Monday Musings: Welcoming Back Windsor
Back in the 1970’s, one of the favourite trips for Home Counties racegoers was the New Year’s Day programme of jump racing at Windsor. The New Year’s Day Hurdle, a conditions race aimed at attracting potential Champion Hurdle winners, did so on its second running in 1975 with Comedy Of Errors, already winner of the 1973 edition at Cheltenham, soon to add a second a couple of months later.
The giant gelding, 17hh, won 23 of 48 career races, adding to his Cheltenham exploits for the great Fred Rimell, by taking both the Scottish and Welsh Champion Hurdles – in those days important weight-for-age races – as well as three consecutive Fighting Fifth Hurdles and a couple of Irish Sweeps Hurdles.
In his era, he supplanted Arkle as the horse that had won most National Hunt prizemoney in the UK and Ireland. He ended his days as Mercy Rimell’s (Fred’s widow) hack until his death aged 23 in 1990.
I was at Windsor for many of the New Year’s Day Hurdles and another notable winner was Royal Derbi in 1991. He was trained by the late Neville Callaghan and was an example of the difference in the racing structure in those days.
Originally trained by the highly talented David Wilson, the Scottish-born former Harrow schoolboy, who shares his alma mater like many other famous trainers, not least the two best-friend Williams, Haggas and Jarvis, and their Newmarket neighbour Sir Mark Prescott.
Wilson, who still advises the Gary/Josh Moore stable, waited until Royal Derbi’s first run in a handicap after three jogs round, to win a 17-runner three-year-old Windsor handicap by a couple of lengths with Brian Rouse in the saddle.
He was bought out of that seller by Callaghan and raced thereon for two seasons in the name of a Mr Lockhart. His first hurdles run – a successful one – came six weeks later, on August 12, when he won a match at Plumpton at 2/9, but only by a length.
Unlike now, when one NH season ends and the next begins 24 hours later at the end of April, the earliest start for jumping would be July 30 or 31, usually at Newton Abbot. So Neville was immediately on his bike with Royal Derbi who proved a very durable animal indeed.
Who would have imagined that by the middle of November, he had raced another eight times, all in novice hurdles, winning four of them? The last two of those victories were in a 25-runner field at Wetherby before beating 14 opponents at Chepstow. He wound up his year with a rare poor performance in Chepstow’s Finale Junior Hurdle, a big Triumph Hurdle guide then as now.
Early in 1989 he had another five hurdle races, winning three including a wide-margin defeat of subsequent Champion Hurdle runner-up Nomadic Way (Barry Hills). Only fourth in the Triumph Hurdle, he erased the memory of that with an easy victory in Punchestown’s Champion 4yo hurdle. Eight wins in 16 runs, all as a juvenile.
Nowadays a top candidate for the Triumph Hurdle will run twice or in rare circumstances four times, so sparse are the opportunities and so stringent the penalties for wins. Novices would have blanket penalties for multiple wins. Now seven previous victories could usually entail penalties of 42lb: they don’t like you winning races!
After that demanding campaign, Callaghan found a new owner, replacing Mr Lockhart, and Royal Derbi next appeared in the colours of the pre-Coolmore version of Michael Tabor. He was a great money-spinner for the owner and trainer, when his final career total for flat and jumps combined was 17 wins from 66 starts. His New Year’s Day Hurdle win was by six lengths from the smart Aldino in 1991.
While writing this piece I waited until I could watch the opening three races (two hurdles and one chase) on Windsor’s pioneering first jumps card back after a gap of 20 years. In truth, it was another six years longer, as it was only during the rebuilding of Ascot racecourse between 2004 and 2006 that Windsor was taken out of mothballs – the original closure coming in 1998.
I was wondering how the hurdles track would be different from the flat circuit where races longer than one mile imitate Fontwell’s chase course with a figure-of-eight. It looked at first sight yesterday that they are often travelling in a different direction to what they do on the level but that may be an optical illusion. I need to take a better look at the map. The bends looked sharp enough and like on the flat, they do turn left and right-handed at different stages.
[Editor’s note: here are the revised track configurations for hurdle and chase]
The ground at Windsor should be suitable for winter racing and yesterday’s surface of good to soft looked very appealing. The weather is undoubtedly warmer than was the case in the late 1990’s when frost caused the abandonment of three consecutive runnings of the New Year meeting.
Yesterday started with a couple of Henderson hotpots getting beaten early on, and favourite backers were not experiencing an initial punting panacea as another odds-on shot bit the dust later. Once it settles down, Windsor will be a good addition to the jumps fixture list, and I can’t wait to go. It might not be the same as midsummer Monday nights, but any racing is better than none to my mind.
Now all we need is for Jockey Club racecourses to free up Nottingham. The City Trial Hurdle in February fitted well in the Champion Hurdle build-up for suitable horses but Nottingham closed to jumping after 1994 and operates with two distinct tracks, one for spring and autumn – where the jumpers used to race - the other as their blurb goes, “for high summer”.
This year, Nottingham had the misfortune of losing four of its 23 planned fixtures, three of them on the inside course. Other tracks also suffered from the awful weather which came at the most inconvenient times for trainers. Despite this, I hope that if the Windsor project proves a success, then other flat-only tracks like Nottingham might reconsider.
It may be too much to ask Cheltenham, another Jockey Club course, to waive its New Year’s Day fixture, but after a New Year’s Eve skinful, Londoners would not need to get up quite so early to travel to the banks of the Thames rather than suffer the crowded M40 with hungover drivers as the trains are sure not to be running a proper service. <I do realise other people live in different directions and distances from both tracks>.
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I had a small theoretical bet when I met the Editor of this piece in the week and think I came out just on the wrong side. Matt Bisogno’s Geegeez syndicates have done amazingly well and last Sunday he travelled over to the Boulta point-to-point near Cork to watch Gee Force Flyer make his racecourse debut in the second division of the four-year-old maiden race.
Matt was offered the son of Jet Away by Olly Murphy whose plan was to send him across to Ireland to be broken and trained for exposure in what can be the goldmine offered to winners of Irish points. He didn’t have too much trouble syndicating him.
Ridden by John Barry, Gee Force Flyer mover up nicely in the last mile, disputed the lead over the last fence and drew away near the line for a two-length victory. We should be seeing him under the Murphy banner in the New Year. The bet arose as several of the principals from the Sunday card were in the Tattersalls Cheltenham auction after racing on Friday, but not Gee Force Flyer who is adamantly not for sale.
The runner-up was. I reckoned he would go for “at least 75k”, Matt was much more reticent, suggesting “around 25k”. On a day when the runner-up of the first division of the four-year-old maiden went for 160k, our boy was led out unsold at 48k. I make it a small win for Matt!
- TS
