didnt rem that one, i went for the more obvious ones that stuck around like well chief, think it was mid 20s

Tommy - I might struggle to find that day. Windyedge was beaten a neck by Dalnamein in the 1960 November Handicap at Manchester, at 50/1. 30 ran. That probably took place in the wet!

Windyedge was 7yo then, and still entire. Amongst the unplaced horses was the next year's Champion Hurdler, Eborneezer, ridden by 5lb claimer Johnny Haine.

before my time although i have a friend that worked for arthur and later dickenson, i should have asked him lol

Racing Post database seems to begin at 1988

If anyone knows of any on-line resource that goes back further Do Share

which horse were u after before 88?

Suluk won eighteen hurdle races on the Southwell fibresand. Not thirty but if ever there was an all-weather jumping specialist, it was him.

or fatehalkhair even

Most recent prolific winners I can find:

Stand Guard - John Butler (Alice Haynes) 28 wins, last win Jan 2018

Desert Strike - Connor Page (Andrew Page) 26 wins, last win Feb 2017

La Estrella - Don Cantillon owned and trained, last win Mar 2017

Ged- Thanks again for jogging my memory of Dalnamein winning the Manchester Handicap,never knew Windyedge was 2nd. That was the year I first became interested in racing. Think I saw Dalnamein winning at Musselburgh in the early sixties.
Pretty sure all the November Handicaps were run on heavy ground then.
I'm still confident about BBC at Hamilton and Windyedge running. The other time I mentioned the tv morning start was a bit later and probably was on ITV. The J.Dunlop winner was Daniel.

@ Cardinal Scott: Celcius (sic):

Celcius was born in 1984 and ran his first 9 races for trainer Ian Balding.  He ran an amazing 97 times and won 20 times.  Peter Scu won on him 6 times, Dunwoody 3, Dascombe 3, Bridgwater 2, Lower 2, Rory MacNeice 2 (now defends jockeys in trouble) and Nick Moore 2.  He also made the frame 32 times.  He was not a very big horse but we would like a few more like him!

Celcius is still enjoying himself and can be regularly seen out hunting locally.


https://www.davidpipe.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=66:celcius&catid=17:retired-horses&Itemid=70

Features a picture of Celcius getting ready for a day's hunting a few years ago.

If P-t-Ps count:

Chesnut Annie won 40 races (38 P-t-P, 2 under Rules) 2006-2015
Lady Myfanwy won 35 races (30 P-t-P, 5 under Rules) 2006-2013

Flying Ace was mentioned earlier. He won 59 races, the last in 1991, 36 ptps, 23 hunter chases, including the 1985 Horse and Hound at Stratford (he was also 2nd and 3rd in it). He won his first 17 points, starting at age 7. He was by Saucy Kit, the 1967 Champion Hurdler, and was foaled at the Blakeley Stud of Roy Edwards, who rode Saucy Kit. His win total should have been 60, but the weight cloth came off one day at Kelso just before the line.

It's not 30, but I still think Kauto's 23 wins, with 16 being G1s is pretty mighty.

Finished outside the top three once when completing in 35 career starts and only ran outside of G/L company five times in his 41 starts.

From the day he hit the deck in the Queen Mum in 06, to the day that Denman beat him in the GC in 08, he won 9 of 10, with 7 G1's, from 2m to 3m2f and was only downed when trying to give a stone to an inspired Monet's Garden around the grey's beloved Aintree.

Then even after the GC and being done by Our Vic at Aintree, he still came back to win his next 6 completed starts, all G1's, including hammering Denman in 09 to take back the GC and a 36(!!!) length romp in the same year's KG.

And to finish it all off we still got those two glorious days at Haydock and Kempton in 2011, when he rolled back the clock to add a fourth BF Chase and 5th KG to the palmares.

Horse of a lifetime.


Honourable mentions for Hurricane Fly, 24 wins from 32 starts over jumps, with 22 being G1's and never failed to complete.  Two CH wins and two thirds.

And Big Bucks, 23 of 40, with 10 G1's and 18 wins in a row, including four World Hurdles.

Well the overall standard is far higher now than in the 1960's, like any other sport.

Yes much more competitive now. Plenty of very uncompetitive races around in the 60s and 70s.

Please name the horses that you think Arkle would give two stone to and would now be considered Grade 1 winners.

and didn't suffer one fatal fall

Any you know of that suffered two?

TT,

I am not exactly sure what you are asking, but other than Flyingbolt, Arkle has a Timeform rating much higher than anything else. I am not going to dispute that rating.

If you really want to understand that rating I would suggest reading a book on the horse, and then doing a bit of research on racing in the 60's.

I wasnt disagreeing with you dd, as great a horse Arkle was I'm not so sure that he would give 2 stone away to other Grade 1 winners, he certainly was capable of giving 16lb away but 28lb, I'm not so sure. Its always difficult to compare previous eras with todays horses and I'm one of those that thinks recent generations are not given enough credit, seems to be the way these days though 'everything yesteryear' was better than anything today or recent seems to be the opinion of most oldtimers.

Heres an article from 13 years ago by Greg Wood (Handicapper) of The Guardian:


Greg Wood
Kauto Star is as close to the limit of brilliance as any horse can get, so Arkle cannot have been better

Numbers are never in short supply when the official handicappers gather to pass judgment on a racing season and yesterday's event to assess and celebrate the 2009-10 jumps season was no different. If it were possible to drown in figures, they would have been handing out snorkels at the door.

Yet one number was conspicuously absent. This was supposed to be the moment when Phil Smith, the BHA's senior handicapper, revealed the result of his attempt to put a figure on Arkle, the chaser whose mid-60s shadow still extends to the present day. After many hours poring over yellowing form books and long-forgotten copies of the Racing Calendar, though, Smith has decided that the task is hopeless.

It can take a brave man to admit defeat and, while a "best guess" rating for the three-time Gold Cup winner would have been interesting, it seems that the disjointed nature of National Hunt racing at the time made even this impossible.


"There was no central handicapping," Smith said yesterday. "There were lots of different people involved and they would say that Horse A should get so many pounds from Horse B one week, and then change their minds completely the next week, even when there hadn't been any racing in between."

Nonetheless, while he could not uncover a framework on which to construct an opinion, Smith did offer a few clues yesterday to the way that his inquiries were heading at the time.

He believes that Mill House, Arkle's contemporary and, initially, his principal rival, was of similar merit to Denman, who is now rated at 182. He also concedes that there must be a biological limit on the maximum rating that a racehorse can achieve, in the same way that it is inconceivable that a human could run 100m in under five seconds.

Of course, this is all leading directly towards the old argument about the one semi-official rating against Arkle's name, which is the rating of 212 awarded by Timeform when he was at his peak.

Arkle will have been dead for 40 years next Monday and did not have an ego to be flattered or deflated in any case. The question of whether that rating is trustworthy is thus somewhat academic, but not entirely so, because every subsequent champion has been tested against it and found wanting. Horses like Best Mate, Desert Orchid and now even Kauto Star appear in the record books as relative second-raters because, for all their talent and achievements, Arkle could have given most of them two stone and a beating – in Timeform's opinion, at least.

A personal view is that a biological limit on racing ability lies around the 200 mark, and that Kauto Star's rating of 190 could well have been higher if he had ever contested a handicap. It seems reasonable to think that he is as good – not better, but as good – as any chaser the sport has seen. Both he and Arkle, in other words, are as close to the limit of brilliance as any horse is likely to get, and placing one ahead of the other is shaving hairs.

Of course, it may be that Timeform can justify their 212 rating using data in their huge archives (and, for that matter, the 210 given to Flyingbolt, his contemporary and stablemate, which put the pair of them 19lb clear of every other chaser in history). But if Smith can't stand up a figure with any confidence, it would be fascinating to know how Timeform can.

This is not a criticism of Timeform in general, as its race-readers and commentators have served the sport with distinction for many years.

But, given the totemic status of that 212, it would be good to know who came up with it and how, if only to address the rumour that Phil Bull, Timeform's founder, had so little interest in jump racing that he used to give the job of rating jumpers to the raw recruits as practice before they were let loose on "proper" racing. Otherwise, Kauto Star may not be the last great chaser who does not get quite as much credit as he deserves.