Cheltenham Hall Of Fame

[fjadmin]

Discuss our countdown of Top Cheltenham Festival Jockeys, Horses and Trainers and post any requests for additions to our list on this thread.

Our Hall of Fame entries to date include the

Cheltenham Festival Winning Most Horses

and

Jockey Ruby Walsh

Jockey Tony McCoy

Jockey Barry Geraghty

Jockey Richard Johnson

Jockey Robert Thornton

Jockey Paul Carberry


Jockey Richard Dunwoody

Jockey Mick Fitzgerald

[Rhinestone Cowboy]

Does Jim Culloty not have seven winners ?

[fjadmin]

Jim had 5 festival winners . Three on Best Mate in Gold Cup , a bumper and RSA Chase. We will be doing Best Mate when we start counting down horses .

[fjadmin]

We will start an Aintree Grand National Hall of fame next week.

Any suggestions ?

[Old Vic]

We will start to fill in the gaps in the jockeys hall of fame shortly and will add in trainers and horses over the next six months or so. Suggestions welcome

[Old Vic]

Willie Wumpkins added ( Willie was a horse if you are wondering).

[Yeehaa]

Willie Wumpkins added ( Willie was a horse if you are wondering).

Nice Willie Wumpkins story here

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Willie+Wumpkins+put+my+guests+right+in+the+box+seat%3B+ALASTAIR+DOWN%27S...-a0248704334

Willie Wumpkins put my guests right in the box seat; ALASTAIR DOWN'S FESTIVAL TALES: Unemployed and in receipt of pounds 12.74 a week benefit was no bar to our columnist watching the action from his own box.

FEW people are fortunate enough to have a private box at the Cheltenham Festival in their early 20s - fewer still manage to enjoy such a luxury when unemployed and on pounds 12.74 a week.

But back in 1979 I was in no hurry to get anything as inconvenient as a proper job - a state of affairs that some insist remains true to this day.

Instead, I used to work all hours on farms in the summer to fund a sustained jumps blitz through the winter, helped by a weekly top-up of just under 13 quid from Her Majesty's government, whose employment office in deepest Kent had been unable to find me work as a poet, deep sea diver or astronaut, which were the sort of things you put on the "desired job" forms in the certain knowledge they would not be able to accommodate you.

Many good things come to those who deserve them least and six weeks before the 1979 festival a family friend rang and said he felt too old to face the hurly-burly of the big meeting and he wondered whether I would like his box for a day.

The box was not down at the nobby royal end - where you can get one only if your forebears came over with William The Conqueror - but was about five yards past the winning line in a stand long gone. It was the first box in the building and its balcony an unsurpassed vantage point.

Various forms came through the post outlining options for food for the anticipated 12 guests that the box would hold. They went straight in the bin because we didn't want any of that food nonsense and I'd asked 30 people already.

Nor was drink ordered as a bottle of gin cost the same as a small family car and everyone had been told that admission to the shindig was by a half bottle of spirits cunningly concealed about their person and that I would supply mixers and a few bottles of wine to keep the girls happy(ish).

Come the day, the two grey-haired ladies from 1970s Racecourse Catering Central Casting, named Ivy, Daphne or Queenie, were surprised to find they had no lunch to serve and that their normally civilised box was staging a remake of the Black Hole of Calcutta.

But by the end of the afternoon they had more money pinned on them than a bride at a mafia wedding and had turned down endless offers of marriage from a crowd about a third of their age and a far smaller fraction of their common sense.

Disregarding unimportant races like the Champion Chase, the punting nub of the afternoon was the third race - the Coral Golden Hurdle Final, then the holy grail of fiendish plots with virtually none of the runners having run on their merits for at least the previous six outings.

But for once in my life I fancied the favourite and informed the assembled sardines that Little Owl was a shoo-in and that they should bet like kicking donkeys accordingly.

AT THIS point a hitherto welcome interloper, a friend of a great friend, piped up that he had been riding out a thing called Willie Wumpkins which had been primed for the race for longer than it takes to raise a family of four, had the ground he needed, was thrown in and in the form of his life.

Drawing myself up to my full width I informed this deluded nincompoop that it was six years since Willie Wumpkins had won as a novice at the festival, that he was old enough to vote and would carry more overweight than I did for the services of his amateur pilot Jim Wilson. I may also have added that when in the presence of a genius (me) he might do well to keep quiet and spare my friends ludicrous losers in future.

After Willie Wumpkins had thrashed Little Owl at 25-1 my Toad of Toad Hall demeanour took a slight knock, but many folk rightly ignored me and lumped on the great animal as I was to do for the next two years when that god of a horse repeated the feat at the age of 12 and 13.

Most people seemed to back either Arctic Ale (20-1) in the four-miler or the ageless Casbah (5-1) in the last and by dusk all was merry bedlam.

Among the guests was a huge character in more ways than one, who always introduced himself "The VI" or "The Vast Indian". Standing well over 6ft and possessed of a tremendous girth, he was of Samoan extraction, but found it easier to trade as the VI than his born name of Na'ama Seilala Muagututia or similar.

Late in the day I spotted him standing on the balcony smoking what can only be described as a colossal, exotic cheroot from which great clouds of intoxicating smoke, strong enough to fell a mule, were engulfing the occupants of the neighbouring balcony, including an increasingly mellow-looking trainer still relatively fresh from his famous Mackeson-Hennessy-King George treble. I left the VI to it, but have never quite been able to look Peter Cundell in the eye to this day.

Eventually the party broke up and later reports revealed that four survivors, including the central behind-the-scenes genius who was to help bring the Olympics to London, awoke in the early hours next morning in a cold dark carriage in a railway sidings somewhere outside Paddington. They must have had a great day. They were not alone.

[Rhinestone Cowboy]

Seems only the NH scene gets anyone motivated to post around here. Persian War is one you should profile.

You will get a good base from this fine article:

http://www.famousracehorses.co.uk/persianwar.htm

PERSIAN WAR

by Tony Ward

Broken teeth, knocked unconscious, severe illness, fractured femur, leg injury, endless campaigns, inconsiderate owner - the courageous story of Persian War - winner of three Champion Hurdles.

Persian War, by Persian Gulf out of the Chanteur II mare, Warning, started his racing life on the flat. He was trained by Dick Hern and carried the colours of his breeder Jakie Astor in his first two seasons, when he won two small staying races in the autumn of his three year old days.

He was bought as a potential hurdler by David Leyland-Naylor after that and sent to Tom Masson at Lewes, where he soon showed he was a cut above the average juvenile.

Masson thought a great deal of the big dark bay horse and actually backed him to win the 1967 Champion Hurdle as a four year old, a feat not achieved since Forestation did it in 1942.

Persian War was badly baulked by the eventual winner Capablanca in his first venture over timber and did well to recover and finish second. He then chalked up three on the trot, almost literally, and it was the last of these wins that sealed his fate. It was the televised Kintbury Hurdle at Newbury, which Persian War, ridden by Bunny Hicks, won by eight lengths. He was spotted by Henry Alper, a businessman who was considering buying a racehorse. He set his heart on the brilliant youngster he had seen on the screen. Alper had to go to more than £9000 to get the horse from Masson and his owner. It was a record for a hurdler at the time and turned out to be a bargain.

Alper sent his new aquisition to Brian Swift, who had just set up his own yard at Epsom. He got part of the purchase price back a week later when Persian War, ridden by jimmy Uttley, won the Chalow Hurdle at Newbury. The four year old, on Swift's advice, missed the festival and went for his own age group's championship, the Triumph Hurdle,, then run at the April meeting. His last run before Cheltenham was the Friary Meux Gold Cup Hurdle at Kempton, and here Persian War encountered the first of many mishaps that were to pepper his career. He hit the sixth hurdle hard and could only finish third to Acrania and Te Fou. On his return to the saddling enclosure he had blood pouring from his mouth and it was discovered that he had bitten through his tongue and knocked two teeth out.

He soon recovered and five weeks later at Cheltenham went ahead approaching the last and came up the hill strongly enough to hold off the fast finishing Te Fou. He deserved a rest and that summer he got one. His only objective was the Champion and when he won the the Wyld Court Hurdle at Newbury by 25 lengths, it seemed only a matter of getting him to the post to collect.

But Persian War attracted more than his share of accident and illness. A week after Newbury it was decided to send him to Cheltenham to pick up the Lansdown Hurdle prize money, a formality on paper. It was an evil day with rain lashing and wind howling. The day's misery was completed when Persian War slipped going into the second last, hit the top bar with his head and knocked himself out. He lay there in the mud for several minutes and those in the stands feared the worst. But happily no lasting damage was sustained.

There was another cloud on the horizon, A foot-and-mouth outbreak in Britain stopped racing and Alper decided it would be a good idea for his horse to be shipped over to France. Swift, with the horse's welfare and future at heart did not agree. Persian War was moved and sent to a little known trainer at Chantilly. He there contracted a severe internal chill and was in a sorry state when sent back to England, or rather Wales, by the picked by by Alper as his new trainer, Colin Davies.

It was with Davies, a shrewd and articulate trainer and businessman, that the horse truly showed his quality. He recovered from his illness quickly, he was an exceptionally tough horse, physically and mentally. He ran two fine seconds under big weights within a week at the end of January 1968.
persianwar.jpg (6732 bytes) Persian War leads Major Rose and Sempervivum over the final flight in the 1968 Schweppes Gold Trophy Hurdle.

He was entered in the Schweppes as part of the build up to Cheltenham and Davies would have happy with finishing in the first three. He carried 11st 13lb and gave what was arguably the best performance of his career that day. There were 33 runners, the most that there had been in the races 16 runnings. They included top-class handicappers like Sempervivum, Stubbs II, Kirriemuir, Hill House, Louis Boy and Black Justice.

The betting concerned only Persian War and Major Rose, a six year old trained by Ryan Price who had won four out of five Schweppes so far. He would have won his fifth without Persian War around. Major Rose ran a fine race and tackled Persian War at the last. The pair duelled to the line but it was the younger horse who was the stronger, sticking his head out to score by half a length. He was giving Major Rose 5lbs and set a weight carrying record.

Incredibly, he did not start favourite for the Champion, that privilege went to Tom Jones's lightly raced Chorus II, winner of the Ackerman Skeaping at Sandown, but the issue was never in doubt from the moment Persian War took the lead two from home. He won by a long looking four lengths.

The going that day was firm. When he won his second title the following year it was heavy and in the hat-trick year, 1970, it was good to yielding, proof that he could operate in the highest class in any conditions.

But each time it had been a hard road, and on occasions, harder than necessary. His owner insisted in racing him in France in the summer, which would have been fine if the horse had a rest afterwards. But he also wanted to campaign Persian War on the Flat in the Autumn, which meant he never got the break he deserved.

At the start of the 1968-1969 season he got the break he didn't deserve. Running in a minor event at Worcester he slipped and fell on the flat. When he got up he was badly lame and it transpired that he had fractured his femur and chipped a piece of bone off the end.

But true to form, he bounced back to take his second title at Cheltenham.

In his third Championship year his wind had begun to go. The courageous horse won only once that season, but it was the one that mattered.

After that season Alper took his horse away from Davies, who had served him well, after a disagreement over the sale of another horse in Davies's yard. Persian War, then coming eight was sent to Arthur Pitt.

Persian War's health jinx struck again when he had to have a tooth removed and lost gallons of blood during the operation. The skilful Pitt got him back on the road and won the 1970 Sweeps Hurdle at Fairyhouse with him. The horse carried top weight to victory. He made a gallant bid for a four timer at Cheltenham but had to give best, by four lengths, to the new young star, Bula. He did put his old rival Major Rose in his place once more, though.

The old horse's last race that season was the Scottish Champion Hurdle, where he was unplaced and clearly on the downgrade. Any caring owner would surely retired him at that point. But Alper changed his home again, sending him to Dennis Rayson's little yard at Exning, outside Newmarket. It was for Rayson, that we won his last and 18th race, the Latecomers Hurdle at Stratford in June 1972 a race worth £374. It was heartbreaking to see the old champion reduced to beating nonentities. His last race was back at Cheltenham when he finished second last in the Broadway Hurdle in January.

The crunch with Rayson came shortly afterwards. Alper hit on the bright idea of schooling the old horse over fences. Rayson refused and Persian War was sent to Jack Gibson near Cheltenham. Mercifully, perhaps, Persian War hurt a leg shortly afterwards, not seriously, but enough to keep him out of training for the rest of that season. He did come back enough to go back into work and was even being prepared for another tilt at the Festival, the County Hurdle being the nominated race, but bruised a leg on the eve of it and at last Alper announced the champions retirement.

Eventually, Alper was talked out of such plans and Persian War went to his final home, with former Royal jockey Harry Carr at the Genesis Green Stud at Wickham Brook, just outside Newmarket. He lived there for ten happy and at last, dignified years. Finally his old legs began to go and he found it difficult to get up and down. He was peacefully put down before the winter began.

In his seven year jumping career he had no fewer than six trainers. He was the ultimate champion and had he been in the ownership of a more knowledgeable racing man, could have achieved even greater heights.

[Old Vic]

Fred Winter added http://www.fatjockey.com/cheltenham-...Fred-Winter-67

and Persian War for Rhinestone. Thanks for the article.

[Rhinestone Cowboy]

Nice to have that bit of video of Mandarin...first drawn to this horse by postings of the now banned pinza on the racing forum. He has good blog here http://pinzauk.com/2011/11/24/37/

Oaksey wrote a good piece about it :

FROM Agincourt to D-Day, France, I suppose, has been the scene of more brave deeds by Englishmen than any other country in the world. Mostly, of course, they were inspired by the horrid waste of war, but sport, in its less serious tragic way, can also lift a man to heights of daring and achievement, and as Fred Winter and Mandarin came back last Sunday after wining the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris, I like to think that the ghosts of long-dead English horsemen rode beside them, glad and proud to know that the flag for which they fought and died still flies, even in this sad, dull, mechanical age. o win at all would have been a famous victory - to win as Winter and Mandarin did was an heroic triumph over odds so steep that no normal man or horse could have been blamed for giving up long before the end.

None of this, of course, could even be guessed at, as, in the atmosphere of a Turkish bath, the 14-runners swept gaily past the stands for the first of three intricate, twisting circuits. So far as one could see in the friendly but chaotic tangle that serves Auteuil for a parade ring, the French horses were not a wildly impressive sight. Nor, to someone who had never seen him before, would Mandarin have been, but to the large band of English supporters, the sheen on his coat, the hard muscles writhing over his quarters and the way he pulled `Mush' Foster round the paddock, all told their own encouraging tale.

Sure enough, after flicking neat and fast over the preliminary hurdle jumped on the way to the start, Mandarin was soon upsides in front and past the stands pulling, as usual, like a train. He has always been a `heavy-headed' ride, with precious feeling in his mouth, and always runs in a rubber-covered snaffle to save his lips and jaws.

At the beginning of last season a brand new bridle was bought and Mandarin had worn it only half a dozen times, including his victories both in the Hennessy and Cheltenham Gold Cups. But the trouble with rubber bits is that a fault or wear can develop unseen
in the steel chain - and this, no doubt, is what happened now.

After the first, sharp, left-hand bend the Grand Steeple-Chase course comes back towards the stands and there, going to the fourth, a soft but staring privet fence the best part of 6ft high, the bit snapped clean in the middle, inside Mandarin's mouth. I remember thinking at the time, "He got a little close to that one," but for a full circuit none of us in the stands realised the dreadful truth.

In fact, of course, Winter now had no contact whatsoever with the horse's mouth or head. The reins, kept together by the Irish martingale (or `rings') were still round Mandarin's neck, and they, together with the thick neck-strap of the breast girth, were Winter's only hand-hold.

To visualise the full impossibility of the situation you must remember first that when a racehorse, particularly a hard-pulling chaser, is galloping on the bit, much of the jockey's weight is normally balanced, through the reins, against that of a horse's head and forehand.
Now, for both Winter and Mandarin, this vital counterbalance was gone completely. The man, with no means of steering but his weight, had to rely entirely on grip and balance; the horse, used to a steady pressure on his mouth, had to jump 21 strange and formidable obstacles with his head completely free - a natural state admittedly, but one to which Mandarin is wholly unaccustomed.

Small wonder then, that, at the huge `Riviere de la Tribune' - the water in the front of the stands - he fiddled awkwardly, landing only inches clear of the bank and disaster. Thereafter, save for a nasty moment at the same fence next time round, the little horse jumped unbelievably well, and Winter, sitting still or driving on as the need arose, matched his every move with the sympathetic rhythm that is nine-tenths of horsemanship.

But the fences, needless to say, were only half the problem. Walking the course that morning with Winter, Dave Dick and Joe Lammin, Fulke Walwyn's head lad, we had all wondered afresh at the many turns, and countless opportunities for loosing your way.

The Grand Steeple-Chase is roughly two figures of eight in opposite directions and one whole circuit outside both. There are at least four bends through 180 degrees and to negotiate them all as Winter and Mandarin did, without bit or bridle was, quite literally, miraculous.

The answer lies, of course, in many things - in the matchless strength of Winter's legs, in Mandarin's own good sense, and in the absolute determination of them both never to give up while there was one shot, however forlorn, left on the board.

It is also, I think, only fair to give some credit - and our thanks - to the French jockeys, several of whom, had they pleased, could have taken advantage of the disaster and, without much risk to themselves, got rid of the biggest danger. Instead, at least one - Laumas on Taillefer, and probably several others, actually did their best to help, proving gloriously that the comradeship of dangers shared can, in some sports at least, count far more than international rivalry.

Throughout the race, save for a moment on the last bend, Mandarin was up in the first four and, as he jumped the Riviere for the last time, the full horror of his situation dawned upon us in the stands.

From that moment on, the nerve-racking suspense, the wild, impossible hope, plunging to black despair and back again, were like nothing I have ever known on a racecourse - or, for that matter, anywhere else.

Mandarin cleared with ease the tricky posts and rails at which he hesitated fatally three years ago, and came to the junction of the courses a close fourth - close enough to lift the hearts of those who knew his and Winter's invincible finishing power.

But now disaster almost struck. Before the last right-handed turn, a large bush must be passed on the left - but can, with equal ease, be passed on the right. Mandarin, on the inside, with no rail to guide him, could not know until the last moment which way to go. For a few heart- stopping strides he hesitated, Winter threw all his strength and weight into one last desperate swerve - and somehow they were safe.

But priceless lengths had been lost and now, round the final bend, with only two obstacles to jump, Mandarin was only fifth, some six or seven lengths behind the leader.

On the turn, of course, Winter could hardly ride at all, but then, facing the Bullfinch, in a straight line for home at last, it was a different matter. From the stands, we saw the familiar crouching drive of his shoulders, and Mandarin, responding as he always has and always will, thrust out his gallant head and went for the Bullfinch like a tank facing tissue paper.

None will ever know what the little horse felt or thought between those last two fences. I have always believed he knows just what it means to win - and now none will ever convince me otherwise. In a hundred desperate yards he passed three horses as if they were walking, as he landed in front on the long run-in, my eyes, I am not ashamed to say, were half-blind with tears.

But it was not over yet. Mandarin was deadly tired and Winter, the reins gathered useless in his left hand, could do nothing to hold him together. He could only push and drive, and how he drove. Even so, inch by inch, Lumino, the only French horse able to accelerate, crept nearer and nearer.

In the final desperate strides, not knowing the angle, not one of us could really tell who had won. Winter thought he had got up, but he could not speak, so for several ghastly moments we had to sweat it out. By then, there it was - No. 1 in the frame - and as Mandarin came back, mobbed as no film star has ever been, head down, dog-tired, sweating - but surely happy - a cheer went up such as I have never heard on any racecourse.

For Winter, it was not the end. Riding a dream of a race, he went on, 40 minutes later, to win the Grand Course de Haies on Beaver. I have neither time nor space to describe that race and, triumph though it was for Beaver's trainer, Ryan Price, it served only as the perfect ending to an historic afternoon.

For on Sunday, Fred Winter and Mandarin had earned themselves a place among the immortal names of sport. I have never seen a comparable feat, never expect to - and can only thank God that I was there.

race result

1962 Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris

1 Mandarin Ff3.00; 1.60

2 Lumino 2.50

3 Oaradon 1.60

Owner: Mme Peggy Hennessy

Trainer: Fulke Walwyn

Jockey: Fred Winter

Distances: hd, 21/2l

[Statto]

A couple of Fred Winter obituaries...

[QUOTE]Fred Winter, who has died aged 77, dominated the world of steeplechasing between 1950 and 1980, first as a jockey, and latterly as a trainer. He was one of only two men in the postwar era to become both champion jockey and champion trainer, and one of only three to ride and train a Grand National winner.

He was champion jockey on four occasions, and won the training championship eight times. But it was his powerful personality that set him apart. He had a determination and dominance that struck awe and respect into his rivals and, unwittingly, fear and trepidation into his staff and the racing press.

Winter was born into a horseracing family. His father, Fred Sr, had been a hugely successful apprentice jockey before the first world war, winning the Oaks on Cherimoya at the age of 16, and earning the title of champion apprentice. Fred Jr, who was born in Andover, Hampshire, also began his career on the flat, and weighed 5st 7lb at the time of his first ride in public, aged 13. His brother John became a successful flat-race trainer at Newmarket, while his sister Pat married the five-times champion jockey Doug Smith.

Fred Sr, at the time a trainer at Epsom, provided his son with his first winner, at Salisbury on May 15 1940. Two weeks later, after his second winner, it was decided that Fred should leave Ewell College and become apprenticed to his father's friend Henry Jelliss, who ran a larger stable at Newmarket.

But his career did not flourish: he rode only two winners from 80 rides, his weight shot up to 8st 7lb, and after returning to work again for his father, he joined the army in 1944, earning the rank of lieutenant in the 6th Battalion Parachute Regiment and serving nine months in Palestine. In December 1947, after four years in the Airborne Division, he returned to civilian life, with no educational qualifications and too heavy to ride on the flat.

Luckily, Winter's father was now training a few jumpers, as well as flat racers, at South fleet, Kent, and at the Kempton Boxing Day meeting, Fred had his first ride under National Hunt rules. Within 24 hours, he had ridden the first of the 923 winners he gained over a period of 17 seasons.

A month later, his career almost ended before it had taken off. Taking a hopeless "spare" ride at Wye Races, his mount fell at the first hurdle, leaving its rider with two broken vertebrae. Winter was obliged to lie on his back for three months, in considerable pain, questioning both his courage and appetite for his new profession.

He returned to race-riding in September 1949. Within days, he had ridden a winner and, by the end of the season, had established a jockey-trainer partnership with the legendary Captain Ryan Price, a former commando, then training at Findon, that was to flourish for 16 seasons. Within three years, he had become champion jockey, with a record-at-the-time of 121 winners, though on the first day of the following season, he smashed his leg in several places and was out of action for several months.

In the years to come, Price and Winter won the Champion Hurdle three times, the Triumph Hurdle twice, and the Grand National, with Kilmore, in 1962. Winter regained his jockey's title in the 1955-56 season, and held on to it for three seasons.

He was now riding better and better horses for other stables, including Halloween, Mandarin and Saffron Tartan. Halloween, an ex-point-to-pointer, bought by the Contessa di Sant'Elia, was proving an expensive failure in the hands of professional jockeys. However, Fred discovered from his original amateur jockey that the secret of riding Halloween was to leave him to make his own decisions. Together, they won 17 races, including the King George VI Chase twice.

On Mandarin, a small, French-bred horse, he won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1962, and, three months later, the Grand Steeple de Paris at Auteuil, Paris. This was the most memorable riding performance of his career. Violently ill from starving himself to make the weight, he was faced with the terrifying scenario of riding without any form of steering, after Mandarin's bit broke early in the race. But the combination of Winter's determination, Mandarin's courage, and some steering help from the French jockeys, helped the horse gain a thrilling success, despite having suffered a tendon injury some way from the finish.

Saffron Tartan gave Winter his first Gold Cup triumph at Cheltenham in 1961 when, at the age of 34, it seemed that the race had become a jinx for him. He retired from riding in 1964, and became the first jockey to be awarded the CBE for his services to racing.

He then started out on a new career in a manner without precedent. After the Jockey Club turned down his application for a position as assistant starter, Winter reluctantly took out a licence to train, a skill for which he was, in many ways, ill-equipped. Indeed, few trainers had asked him to school horses - or teach them to jump - because he was unenthusiastic and had spent little time around stables.

Yet in each of his first two seasons, Winter trained the winner of steeplechasing's most elusive prize, the Grand National, first with the American horse Jay Trump in 1965, and then with the 50/1 outsider Anglo in 1966.

After that, he never looked back. Based at Uplands stables in Lambourn, he built a team of horses, jockeys and stable staff that were to dominate the sport for the next 15 years. He won the Gold Cup with Midnight Court (1978); the Champion Hurdle with Bula (1971-72) and Lanzarote (1974); the King George VI Chase with Pendil (1972-73); and the Two Mile Champion Chase with the brilliant Australian horse Crisp, who was later to succumb to Red Rum in the greatest Grand National in living memory.

In 1970-71, Winter wrested the Trainers' Championship from Fred Rimell - his only postwar predecessor as champion jockey and trainer - and retained the title in six of the next seven years. In 1973-74, he became the first jumping trainer to win prize money in excess of £100,000 in a season; at the same time, he built a powerful stable of National Hunt jockeys, including Richard Pitman and John Francome.

There were, of course, many heartbreaks to match the triumphs, notably the fatal fall of the popular Killiney at Ascot in 1973, and the loss of Lanzarote and Bula following falls at Cheltenham in 1977. In the spring of 1973, Winter's sporting instincts were taken to extremes by the defeat of Pendil and Crisp in the very last strides of the Gold Cup and Grand National respectively.

Winter suffered a stroke in 1980, after which both his health and the stable's fortunes started to wane. Seven years later, a second stroke, accompanied by a fall on the stairs, ended his career as a trainer, and brought the loss of his speech and writing ability. He spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair, but enjoyed the company of old friends and often attended racing functions, where he was warmly welcomed. Throughout his life, he was admired for his integrity, resolution and fierce determination to win.

Winter's link with racing was maintained through the success of his former assistants Nick Henderson and Charlie Brooks (now a journalist) as trainers, as well as Pitman and Francome, who rode Winter's only Gold Cup winner and, in his early days as a stable lad, often bore the brunt of the trainer's early morning grumpiness.

One day, after Francome had driven a car to the wrong location and stammered his apologies, Winter growled: "That's all right, son; it's not your fault, it's my fault. You're so bloody stupid, I should have put up a blackboard and written your instructions on it." But his bark was always worse than his bite.

He leaves his wife Diana, whom he married in 1956, and three daughters, Denise, Joanna and Philippa.

· Frederick Thomas Winter, jockey and racehorse trainer, born September 20 1926; died April 5 2004
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[Statto]

Terms like great and hero are much devalued nowadays by being applied to so many nonentities and underachievers in popular and sporting culture. Which is a shame, because Fred Winter, who died yesterday at the age of 77, was truly a great man and a hero, in deeds, in words, in attitudes, in demeanour, in life.

Terms like great and hero are much devalued nowadays by being applied to so many nonentities and underachievers in popular and sporting culture. Which is a shame, because Fred Winter, who died yesterday at the age of 77, was truly a great man and a hero, in deeds, in words, in attitudes, in demeanour, in life.

He was a great, and arguably the greatest, jump jockey. He then became a great, and very nearly the greatest, trainer of steeplechasers and hurdlers, one of the few to make an indelible mark in both spheres. His exploits, and one in particular, were heroic in fact and in their ability to inspire others. Yet his natural modesty and kindness remained with him all his life.

The facts are that in his career in the saddle, from 1947-64, he was champion jockey four times, and won all the big races, including Grand Nationals on Sundew and Kilmore, Cheltenham Gold Cups on Saffron Tartan and Mandarin, Champion Hurdles on Clair Soleil, Fare Time and Eborneezer and King George VI Chases on Halloween and Saffron Tartan. As a trainer, he took eight titles between 1971 and 1985 and the Grand National in each of his first two seasons, with Jay Trump and Anglo. He also won the Cheltenham Gold Cup with Midnight Court, Champion Hurdles with Bula, Lanzarote and Celtic Shot, and a Champion Chase with Crisp. But his best was Pendil, the dual King George VI Chase winner.

Other jump jockeys have won more championships and accumulated more career victories, but Winter set the benchmark by which all are still measured, Tony McCoy not excepted. He was physically extraordinarily strong and had an indomitable will to win, but he was also a horseman of the highest order. All those qualities were never seen to greater effect than on the Fulke Walwyn-trained Mandarin in the 1962 Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris at Auteuil, an epic ride if ever there was one.

The Grand Steeple course is a twisting four-mile figure-of-eight. The ground that day was heavy; Winter was weakened by wasting to do 9st 10lb on Beaver in the big hurdle race later in the day and Mandarin, talented but wayward and fragile-legged, wooden-headedly tugged himself into the lead from the start. At the third of 24 obstacles the rubber bit broke in the 11-year-old's mouth and Winter was left with neither brakes nor steering.

Incredibly, horse and rider carried on, the courage of one complementing the balance and strength of the other. A mistake and a swerve at the water cost Mandarin ground but at the second last, the bullfinch, he burst through into the lead once more and held on, all out, to win by a short-head from Lumino. Winter, though exhausted, found the steel to win on Beaver in the very next race.

With a CBE, Winter was the first jumps jockey to be rewarded for services to racing in the honours list and by setting the highest standards of integrity he enhanced the reputation of his branch of the sport. The tale is told of how, instructed in the paddock by an owner in the stable of Ryan Price, his retaining trainer, not to win, he looked at that owner hard through narrowed eyes and told him he had better back his horse, because it would win. And it did.

That he was destined for success as a trainer was soon evident but it was typical of him that as his Uplands stables expanded he upgraded the accommodation for staff before that of horses. Very few who worked for him left willingly.

There were disappointments to bear - the deaths of Lanzarote and Bula through falls; the narrow defeats of Pendil in the Gold Cup and Crisp in the National - but Winter took such reverses with grace. "He was the same in victory and defeat, and that takes a great man," Richard Pitman, his first stable jockey, said yesterday. "And regardless of racing, he would have been a great man at something else. To have worked for your hero is a marvellous thing, because we normally admire such people only from afar."

Winter retired from training in 1988 after suffering a stroke, and his wife, Diana, has been his devoted carer ever since. John Francome, seven-times champion jockey, was attached to the stable for all his 15-year career. "He was really loyal and inspired loyalty," he said. "He was just an amazing guy, what you would call a really good man."
[/QUOTE]

[Statto]

Charlie Swan interview with English independent nearly 2 years ago December 1992

C

CHARLIE SWAN has won the National Hunt jockeys' title in Ireland for the last three years and is on his way to a fourth championship. Last month he broke Martin Molony's 1950 record of 92 jumps winners in a calendar year, and on Saturday he completed Ireland's first calendar century. But Swan does not consider himself the Republic's outstanding jumps rider.

Pressed for the names of men he considers to be his equal, Swan sounds like a schoolteacher taking the register. 'Brendan Sheridan, Mickey Flynn, Kevin O'Brien, Tom Taaffe, Conor O'Dwyer, and a lot of other jockeys over here ride the very same as I do,' he says. 'I'm no better than them.

'All the time I've been riding I've had lots of good owners and trainers behind me and a lot of my success is down to luck. Everything just has to go right for you, and it has for me.'

Self-deprecation is a large part of Swan, 24, and is one of the reasons he is so popular and widely utilised within Irish racing. There are, undoubtedly, points of good fortune that illuminate his upward path, and it is therefore ironic that it was an apparent bad turn that propelled him on his way.

A product of pony club competition, Swan had determined he was going to be a jockey by the age of 10, and, five years later, without any serious qualification to his name, he virtually ran away from school to join the racing circuit with Kevin Prendergast's yard.

A career as a professional on the Flat beckoned until Swan broke his leg while challenging for the apprentices' title in 1986. By the time the plaster was removed, there was more of Swan than he would have liked and creeping weight forced him into the winter game.

Swan's weight these days of 9st 7lb is ideal for National Hunt racing, enabling him to take mounts his rivals cannot. When he does have to battle the scales, the jockey endures bathing time to match Marat, lying in salted water, wearing a shower cap, for an hour, a regime that can account for 4lb.

'My weight helps and my Flat experience is a big help,' he says. 'I know how to balance a horse and I learned how to push them.'

To push them to the limit. Not the least of Swan's talents is his ability to galvanise a horse on the run to the line, a forcefulness which is a match for any rider.

The jockey's first brush with serendipity came shortly after he left Prendergast for Dessie Hughes's yard. 'I'd been there only a few months and Tom (Morgan) got an offer to go to England, so I ended up getting the job as first jockey,' he says. 'I got going because I was there at the right time.'

Two years later, Swan turned down an offer to join Nick Henderson's stable in Lambourn and linked instead with another Irish trainer, 'Mouse' Morris. Again, good fate followed him as he tuned into a powerful stable just when the jockeys' room was stripped of some of its more successful inhabitants.

'Charlie's timing was good,' Ted Walsh, 11 times champion amateur rider in Ireland, says. 'Tommy Carmody and Frank Berry had both just retired, some of the lads who had been riding just behind them had maybe lost their youth, and Charlie was hungry and grabbing to get there.'

'He's a very likeable fellow, which helps, and he's got a lot of natural horsemanship about him. When you get there and you get established, like he's done, you should stay unless you do something very drastically wrong or the hand of fate goes against you.'

Fate, though, rarely turns against Charlie Swan. He cultivates good luck. Like Gary Lineker, his is an image of sporting correctness that a mother would struggle to design, and he shelters himself as much as he can from the possibility of injury.

Swan considers his health more important than the riding fee of IR pounds 67 and refuses mounts he considers dangerous; in addition, he is never loath to pull up a struggling chaser that could harm both sides of the partnership with a fall.

Even his decision to terminate ties with Morris this year has been proved correct as Cahervillahow and Trapper John, the leading inmates at Everardsgrange, appear to be diminished talents. Now Swan's hopes at Cheltenham, where Trapper John provided him with his only Festival victory two years ago, rest principally with Tiananmen Square and Destriero.

The former, unbeaten in two races since going over timber, is among the leading early candidates for the Supreme Novices' Hurdle, while there are hopes that the winner of that race two years ago, Destriero, can regain his poise for the Champion Hurdle.

Victory at Prestbury Park in March would give vent to racing's toothiest smile. 'I'm hoping that Destriero will show he's back at Leopardstown at Christmas,' Swan says. 'All he needs is a bit of luck.' In which case, he is being ridden by the right man.

[Hoof]

Seems like a good place for Moscow Flyer piece ( about the Tingle Creek)

Tony McFadden looks back on Moscow Flyer's thrilling win in the 2004 Tingle Creek Chase, beating old adversary Azertyuiop and the up-and-coming Well Chief...

There are few finer sights in racing than watching two-mile chasers of the highest calibre stream over the railway fences in the Tingle Creek Chase, attacking the trio of obstacles with real speed and precision, aiming to secure one of the most prestigious races in the calendar. Named after the flamboyant champion who thrilled the Sandown Park faithful with exuberant and spectacular rounds of jumping, the Tingle Creek invariably draws the cream of the crop; there are very few imposters among the race's illustrious roll of honour. Only champions need apply.

Naturally, some renewals are more eagerly anticipated than others. For instance, the presence of an all-time great tends to put numbers on the gate as spectators flock to the course keen to show their appreciation, hoping to gain a glimpse of a champion in action. In the absence of one vastly superior horse, the prospect of a thrilling duel between the main protagonists can also raise the level of anticipation, fans putting their faith behind one of the contenders in the form of cold, hard cash, hoping their opinion can lead to a financial windfall.

The 2004 Tingle Creek Chase was the rarest of beasts, combining both scenarios, attracting not one but two champions in the form of Moscow Flyer and Azertyuiop; a thrilling duel looked sure to ensue. Their rivalry was well established but, for one reason or another, no firm conclusions regarding their respective merits could be drawn from either of their prior encounters; the Tingle Creek was set to be decisive, played out in front of 16,300 racegoers: a record for a National Hunt fixture at Sandown.

Tension, anticipation and excitement preceded the 2004 Tingle Creek. Those feelings continued to build among those in attendance until it was all let out in one eruption of emotion at the last of railway fences, the fourth-last fence of the race, as the popular veteran Moscow Flyer produced a spectacular leap, invoking an impassioned, fevered roar from his legion of supporters as he touched down in the lead.

It was a very different cry to the one which had emanated from the packed Cheltenham grandstand the last time he had met Azertyuiop, forfeiting his Champion Chase crown with a premature exit at the open ditch at the top of the hill, the fourth-last fence. Excitement was conspicuously absent as an utterly dejected and deflated moan went up, some simply disappointed at being deprived of a fascinating conclusion, more desolate from having lost the lot on the week's Irish banker.

Lapses in concentration, such as the one which cost him so dearly at Cheltenham, had become an unfortunate and intriguing feature of the Moscow Flyer story. Twice a beneficiary from the legendary Istabraq's tumbles over hurdles, Moscow Flyer had developed an enviable strike-rate over fences, winning 15 out of 20 starts prior to the 2004 Tingle Creek, failing to negotiate a clear round on the five occasions he didn't succeed. Perhaps that was part of Moscow's allure: he was a true champion who kept returning, producing top-class efforts in spite of showing a hint of vulnerability.

Any suggestion, however, that Moscow Flyer was a shoddy jumper was wide of the mark. As noted in the 2003/4 edition of Chasers and Hurdlers:
"Much has been written on the subject of his jumping but, though fallible, he is mostly fast and accurate."

Moscow Flyer's fast and accurate jumping was seen to great effect when it was most needed at Sandown. For only the second time since his Arkle win at the 2002 Cheltenham Festival, Moscow Flyer didn't enter the race as favourite, instead playing second fiddle to Azertyuiop in the mind of the punters. The doom-mongers were suggesting that he was due a fall, his career following the rather odd, but purely coincidental, pattern of winning three times before failing to complete. The rather more substantial doubt, however, was that he was simply facing a highly-talented rival at the peak of his powers, whereas, at the age of 10, Moscow was considered to be entering the twilight of his career. Most horses rising 11-years of age could be expected to be show some signs of deterioration, particularly those who had been operating at racing's top table for so long, but, fortunately for those retaining the faith in Jessie Harrington's superstar, Moscow Flyer was not most horses.

Cruelly robbed of the finale everyone wanted at Cheltenham, it was clear approaching the iconic Pond Fence that the Tingle Creek was going to live up to everything that it had promised. Picking up the running at the last of the railway fences, having travelled with the sort of enthusiasm that belied his years, Moscow Flyer, roared on by the vociferous crowd, took the right-handed turn on the approach to the third-last with main market rival Azertyuiop close up behind, and the largely overlooked Arkle winner Well Chief also firmly in contention.

Shortly after touching down over the Pond Fence, a confident look over his shoulder from Moscow Flyer's jockey Barry Geraghty caused another mini-eruption to emerge from the stands, the noise growing ever louder as the front trio swung for home, Moscow looking as if he was beginning to take control. He met the penultimate obstacle on the perfect stride, fluently clearing it and impressing with the speed in which he galloped away from the fence, opening up a two-length advantage over Azertyuiop and Well Chief, both of whom were being firmly driven and making little impression. In typical style, Moscow appeared to be idling, ears firmly pricked as his jockey asked him for one final effort at the last. He didn't disappoint, producing another foot-perfect leap, keeping his rivals at bay as they valiantly attempted to launch one final challenge up the Sandown hill. The challenge was futile; Moscow Flyer was always doing enough to maintain the deficit, retaining his Tingle Creek crown and, more importantly, securing his legacy as the best two-mile chaser of a golden generation.

That memorable success at Sandown was not to be the final hurrah of the remarkable career of Moscow Flyer. A return to Cheltenham resulted in Moscow Flyer regaining his Champion Chase title, this time Well Chief providing the sternest challenge as old adversary Azertyuiop blundered at the water jump, effectively forfeiting all chance.

Perhaps one reason that the 2004 Tingle Creek, above all other races, stands out so vividly in the mind is that it was the only time a truly satisfactory outcome was achieved in the mouth-watering clashes between Moscow Flyer and Azertyuiop. The latter named was judged to be short of fitness in the 2003 renewal, Moscow famously departed in the 2004 Champion Chase, while Azertyuiop blundered away all chance the following year. However, there were no excuses in the 2004 Tingle Creek, in spite of Azertyuiop's owner protesting that his mount should have challenged earlier.

In Timeform's 64-year history, few horses have proven to be as talented, dominant and durable as Moscow Flyer; he rightly secured the kind of devoted following that is reserved for true champions, occasionally disappointing with a poor jump, but more frequently delighting with slick and exciting rounds of fencing. His Tingle Creek triumph, beating two top-notch chasers in Azertyuiop and Well Chief, ensures that not only will he be recorded as the victor in one of the most thrilling races, but he will also be remembered as one of the all-time great steeplechasers.

[BigChaang]

Nice Willie Wumpkins story here

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Willie.....-a0248704334

Just came across this story , Love it !!.