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That's Gavin Pritchard-Gordon, ex Newmarket trainer.. and it's called 'Follow Your Leader' and is a memoir of his time in racing, from the 1960's at Shalfleet, later buying Stanley House Stables, then Graham Place, and then various jobs after training. He also talks about his marriages.
The title is a play on words as his first job was assistant to Harvey Leader, who was a good trainer of fillies. I remember Palatch winning the Yorkshire Oaks. Nice little story about that.
It's Newmarket centric, but he does recall his time with Stuart Murless in Ireland - and his days with Peter Walwyn in Lambourn. He rode Mill House as a hack when that horse retired there, and a fun story to go with it.
All the names of the time get a mention, jockeys, famous owners, trainers and staff. Some good b and w photos at the end too.
Well worth a read if you are of an age and remember the period.
One thing I didn't know was that back in the 70's there were several handicappers who were allotted a few racecourses each. This meant that horses could be handicapped differently depending where they were entered, as each took a view. A trainer could then pick where the horse was best in. I didn't know that.
How he remembers events from over 50 years ago I'm not sure, I don't think I could, and he makes a minor error with Humble Duty winning the 1000 Guineas in 1971, it was actually the year before.
It's not too long, nor too short, easy reading chapters.
Follow Your Leader by Gavin Pritchard-Gordon.
The title is a play on words as his first job was assistant to Harvey Leader, who was a good trainer of fillies. I remember Palatch winning the Yorkshire Oaks. Nice little story about that.
It's Newmarket centric, but he does recall his time with Stuart Murless in Ireland - and his days with Peter Walwyn in Lambourn. He rode Mill House as a hack when that horse retired there, and a fun story to go with it.
All the names of the time get a mention, jockeys, famous owners, trainers and staff. Some good b and w photos at the end too.
Well worth a read if you are of an age and remember the period.
One thing I didn't know was that back in the 70's there were several handicappers who were allotted a few racecourses each. This meant that horses could be handicapped differently depending where they were entered, as each took a view. A trainer could then pick where the horse was best in. I didn't know that.
How he remembers events from over 50 years ago I'm not sure, I don't think I could, and he makes a minor error with Humble Duty winning the 1000 Guineas in 1971, it was actually the year before.
It's not too long, nor too short, easy reading chapters.
Follow Your Leader by Gavin Pritchard-Gordon.
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Looks a good read smoky and one I will hope to buy one day.
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Sounds good i will give it a go,i was a young Apprentice working for Robert Armstrong Pritchard-Gordon was one of our leading Trainers at the time.
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They were known as regional handicappers
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Massive string if i remember rightly.
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I think it was Sam Armstrong who made a comment about it taking him weeks to improve a horse 7 lbs, but he could do it in one issue of the Racing Calndar (because there could be that much difference in the same horse's rating in 2 different races in the same week, since the weights had been set by 2 diifferent people.
I also remember reading about a handicapper saying he only had a pound or 2 between Boldboy's form at 5, 6 and 7f, making me wonder whether they would handicap a horse differently over different distances. |
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I’m three quarters of the way through it. Thoroughly enjoying the tales of a by gone era.
To quibble as Smoky Hill states, there are a few inaccuracies regarding dates. |
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acey deucy 07 Feb 24 12:06
Massive string if i remember rightly. really? seems ok from what i ve heard |
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ged -- "I also remember reading about a handicapper saying he only had a pound or 2 between Boldboy's form at 5, 6 and 7f, making me wonder whether they would handicap a horse differently over different distances."
Yes, because that is what they used to do, rate horses according to the race. What we now have (largely thanks to Timeform) is a running free handicap that just gives a horse a master rating that covers all distances and conditions. I sometimes wonder if the old system was better. Sometimes we manually adjust horses on an ad hoc basis, eg knocking 7lbs off Gaelic Warrior for going the wrong way round. |
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Interesting, but i do wonder how people like this old trainer get someone to publish their book, how many copies do they expect to sell to make it worthwhile as we all know Horse racing is a pretty niche market these days. The Anorak didn't think it was worthwhile trying to get his last book published so gave a link to it from here.
Yes think there were 4 different regional h'cappers at work until the early 70s, so a horse could theoretically have 4 different marks across the country. |
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The Pritchard-Gordons are (or were) a huge racing family. Arguably the book is 30 years too late, but I've not read it.
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