Lots of people were suffering from Pipe Derangement Syndrome at that time. It may have had a bearing on Mrs Pitman's contention that Danny Harrold must have been doped for a Pipe horse to have given her one 8 lb and a 25 length beating.

Danny Harrold had been purchased from Ted Walsh's father Ruby for what at the time seemed to be an insane sum of money, so that might have coloured her reaction.

Danny Harrold had won two points and two bumpers in Ireland, and was 11/10 fav for its first run for the Pitmans, in a novices' hurdle at Wolverhampton. It duly trailed in fifth, beaten 42 lengths. No complaints then that it must have been doped in that race.

It then looked a completely different horse next time out, winning a 20-runner novices' hurdle at Chepstow (4/6 fav there, an even shorter price than it had been for its Wolverhampton tonking the time before!).

After that it went to Leicester, drifted in the betting, and basically ran to its Wolverhampton mark behind the Pipe horse.

This sort of thing used to happen day-in day-out with expensive horses from the big, wealthy Lambourn yards. They rarely ran two races alike, and when Pipe arrived on the scene, all he really had to do with the relatively cheap horses in his care was get 'em fit and run 'em straight. The results took care of themselves.

February Week Two


I must have had some time off owing to me, as my diary tells me that I went racing five days in a row from Tuesday Feb 6th, 1990 - Warwick, Ascot, Wincanton and two days at Newbury. And it’s very much a recurring theme that at those first three meetings, staged from Tuesday to Thursday, I saw two future Gold Cup winners, two future Grand National winners and one all time great.

On Tuesday, Party Politics made his breakthrough over fences, winning a sixteen runner novice chase over 2m 4f at Warwick at 40/1, by 10L and 20L. They went 9/2 the field in that novice, the longest priced favourite on a seven race card. In most novice chases now, a 9/2 shot would be an outsider!

On Wednesday, Ascot saw Royal Athlete win the Reynoldstown, and a young handicapper called Cool Ground finish well beaten in the feature 3m handicap. One of the reasons I had gone to Ascot was to watch Desert Orchid carry top weight in that race, but he was withdrawn because David Elsworth thought the ground was too soft to ask the horse to give two stone to most of the others. He had a point as the race was run more than a minute slower than the standard. But his absence left one horse on 10-6 and all the others on 10st and out of the handicap by various amounts.

The beaten favourite in the Reynoldstown was the Gordon Richards trained, Carrick Hill Lad, who arrived at Ascot off the back of eight straight wins, the last five over fences. Royal Athlete confirmed the form by beating him again in a novice chase at the Scottish National meeting, the only time Carrick Hill Lad was beaten in a chase at Ayr.

And so to Thursday at Wincanton, which attracted a bigger crowd than usual as Desert Orchid was re-routed to the Racing In Wessex Chase. There was also extra press interest, as this was the week in which he was given top weight of 12-2 in the National, announced as a probable runner, then as an unlikely runner, before finally being taken out of consideration after a hurried meeting of trainer and owners in the bar after he’d won this race by 20L. Those of us present had the opportunity to laugh at the non specialist media who turned out at Wincanton to film the horse and/or talk to connections. There were two other greys in the field, who both came into the paddock ahead of the star, and got the cameramen and photographers running round in circles.

The final future star was Garrison Savannah, who trounced 18 rivals in the 3m 1f novice chase by 25L as the 2/1 favourite. His jumping that afternoon was spectacular and I was sure I’d seen a potential Cheltenham winner - an opinion that cost me a considerable sum when he was beaten later in the month by Party Politics! More on that in Week Four.

In his later career, after the glory of his Gold Cup win, Grand National second and the subsequent fifteen month injury layoff, Garrison Savannah became a Wincanton regular, running six times in conditions chases at the course, including three times on this same card in the Racing In Wessex Chase and twice in the Jim Ford Challenge Cup.

Neither of those conditions chases still survives at Wincanton, and indeed they represent a type of race that has almost completely disappeared from the program. Various things have contributed to their loss - bookie pressure for each way races - payments to the courses reduced for races with fewer than eight runners - trainers seemingly less willing to run their good horses as often etc.

But one element not mentioned often, if at all, is that under current BHA race planning rules, any such race would have to be run as a Class 2 contest. And a Class 2 weight for age chase (other than a novice chase) must offer a minimum of £22,500 total prize money. Not an easy sum for a rural track to fund at a midweek fixture. Wincanton still offers chases with good prize money, but they are all handicaps nowadays.


Result of the Week

Monday Feb 5th  Wolverhampton    Handicap Chase  3M 1F

Rubika    R Dunwoody    14/1

Trained by Stan Mellor


Watching the two runners in the Trevor Hemmings colours fight out the finish of the 3M chase at Sandown on Saturday, made this the obvious choice. Rubika was one of two horses sourced from France by Stan Mellor for this new owner. Neither won in their first season, but in the first five months of 1990, they won seven races between them and from those modest beginnings came an owner that has contributed a great deal in the thirty years since.

Rubika won that Wolverhampton handicap off a mark of 100, but continued to progress, with a second to Bonanza Boy in the Midlands National in March 1991, and a win in the four mile chase at Cheltenham on New Year’s Day 1992. He also ran twice in the Grand National, the first of many representatives in those colours. The other horse was called Astre Radieux, and he was the first to win, but it was Rubika that made the bigger impact on his owner, as I can testify from personal experience, because I had a horse with Mellor later in 1990.

Sadly for Stan, Hemmings soon decided to keep his horses at his home in Lancashire over the summer, and that led to him switching to trainers based further North as well. Within ten years, Hemmings had around twenty in training, mostly with Micky Hammond and Sue Smith - and Stan Mellor was heading for retirement!

Coming forward to 2020, the stables built by Stan Mellor not far from Swindon, which he named Pollardstown, after his Triumph Hurdle winner, are now owned by Sir Mark Todd, the NZ born champion three day event rider. He’s been located there for several years and last year, he took out a licence to train on the flat and expressed ambitions to become a leading player in this new field. You can read an interview with Mark Todd here:

https://theownerbreeder.com/features/mark-todds-transferable-talent/

February Week Three

The week commencing Feb 12, 1990, was quite different from its predecessor, with little of interest midweek, but five races with major prizes spread across three meetings on the Saturday. More like 2020 than 1990!

It was a week that had five meetings scheduled at courses that no longer stage NH racing (Nottingham x 2, Towcester, Folkestone and Windsor) - and in which the weather caused the loss of six cards, with no turf racing at all on the Wednesday.

So nothing to add about the midweek fare, other than the presence of a two day meeting at Sandown on Thursday and Friday, which attracted the biggest crowd of the week on the second day, 4,750.

Saturday was unrecognisable and would surely be dismissed by online critics as ‘ the worst Saturday ever’. The racing was at Chepstow, Newcastle and Nottingham, with Windsor scheduled but abandoned. But as mentioned earlier, there was a good spread of interesting races (the figure shown is the winners prize money):

Chepstow    John Hughes Grand National Trial  3m 6f    £ 10k
                    Rising Stars Chase                          2m 4f    £ 10.7k

Newcastle    Eider Chase                                     4m 1f   £ 11.2k

Nottingham  City Trial Hurdle                                  2m     £ 7.5k
                     Nottinghamshire Nov Chase              2m     £ 11.3k

There wouldn’t be many times that Nottingham got to stage the most valuable race of the week.
If Windsor had raced, their card included the 3m Fairlawne Chase, a conditions event worth around £7.5k. The Eider is the only one of those races to survive in the same form, and that will offer a first prize of £50k this year.

The biggest name to emerge from those races was Royal Derbi, winner of the City Trial as the 7/4 fav in a field of eight. He’d been a useful juvenile the previous season, but had struggled prior to this win. But he went on to have a top class career over hurdles, winning a Fighting Fifth and a Bula, as well as second placings in the Christmas Hurdle and the 1993 Champion Hurdle, the latter after he’d failed to make any impact in the race in 1991/92.

Royal Derbi ran in the colours of Michael Tabor, who continued to have the occasional NH horse in training over here, even as his racing interests developed elsewhere! The last good horse was the mare Refinement, trained by Jonjo, who won twice at the big Punchestown meeting and finished second in the first running of the Mare’s Hurdle at Cheltenham in 2008.



Result of the Week

Monday Feb 12th  Nottingham    Coral Hurdle Final Qualifier  2M 6F

Invasion   S D Williams  (7)   9/2

Trained by Jeremy Glover


Invasion beat twenty one rivals, winning by 25L and 20L on heavy ground, running off a handicap mark of 121. He only ran once more that season, a 3m 1f novice hurdle at Kelso that he won by 12L at odds of 5/2 on. Those two wins saw his handicap mark rise to 142.

The reason I’ve chosen to feature this winner comes in the following season, when he is switched to fences. That began with a singularly unimpressive win, when he got up in the last strides at Market Rasen to beat a maiden over hurdles and one other finisher. His jumping let him down next time at Uttoxeter, unseating at the 4th, and then he was brought down at Fakenham. Unsurprisingly, that brought about a return to hurdling for the remainder of the season, after which he moved stables to Owen Brennan.

After one more run over hurdles, Brennan put him in a handicap chase - where he was allocated a mark of 100, 32lbs lower than his last hurdle mark. It didn’t immediately help him, as his first two handicaps were no better, but having fallen to 95 and fitted with a visor, he managed a win at Market Rasen. He went on from there to record a total of seven wins over fences, but his mark never got higher than 118.

And there you have to my mind the single biggest difference between NH racing then and now. Then, if you ran three times in level weight novice chases, you would be handicapped solely on what you did in those three races, with no consideration of anything that had happened over hurdles previously. Now, the hurdle mark is automatically transferred, and if your horse turns out to be less proficient over fences, tough.

To punters accustomed to our current system, this may seem ridiculous. How can a horse that runs to 132 over hurdles be allowed to run off 100 over fences? But so long as the same rules apply to every horse, is it really a problem? Trainers then still had the option to go straight into handicap chases using their hurdle mark, as they can now - but it wasn’t compulsory. One of the best examples would be the future top class 2M chaser, Waterloo Boy, who made his chase debut in a minor handicap at Worcester from a mark of 96. Less than five months later, he won the Arkle!

Just to add, that in the best traditions of the Coral Golden Hurdle series (and it’s current replacement, the Pertemps Network series), the eventual winner of the Cheltenham final, Henry Mann, managed a well hidden 7th (btn 51L) in that Nottingham qualifier.


Video of the Week

Again with thanks to Espmadrid, the closing stages of the Nottingham Trial Hurdle, as a reminder of how Nottingham looked for NH racing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai6h-ex2z4o&list=PLfn5x2SD03q4QqATzk-Pmt5_bVs_CP1lO&index=34

Invasion made his racecourse debut in the Wood Ditton for Barry Hills/Robert Sangster.

That PU at Warwick was the previous season and the stewards did enquire as he was favourite - according to Timeform, "trainer reported the horse was suffering from a pulled muscle."

He didn't run again that season (1988/89) and the Nottingham race was his first run of the 1989/90 season.

Danny Connors in 1991 one of the best laid out Pertemps winners i have seen.

I think shorter than 1.05 reg cruel very cruel.

Steel dawn

3rd in the county hurdle behind dizzy

Correct TheAnorak, there was an enquiry and the explanation was noted I think. As for Danny Connors I saw him win at Chepstow I think before Christmas and told myself he would win at the festival. I bought a brand new Nissan Primera with the winnings and felt really smug for a while!

so not the pertemps back then but the same staying handicap hurdle

Oh yes the same race just a different name.

running twice in the same festival seemed to more prevalant back then, would that be fair to say?

One of the best races I ever saw at the festival was in the stayers hurdle in 96 between cyborgo and mysilv two days after mysilv had finished 6 th in the champion hurdle.

Generosa ran a cracker in the Coral Cup final in 1999 having won the finale (Stakis) on the opening day under Stormin Norman.There was a jockey change for the Pertemps which I'm convinced cost it the race.

In the then and now spirit of the thread I do think the stewarding has improved dramatically up to the present day. I do abit of running about at 2 west country courses and have some indirect contact with them and have to say they are very professional and dedicated and imo 95% in their decision making regarding enquiries. Probably because the rules have been simplified to help them!

February Week Four

The week commencing Feb 19, 1990, would have been one keenly anticipated by NH enthusiasts, with a sequence of meetings offering opportunities for Cheltenham bound horses. Several factors have since come together to either eliminate or reduce the importance of this week as far as Cheltenham is concerned nowadays, aside from the obvious reluctance to run any race of significance at a midweek meeting.

My memory may be at fault here and I haven’t found any way to confirm the facts, but I believe that only the Champion Hurdle and the Gold Cup would have had their initial entry stage prior to this week, and I’m quite sure that thirty years ago, the handicap entries were made the week before the Festival. Now we have almost all the entries made early, and I’ve no idea who this is supposed to benefit, as the result is hundreds of multiple entered horses, leaving punters none the wiser than they were in 1990. I also feel that having the handicap entries made three weeks ahead of the meeting, has discouraged trainers from running during this particular week, for fear of either raising their handicap mark, or dropping it to a level that would eliminate them from the Festival races.

But back to 1990, which offered these chances to see genuine Cheltenham ‘trials’ every day:

Monday        Fontwell         National Spirit Hurdle         Vagador bt Beech Road

Tuesday       Huntingdon       Chatteris Fen Hurdle           Royal Square

Wednesday     Warwick          Coventry City Trial Hurdle     Run For Free 
                               Highfield Road Nov Chase       Party Politics bt Garrison Savannah

Thursday     Wincanton         Kingwell Hurdle                Kribensis
                               Jim Ford Challenge Cup         Cavvies Clown
 
Friday          Kempton         EBF Novice Hurdle             Forest Sun
                Kelso           Hunter Chase                  Call Collect

The week was completed by still familiar meetings at Haydock and Kempton. The latter has barely changed at all, still including the Dovecote Novice Hurdle, the Adonis Hurdle (then the Tote Placepot Hurdle), the Racing Post Chase (whatever that’s called now) and the Galloway Braes Novice Chase, that was renamed in memory of Pendil. The only real change is the switch of the Rendlesham Hurdle from Kempton to Haydock. In 1990, the Haydock meeting was run one week later than Kempton, now it’s one week earlier - another switch that I suspect is designed to fit around the desire of trainers not to run too close to Cheltenham.

So midweek, we saw four 1990 Festival winners (and remember there were only 18 races then) - Garrison Savannah, Kribensis, Forest Sun and Call Collect. Vagador and Royal Square completed a double for Mark Perrett and Guy Harwood, and Cavvies Clown was a fourth winner of the Jim Ford for David Elsworth, who also had a sequence of four consecutive winners in the Kingwell Hurdle ended by Kribensis.

I mentioned the duel between Party Politics and Garrison Savannah in an earlier piece this month - I was at Warwick that afternoon and the race made a lasting impression, with both horses high on my list thereafter. Taking the liberty to include a personal anecdote, I made a visit to the IJF facility called Oaksey House in Lambourn a few years ago, and had the good fortune to find myself talking to the lad who did Party Politics at the yard of Nick Gaselee, introduced to me then simply as Jumbo. Well Jumbo remembered that race just as clearly as I did and recalled the pleasure he and his colleagues had in the pub that evening having put one over the Pitman lads. Garrison Savannah was the 2/1 fav that day and Party Politics, despite his earlier course success, was sent off at 25/1, so as Jumbo told me, although he wasn’t a punter himself, there was enough cash to hand to make it a memorable session!


Result of the Week

Wed  Feb 21st     Catterick     Aysgarth N H Flat Race     

Mudahim     P Mcdermott (7)           Trained by David Wintle


This was the beginning of a long career under rules, that culminated with a win in the Irish Grand National. Mudahim didn’t have much luck in his three runs in bumpers, as he ran into a future Champion Hurdle winner, Flakey Dove, on debut - and a future Gold Cup winner, Jodami, on his third start, with this win sandwiched between those two races. Another legendary NH performer, but for totally different reasons, made his debut in this Catterick bumper, finishing a distant last - Quixall Crosset.

By the time Mudahim started out over hurdles later that year, the owner had moved him to Chris Broad. After falling at the last when leading at Stratford, he proved a consistent performer, reaching a useful level of form when winning the Polycell Hurdle at Chepstow, the weekend before the 1991 Festival. Chasing had always seemed likely to be his game though, and when eventually given the chance, he won four ordinary novice chases late in 1993, not something that’s allowed in 2020, when horses are forced into handicaps or Graded novice races after two wins. In the last of those he beat Earth Summit by 25 lengths at Chepstow!

The following season, his jumping went to pieces and he returned to hurdling, with considerable success, taking the Premier Long Distance Hurdle at Haydock in January 1995, then winning the Cleeve Hurdle by 7L a week later. With his confidence restored, he improved steadily over fences, finishing second to Lord Gyllene in the Uttoxeter National Trial before winning the Racing Post Chase and the Irish National early in 1997.
Sadly for his original owner, Keith Bell, and for Chris Broad, those successes came in new colours and for the stable of Jenny Pitman, having changed hands for 26,000 gns at Ascot sales in June 1996. Injury curtailed his career after that, and there was just a brief campaign, now trained by Philip Hobbs, that ended with an unseat at Bechers on the first circuit of the 1999 Grand National as a 13-y-old.

There were two other bumper winners that week who had high class careers over hurdles, Cab On Target and Ruling.


Video of the Week

The closing stages of the Kingwell Hurdle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEdK2HibKxI

But the thing to note is the number of people lining the rails, part of an official crowd that day of 4,987. That hasn’t been matched since and only once since the meeting was moved to Saturday has it come close. On February 19th, 2005, there was no other NH racing further south than Uttoxeter, and Wincanton also had an extra race, with the rescheduled Grade 2 Kingmaker Novice Chase. That attracted 4,704, but now they struggle to get 3,000. I’m sure that the increase in the number of handicaps from one in 1990, to five now, has had no bearing on that decline in the attendance!

I know mark rode it when winning the supreme novice hurdle.

Very careless of me to say Amanda Perrett rather than Amanda harwood sorry anorak for the March plot.

That was some weeks racing I remember the Warwick fixture I never missed it when it was midweek the giant party politics and many other good horses ,it odd really with all the money spent nowadays there seems to have been more good horses about back then,possibly rose tinted glasses.

I rated vagador and you have reminded me who rode the horse in the champion hurdle and for that reason you couldn’t back it as the thought of a lady jockey riding the winner of a championship race was unthinkable,I would have no problem now backing a horse with a certain lady rider on board in any race.

In the end I seem to think vagador ran really well.

When alderbrook won the Kingwell it was definitely on c4

Agree with your opinion about getting better racing on midweek especially in the winter.