Would anyone like to guess how many horse Dickenson had in his stable in 1983 @ time of 1st 5 in gold cup??

Approximately 60 geoff?

CUTH

Think geoff meant horses in stable at the time of the Gold Cup achievemnent rather than the winning time of the race.

... on second thoughts I will change my guess to approximately 50?

Managed a private betting shop when Dickinson hit the Gold Cup first 5. Our shop hadnt a price up for the first 5 while the big chains were all offering 33/1, I gave a punter 33/1 for a pound and shop owner gave me a rollicking, told him to go fkcu himself.

Yet CUTH. Mac close enough 58.   8.62 % of the stable

That would be equivalent of Willie getting 1st 16 home in Gold CUp

Sorry TMM will have to give that to CUTH do to your revised guess!!

Fair enough bet though Basil to lay i'd have thought.

If you come at it laterally imagine laying a treble of Combs Ditch , Fifty Dollars More and Brown Chamberlain all not be finish in the first five who were each fancied enough , i'd say the price was ok to lay.

I'm sure if the bet had lost he would have congratulated you on the extra £1 turnover   


Great memories 

Some great names on the two lists right enough!

.... please note that it is not Dickensen or Dickinsen but DICKINSON!

.... apologies for being pedantic

Cheers tmm, I have to admit I looked and copied the OP

Pendil on the list, was a fantastic chaser. Best horse not to win the Gold Cup imo.

Beaten a whisker by The Dikler in a race he should have won and brought down when High Ken fell in front of him. Was going great at looked the likely winner throughout.

No worries the dealer, just joking!

The Dealer was a great horse and for some strange reason I thought that Dickinson had trained him. But just shows you how time can play tricks on one`s memories!

I can`t remember Girandole, a very good stayer on the Flat, running over jumps either but he is on the list.

Honneger was also a favourite of mine. It`s great reading lists like that. Refreshes the memories. Thanks for that VL. Good stuff!

The Dealer ‘s sole further appearance under rules was in Feb 1980 in a Nottingham Hunter Chase, where he sadly broke down though was not destroyed. Contest was won by another former smart one, Tamalin. The Dealer was then trained by a Lady Fitzwillian ( think that family may be married in to the Reece - Mogs though  stand to be corrected). Not sure if or how many times he appeared between the flags. Someone with a set of Selby & McKenzies would probably know.

Can't remember a Dickinson Dealer, not a horse one anyway Hayden !!!

I'm a driver the lunatic front runner as close as I can think of.

Yes maybe i was confusing with David Dickinson   

M W Dickinson's Honegger was fourth behind Golden Cygnet in that Supreme Novices' Hurdle.

Until seeing the list posted above, I'd never realized that he was out of Honey Palm. That makes him a half-brother to none other than Floyd.

Now you mention it, I can just about see "L M Cumani" next to the name Honegger in my mind's eye. But I'd want very decent odds before I put money on it.

All I can find online is:
Honegger: 14 wins, £18,804: 3 wins and placed twice; also 11 wins over hurdles,
2nd Select Hurdle, Sandown, L. and 3rd Greenham Group H. Hurdle, Newbury, L.

Bear in mind that I was only 16 when Honegger came fourth in the Supreme Novices. I really shouldn't have been studying the racing page in the Daily Mail closely enough to remember things like that.

Having said that, I could tell you something about nearly every single horse in those lists of the Dickinson and Winter stables above. Every meeting and every race felt like an event in those days, simply because there were so few of them, and the races at the height of the season were consequently so difficult to win. The horses which did win races were few and far between (and Dickinson's and Winter's stables were full of winners - no rubbish) - those horses went on to stick with you for the rest of your life.

This is also why no modern trainer's achievements could ever compare with Dickinson's famous five - there was no hiding place in those days. There was no wretched Ryanair Chase, and the two-mile Champion Chase hadn't yet attained comparable prestige. Everything went for the Gold Cup. These days Combs Ditch and Fifty Dollars More would both have ducked the race for the Ryanair.

Honegger was trained by Cumani.

He ran once as a 2yo, finished 2nd at 20/1 in Div 2 of a Newmarket maiden (28 ran) in October 1976 - Sporting Yankee won Div 1 (27 ran - Totowah unplaced). He then won on his 3yo debut at Newmarket as the 100/30 fav on Cup Final day in May (Man U 2-1 Liverpool) - no racing on TV. Bula was put down the day before having failed to recover from injuries sustained when falling in the Champion Chase 2 months earlier.

As always, many thanks for taking the trouble to dig up all that, ged. All sorts of faces and events, times and places, rise up at the mention of those names and what they achieved.