of a novice chase, produced a total of 117 runners. Every race had a double figure field and aside from the major festivals, that’s not something you’ll see much, if at all, nowadays. One reason for that of course, is the restriction imposed by the capacity of the racecourse stables. In 1990, and for several years beyond, it was accepted that big fields would lead to some horses being raced never having left their horsebox until it was time to go and be saddled. Leicester now can only handle a maximum of 106 runners in line with the regulation that every horse must have a separate box in the stables, and must go there to be identity checked by the racecourse vets. The second thing to catch my eye at Leicester was the mare Winnie The Witch winning her first race over hurdles, a 2m 4f handicap in which she ran off a mark of 91, and was ridden for the first time by the 7lb claimer David Bridgewater, son of her trainer. That was the start of a rise through the ranks that saw her win the 1991 County Hurdle and then the Swinton Hurdle. She started 11/1 at Leicester in a field of twenty, a price that I reckon would be less than half that if the same circumstances prevailed in 2020. Nine days earlier, I’d seen her run at Warwick, where she fell two out when looking a big threat and if more punters had seen that race or had access to a replay online, she would surely have had more supporters at Leicester. Finally on the number of runners point, the following day at Chepstow, another 95 made up a seven race card there. And those meetings filled without any earlier in the month being abandoned, so it wasn’t a case of trainers desperate to get a run. There were a few abandoned meetings later that week, but the Saturday meetings went ahead as normal. The Cheltenham program already included some of the elements we know now as Trials Day - the juvenile hurdle, the Gold Cup trial, the Cleeve Hurdle and that Cheltenham Saturday staple, the 2m 4f handicap chase. There was a 2m novice handicap hurdle that has now been converted to an open handicap to make it a ‘trial’ for the County Hurdle, and a 2m 4f novice hurdle has been added. The biggest change has been around what was in 1990, the most valuable race of the day, a 2m 4f race called the Arlington Premier Chase Final, worth £20k to the winner. This was the culmination of a series of races open to chasers that were novices at the start of the previous season, and although it invariably produced small fields, the 1990 final was a high class race. Sabin Du Loir won, beating former Champion Hurdle winner Celtic Shot and the 1989 Arkle winner, Waterloo Boy. When this type of race fell out of favour, this contest was altered from 1993 to be a novice handicap chase, whose most memorable winner was Monsieur Le Cure, who went on to pull off the 3M novice chase double at Cheltenham and Aintree. One race that has taken on greater significance since 1990 is one then run over 2m 4f and named the Bishop’s Cleeve Hurdle. I don’t know what happened to the Bishops, but the race title has been unfrocked and the distance stepped up to 3M. I didn’t understand this at the time, and still don’t, as running a replica of a championship race six weeks prior to the main event seems unsatisfactory, but I suppose it’s a criticism that could be made of most races on this card. Result of the Week Tues Jan 23rd Chepstow EBF Novice Chase 3M Just So S Burrough (7) 16/1 Trained by J D Roberts This was the first win under rules by the ultra stayer who became affectionately known as Just Slow by his fan club. He never again summoned up the speed to win any race at less than 3m 5f and is best remembered for his appearances in the Grand National. The highlight of his career came at Aintree in 1994, when he finished second to Miinnehoma, closing him down near the line and beaten just 1 1/4L despite being 22lbs out of the handicap and carrying 3lbs overweight for the services of regular rider Simon Burrough. He’d also run 6th behind Party Politics a year earlier, gaining the very unusual formbook comment for the race of ‘finished fast’! By the time of that National success, he was being trained by his owner/breeder, Henry Cole, after spending two seasons with a young up and coming name, Paul Nicholls (who never managed to get a win out of Just So). Around the time Just So was retired, his owner was enjoying greater success with his half sister, Dubacilla, second to Master Oats in the 1995 Gold Cup. |
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Fantastic read that Alan, brings back some great memories as 1990 is when I first became interested in Racing.
As someone who have lived in the North West all my life one of the biggest changes has been at Haydock. They used to have several quality midweek meetings, mostly in November and December, that always featured a top class staying chase. These meetings are now either run on a Saturday or are poorer quality. Betfair Chase day is now the only decent meeting before Christmas. Interesting read on the change to the Novice Chase programme as these used to be my favourite type of race. Now, as you say, most are lower quality handicaps. Find these impossible to work out, you are just guessing which moderate horse will be transformed by the switch to chasing. Always find giving a chasing debutant its hurdle mark seems wrong as they are different types of race. |
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Great read anorak a brilliant trip down memory lane with some great names,like China I have also lived in the north west all my life and also loved those midweek November December meetings loads of quality horses with racing enthusiasts turning up from all over no gimmicks just good horses,another terrific midweek fixture was Warwick in either 87 or 88 it provided both sun alliance winners back then I think they called it Coventry city day.
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Thank you Alan, superb content and will read it all again later. I remember backing Just So when he won at 16/1.
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Foxy,
Coventry City day because they sponsored - the club chairman was an owner called John Poynton, whose best horses were Browne's Gazette and Young Snugfit. |
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Wasn’t browns gazette the horse that spun round at the start in see you thens first champion hurdle?
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Great stuff Alan. Did NT-D ride Mrs Muck in those 2 bumpers? I have a memory of being in a betting shop in Bootle and having a few bob on her in that Cheltenham bumper. It wasn't on TV, and I had no idea who this bloke with the funny name was.
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foxy
Monica Dickinson would have made horse-racing history but for the antics – innocent or otherwise – of her top-class racehorse Browne's Gazette moments before the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham in 1985. Browne's Gazette was an odds-on favourite and a victory would have secured for Dickinson the trainers' championship, but the events that unfolded are still the subject of second-guessing and intrigue today. Dermot Browne, who was riding Browne's Gazette, was a champion amateur rider from Ireland who had joined Dickinson's stable in Yorkshire. Browne's Gazette, lining up in the middle of the 11 runners, lurched initially to the left, then veered violently further left, ending up yards off the running track, missing the start and ceding priceless ground. It was far from Browne's finest hour. Had Browne's Gazette won – he quickly caught up only to fade at the finish – Dickinson would have become the first and only woman to be champion trainer, either flat or National Hunt, in the history of British horse racing. |
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Good Stuff,
Alan Thanks |
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Great stuff.
Just watched the Victor Chandler. Nortons Coin, although a well beaten 9th, you can see him running on very strongly at the line. Not a bad prep for a Gold Cup. |
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Great idea Alan.
Really looking forward to revisiting this thread throughout 2020. |
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Ged,
It was the then Mrs Twiston-Davies who rode Mrs Muck in those bumpers. |
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Hadn’t realised the bit about champion trainer delta I do remember francome been injured in the arkle which gave smith Eccles the ride.
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Alan - I noted racing start to change noticeably throughout the 1990s - and not for the better, either.
 In fact, I felt that the change started in the early to mid-1990s. By contrast - the 1980s was undoubtedly the halcyon decade - no doubt the likes of foxy will confirm, likewise. Just mention a few of the horses from the 80s - and there then becomes loads of other top horses spring to mind - and all competing against each other, too. Dancing Brave v Sharastani - for starters. |
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Wonderful memories and thank you for posting, Anorak.
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Anorak - thanks. I rememeber the entry taking up a lot of space on the racecard on the wall. Has become much more familiar in recent years of course.
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I am happy to confirm onlooker how good the 80 s were not just the two you mention we also had triptych taking those two on ,and earlier in the decade such greats as marwell,shergar and el gran senor,ending with nashwaan,the dewhurst was a Friday the cheveley park a Tuesday and the 1000 Guineas a Thursday ,Wednesday ebor Thursday July cup both tracks full of racing enthusiasts,and of course a Wednesday derby.the midweek jumps was just as good as the weekends good racing crowds and plenty of chat in the pubs after racing,sea pigeon,wayward lad,Burrough hill lad ,great northern trains Peter Easterby,the Dickinsons,Arthur Stephenson,Jimmy fitz,and of course Dessie to finish the decade of,going around the shops was also great fun no technology so the leg work often got rewarded.
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The three things that spring to mind that is better now than the 80 s is royal ascot,the grand national meeting and the introduction of the Dublin festival.
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The 80's can't go by without a mention for To-Agori-Mou and Kings Lake and their epic battles.
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I still get mixed up which one won which race.
Trivia there meeting at goodwood in the Sussex stakes was a public holiday why ? |
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an enjoyable thread
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Foxy,
Easy one for me - it was the wedding of Charles and Diana. I remember it well as I owned a runner in the Goodwood Stakes on that day. |
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That’s the one anorak for some reason I think it was a Thursday but not sure.
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Alan,
A superb read (during coffee breaks) and certainly stirred up some old memories. Going back to Delta's post about Monicia Dickinson, i guess many will probably remember she also trained Badsworth Boy (winner of 3 Cheltenham Champion Chases) as did Tony and Michael, so 3 family members trained the same horse at some stage in it's career. |
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What a pleasing thread
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Great read ALan:
foxy • January 20, 2020 3:26 PM GMT I still get mixed up which one won which race. Trivia there meeting at goodwood in the Sussex stakes was a public holiday why ? Off top of me head I think Tolmi (out of that wonderful broodmare Stilvi) won the OakTree Stakes for Bruce Hobbs the same day |
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Excellent read Alan . The Winnie The Witch piece brought a great big smile to my face as i won a fair few quid on her that day.
I was living in Cambridge at the time and as mentioned before the Dixon brothers( Peter and Bob i think they were called) had a cupla independent bookies offices - one in Chesterton Road and the other one just around corner from the working mens club .Shop in Chesterton Road was managed by a big lad called Brian and i think the lad who manned till was called Alan - anyway there was always 2 regulars came in the shop around 3.30pm each day after work (they were in building trade and young lad was called Lloyd-cant remember the other lad but a right character) but they always got hold of some fairly decent info and one such horse was Winnie The Witch who he was adamant wud win and told anyone that wud take any notice of him a good two to three weeks b4 she actually won the race at Leicester that she was being set up for a punt at said track - anyway the rest is history as they say but im pretty certain 33s and 25s was available for her early on the day and she duly won by half the track - happy days  and thanks for taking the time and effort to post your thoughts as it brings back a lot of nostalgia and great memories (where have those 30 years gone -yikes ) |
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I remember tolmi Geoff and she was definitely trained by Bruce Hobbs black and white coloures same as Irish derby winner tyranovos but don’t remember her winning at goodwood that’s of course not to say she didn’t.i should think anorak who was there that day might have the answer.
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The fillies race was called the American Express Royal Wedding Stakes that day, and it was won by Star Pastures, with Tolmi second. The pair filled the same positions in the Child Stakes at Newmarket in July (now the Falmouth) and in another 7F fillies race at Goodwood in September.
Tolmi only won once as a 3-y-old - the Coronation Stakes at the Royal meeting. |
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Star Pastures, Sangsters?
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Thanx for that Alan memory only 1/2 working
 Yep Delta Sangsters. Jeremy Hindley?? |
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Tolmi never won at Goodwood but she did run there that season, twice, but she was beaten both times by Star Pastures. The latter defeat was in the Royal Wedding Stakes. I remember it well because the race was sponsored by my employer. Great thread and thanks to Alan for his usual high standard of input.
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This is just great - many thanks. The strange thing is how it just doesn't seem so long ago, but such changes. Time flies by!
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Only read first 2 posts but great read and will read all later, thanks for posting.
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Just to conclude the Star Pastures history, she was sent to California at the end of her 3-y-old season to contest a $300,000 invitation event, and she stayed on there and raced for another two seasons. She won twice, the last in a Grade 2 race at Santa Anita.
She was ridden by Bill Shoemaker, and trained in California by some bloke called John Gosden! |
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the anorak, great read, it was only on Saturday that Matt Chapman was doing an article on the betting ring, with figures supplied by the levy board, last Saturdays Tolworth hurdle meeting in 1990 had 104 bookmakers in the ring, forward to 2020 only 48, how times have changed.
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