November 2010

As always it was great to be back at Plumpton for Ladies Day on 19 September but I felt a little guilty when I bumped into (well not literally) Claire Sheppard as my latest contribution to my blog was long overdue.  Anyway at long last I have got my act together and here is my latest ‘thoughts’.  So what have I been doing over the summer – well I went to the two Plumpton reciprocal days at Brighton and also the reciprocal at Lingfield much as I love Brighton and Lingfield, one can only take so much flat racing so I also travelled up to Worcester and more latterly Ludlow for their reciprocals.  Those days both provided something special.  The meeting at Worcester on 6 August featured the Land O’ Plums Chase.  The Land O’ Plums Chase has a long history having been the feature of racing at the course at Pershore, some seven miles from Worcester but when racing at Pershore failed to emerge after the end of World War II the Land O’ Plums chase also disappeared into oblivion.  It was with great surprise and pleasure that I discovered that Worcester had decided to resurrect the race 71 years after Gerry Wilson galloped Dark Revine past the Pershore winning post to win the 1939 race.  The 2010 renewal attracted a good field of 13 and was won by Rifleman trained by Richard Lee and ridden by Giles Hawkins.  I hadn’t been to Ludlow for the best part of 20 years and at their meeting on October they opened their new stand which included the new annual members’ room.  These visits certainly illustrated the value of Plumpton reciprocal days to widen the racing experience.

Also during the summer I went to Craon in Brittany.  I enjoy racing in France and particularly those meetings which stage jump racing.  All French steeplechases have a far wider range of obstacles than in Britain but those designated as cross-country steeplechases include all sorts of variations.  The Grand Cross Country de Craon was run on Sunday 5 September over 6,000 metres (approx. 3miles 6 furlongs) with 31 jumps.  The race had ten runners and was won easily by Fassilado trained by Jaques Ortet at Pau.  Another Jewel trained in Ireland by Denis Murphy and ridden by John Cullen finished a creditable second.  The Craon race forms part of The Crystal Cup is an international cross country series which comprises ten races starting at Pau in February and ending at Cheltenham in December with races in Ireland, Belgium, Italy, France and the Czech Republic.  The Czech race is the Grand Pardubicka and I was also lucky enough to go there in October to see the 120^th running of this famous race.  It was a magical days racing and is certainly an experience not to be missed.

By now you may be wondering what all this has got to do with Plumpton, well not a lot you might think but once upon a time Plumpton also had a cross country circuit in addition to the main racecourse.  The cross country course at Plumpton, the layout of which is shown in the plan above reproduced from the Sporting Life of 1890, left the main circuit by the turn into the home straight and continued parallel with the railway before turning southwards before joining the main course approximately where the horse box park is today.  Races on the cross country course started by the level crossing and included two fields of plough, a feature that remains at Pardubice to this day.  Plumpton’s cross country had two periods of use firstly for 10 years from 1890 and then again in the 1930’s when the Southdown Hunt staged bona-fide hunt meetings at Plumpton.

I suspect the cessation of cross country races at Plumpton was mainly due to the fact the public could not see the whole races as the horses disappeared behind the stands on each circuit and also that it required the cooperation of landowners outside the curtilage of the racecourse.  Long standing racegoers may remember that the National Hunt Chase and Foxhunters Chase at Cheltenham were also run over a four mile cross country course in which no fence was jumped more than once and also went behind the stands until the mid 1960s.  In recent years Cheltenham have introduced cross country races which wind back and forth across the racecourse infield and enable all of the action to be seen.  The cross country at Plumpton is now even less than a distant memory but this part of the course’s development should not be forgotten.

What a winter we’ve had!  Despite the frost, snow and rain that has disrupted the racing and point to point programme from December through to March, the meetings at Plumpton somehow seemed to have dodged the worst of that weather.  The only down spot being the loss of the first December meeting due to waterlogging and that was replaced by an additional fixture on 31 January where the frost covers once again came to the rescue.  So unless things go drastically wrong we should complete the annual programme of 16 meetings.

National Hunt racing has always been vulnerable to the elements and looking back there have only been five seasons since 1946 when the planned programme has been completed without any losses.  The improvements to drainage and the recent introduction of frost covers has meant that three of those abandonment free seasons have come in the last 12 years.

Numerically the worst seasons were 1974/75, 1977/78 and 1985/86 with six meetings being lost each season.  In 1974/75 waterlogging knocked out 4 of the six meetings planned during January, February and March and to make matters worse both days of the Easter meeting were lost to a combination of snow and waterlogging.

To move to more cheerful things I would like to add my congratulations to Mark Cornford and his team for winning the Neil Wyatt Groundstaff Award for the best jumps racecourse.  This is richly deserved and the ability of the team to get racing on even in the worst that winter can throw at them is a testimony to their efforts.

On the racecourse itself, Plumpton regular, The Hardy Boy won his sixth race at Plumpton on 31 January ridden by Mattie Batchelor.  This now leaves the ten years old just two behind equalling the Plumpton steeplechase record of Snitterfield.  Snitterfield was trained at Denmead, Hampshire by Michael Madgwick who also trained Sumdancer runner up to The Hardy Boy on his latest win.  The Hardy Boy made his racecourse debut in an Irish point to point at Templemore on 25 October 2004 and his first win came on 8 April 2005 when JT McNamara steered him to win at Dromahane.  Bought by Mrs John Grist, The Hardy Boy made his British racing debut in a novices hurdle at Plumpton on 17 October 2005 ridden by Colin Bolger.  Trainer Anna Newton-Smith saddled two others in that race, English Jim ridden by Mattie Batchelor and It’s official ridden by John McNamara.  Although The Hardy boy pulled up in that race he ran only once more in a hurdle race before going steeplechasing and scored his first win at Lingfield Park on 8 November 2006 (the only time he has won other than at Plumpton).

Anna Newton Smith who trains at Jevington near Eastbourne has a great record at Plumpton with eleven winners in the last five seasons and on 1 March this year she completed a double with Portrait Royale (a winner again on Easter Monday) and Pomander.

Mattie Batchelor who rode The Hardy Boy to his latest win is another regular with a career total of 38 winners at Plumpton and on Easter Sunday he rode the Lydia Richards owned and trained Kappelhoff to win the Bet Live In-Play At totesport.com Handicap Chase and in so doing beat The Hardy Boy be 35 lengths.  This was a first win at Plumpton for Kappelhoff who has won all his previous races at Fontwell Park.  Those with a very long memory might remember that the colours of white, cerise hoops and blue sleeves carried by Kappelhoff were worn by Ron Harrison to win the Whitbread Gold Cup at Sandown Park in 1960 on Plummers Plain who started 20/1 and was trained at Patching near Worthing by Sid Dale.

Well it’s been almost three months since I wrote my first piece for the Plumpton web site and since then I have been looking at other web sites to see what sort of things people write about in their blogs. The answer seems to be anything and everything.

The 2009/10 season got underway with the increasingly popular Ladies’ Day which seems to draw a crowd on a par with Easter Monday. Highlight of that meeting for me was the win of Shammy Buskins in the Jimmy Parsons Memorial Chase ridden by Christian Williams. Shammy Buskins had won the Southern Grand National Mixed Open Race over four and a quarter miles at the Vale of Aylesbury with Garth and South Berks point to point at Kingston Blount in April and had since won under rules at Stratford before tackling the Plumpton fences. Shammy is trained at Aston Rowant by Lawney Hill; whose husband Alan trains our point to pointer. Lawney enjoyed an incredible summer during which she not only trained a winner at Epsom but also at one point topped the ‘hot trainers’ list in the Racing Post.

After the annual charity day in support of the Moorcroft Racehorse Welfare Centre on 19 October and the inaugural Army and Afghan Appeal Day on 16 November it was disappointing that the meeting on the 2 December had to be abandoned due to waterlogging. Talking of waterlogging my Plumpton statistics show that for all seasons for which the information is available a total of 87 meetings have been called off due to waterlogging. However, following all the work done on improving the drainage only two meetings have been lost for this reason in the last six years, whilst the worst seasons for abandonment were 1974/75 and 1985/86 in which six meetings were lost each time due to the effects of snow, frost and waterlogging.

I recently acquired a number of Racing Review Magazines covering the period 1949 through to 1956. Racing Review was a monthly publication and included a whole range of articles on racing topics. Interestingly it always included advertisements for most of the racecourses managed at the time by Pratt & Co which in addition to Alexandra Park, Cheltenham, Folkestone, Fontwell Park and Lewes also included Plumpton. This support seems to have been rewarded with significant editorial and photographic coverage of the said meetings. The January 1950 edition includes a full double page photo of the field for the Bolney Handicap Hurdle on 14 November 1949 jumping the downhill flight of hurdles led by Dick the Gee who went on to win and gave Fred Winter his first win over hurdles. Harry Sprague, who specialised in riding over hurdles, rode 13 winners at Plumpton between 1948 and 1956 and is pictured in the November 1950 edition winning Plumpton’s Newick Four Years old Hurdle on Le Frisson trained at Epsom by Walter Nightingall. The same afternoon the John Gosden trained Shaef won the Steyning Handicap Hurdle ridden by Andrew Jarvis. The grey Shaef who won five races at Plumpton and went on to compete in long distance chases is featured in a couple of editions of Racing Review and was for several years remembered in the Shaef Hurdle Race run at Plumpton’s August Bank Holiday meeting.

The advert for Plumpton in the February 1952 edition describes the course as being “Delightfully situated in the heart of Sussex” (well you can’t argue with that) and goes on to say that the next meeting will be on 13 February. That meeting never took place as it was abandoned as a mark of respect following the death of King George VI. Admission prices are shown as 27 shillings (£1.35) for the Reserved Enclosure and Paddock, 10 shillings and sixpence (52½p) for the Public Stand, and four shillings (20p) for the centre of the course. What is startling is that those prices included Entertainment Tax a levy of 47% imposed by the government which meant only just half of the gate money was retained by the course. It makes today’s VAT look good value!

Welcome to my first item for the new Plumpton web site. When Claire Sheppard asked me if I would contribute to the web site I was pleased to accept because Plumpton is one of my favourite racecourses and as you may know I wrote the book on the history of Plumpton back in 2000 and more recently produced the Complete Record a statistical celebration of Plumpton’s 125 years.

So the first thing was to decide what I was going to write about. Never having had a professional role in racing I decided to write about my racing experiences as a normal racegoer, mainly about Plumpton but also racing matters in general. I shall try to entertain, awaken some memories in those who have enjoyed Plumpton over the years and perhaps encourage those who by visiting this website will be enticed to experience for themselves the joy of a day at Plumpton Races. That I shall achieve all those objectives is perhaps hoping for too much but I shall give it a try.

One thing I can guarantee is that if you look here for tips I’m afraid you will be sadly disappointed as I am probably the world’s worst tipster and wouldn’t inflict that on anybody.

Anyway 2009 has not only been the year that Plumpton celebrated its 125th anniversary as a racecourse, but it is also the 40th anniversary of my first visit to the track. It was on Saturday 5 April 1969, the first day of the Easter Meeting. The first race on the card the Hastings Selling Handicap Steeplechase was worth £272 to the winner and went to Pieter Graham II trained at Stockbridge in Hampshire by Vernon Cross and ridden for him by Jimmy Fox. Pieter Graham was owned by Lt-Col V E le Marchant, who in 1972 won the Royal Artillery Gold Cup at Sandown Park with The Ghost. Pieter Graham started at 3/1 3rd favourite behind Royal Cage the 9/4 favourite trained by H ‘Frenchie’ Nicholson and Do or Die who started at 5/2. Do or Die trained by Albert Neaves in Kent was a regular around the South East circuit but despite having a deal of ability in his class also had a mind of his own and that afternoon, and not for the first time, showed his ‘moody side’ by refusing.

Sixteen runners went to post for the third race the Three-Mile Novices’ Steeplechase and only five of them got round headed by Anthony’s Choice ridden by Paul Kelleway for trainer Roddy Armytage. Anthony’s Choice finished six lengths in front of Paguera who David McCarthy rode for trainer Albert Davison, grandfather of Gemma Gracey-Davison who you will be likely to see riding at Plumpton this season.

David Mould one of the most stylish riders of his day and attached to Peter Cazalet’s Tonbridge stable that housed the majority of the Queen Mother’s horses won the fourth race on Panguin for the Epsom stable of Peter Ashworth and Kent based rider Clive Chapman won the Falmer Chase on Woodland Green trained at Charing by Chris Nesfield for Lady Rootes.

Looking at the racecard for that day admission to the Regency Stand, now known as the Members or Premier Enclosure, was £2 with the Grandstand enclosure (Tattersalls) costing £1.25 or 25 shillings as it was then. In those days there was also a separate silver ring roughly where the marquee now stands for which admission was twelve shillings and six pence (62_p) and the centre of the course just eight shillings and six pence (42_p). Things have changed in many ways and I couldn’t have dreamed then that the World Wide Web would ever exist or that I would be writing my first column for the Plumpton web site.

40 years on we look forward to the first day of Plumpton’s 2009/10 season. Hopefully I will be back after that meeting with some more thoughts both past and present.