Horse Racing's Strangest Tales by Andrew Ward

Author:Andrew Ward
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781911042839
Publisher: Pavilion Books
Published: 2017-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

A RACE FOR SEVEN NOVICES

PLUMPTON, NOVEMBER 1954

A sunny day, heavy ground, and a course stretching 2 miles and 750 yards. It was the last race of the day and conditions were not very friendly for novice steeplechasers. They were even less friendly for the poor jockeys.

There were seven runners for the Cuckfield Novices’ Steeplechase. They started badly and then fell away.

Top Gem, the second favourite, fell at the first fence. That left six.

But Top Gem also brought down Maid of Valence at the first. Then there were five.

After half a mile, Dancing Warrior fell. With almost 2 miles still to run, there were four horses left in the race.

One of the riderless horses jumped short at the water, and this caused problems for the four remaining runners. Greenfax, the 5–4 favourite, Canon Flame and Magna Carta fell at the water. And then there was one, Struell Well, but Magna Carta was remounted. A two-horse race, with a circuit of Plumpton remaining.

Magna Carta refused at the next. Again there was one. Struell Well fell at the next, but Alan Oughton also remounted, and was able to continue what in another setting would have been one of the worst show-jumping rounds on record. Struell Well scrambled over the next fence, barely made it over the water, looked very shaky at the one after, then refused one and clambered over at the second attempt.

Somehow Oughton managed to coax Struell Well to the second fence from home, but the horse refused, dumping Oughton on the other side of the fence. Struell Well did his best to hide in the open ditch, but Oughton was persistent, as described by Meyrick Good in Sporting Life: ‘Alan Oughton went round the fence, and, in order to get his horse out of the ditch, had to take him on to the centre of the course. He then remounted, and made his way through the cars to the entrance to the course by the judge’s box.’

When they saw Oughton riding Struell Well up the public side of the rails towards the stands, most onlookers thought it signalled the end of the race. The judge left his box and was presumed to have gone for his tea, and the boards were put down on the course to enable the spectators to walk across to the car-park. Night was not far away.

But Oughton was still trying. Finally he reached where he had been before, back on the course with two fences to negotiate. The judge returned to his box, the planks were removed from the course, and there was a big cheer as Oughton and Struell Well – starting price 11–2 – came in to try the second from last one more time. The horse refused.

Struell Well did not look as if he was jumping any more fences that day. So, rather than ask for the key to the changing-room and promise to lock up when he had completed the course, Oughton opted to retire and lead his horse back. The race was declared void, and the horses were treated as non-runners.

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