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And I’m sure Badsworth Boy and Rathgorman used to run in the Castleford.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"They both won it. As did Pearlyman, Waterloo Boy (twice), Katabatic and Viking Flagship (twice).
That was in the days when it was a graded race. Now it has in effect been replaced by the Desert Orchid chase and been reduced to a handicap.
Delving into the archives, I have found an Aintree meeting held midweek in early December, but not any indication of a fixture in the Xmas/New Year period. Although the fact I haven’t found it, doesn’t mean it didn’t exist, because so many festive period fixtures in that era were lost to the weather.
As an example of day one of the early December meeting, on Dec 4th in 1963, it consisted of three chases (over the National fences), a selling hurdle, a handicap hurdle and a juvenile hurdle, all run over 2M. The 1963 version suffered from the modern curse of small fields, with fields of 2, 4 and 6 over fences and 5 in the selling hurdle.
Day two had two chases and four hurdles, and had better fields apart from just 3 in a 3M novice chase. Plenty of names familiar to someone of my vintage amongst the riders – Stan Mellor, Terry Biddlecombe, Josh Gifford and riding as amateurs over fences, the Duke of Alberquerque and Mr I Balding.
The last renewal I can find was in 1964 and it looks as if the fixture was taken over by Doncaster.
When they reorganised the NH pattern for the 1990/91 season, the Castleford Chase was the mid-season 2m Gd1 Chase; not the Tingle Creek, which was a Ltd H’Cap.
Why they added a 2m Chase to Kempton’s Christmas meeting, is anybody’s guess; another race not needed when there was already a perfectly good race at Wetherby.
Just doing some digging, and the old South West Pattern (formerly the Terry Biddlecombe/ Desert Orchid) Chase at Wincanton, is now the Old Roan Chase at Aintree.
“Although the fact I haven’t found it, doesn’t mean it didn’t exist.”
It probably did not exist, AP. I was merely going by a report in the “Liverpool Echo” and I doubt anyone there researched it in any detail!
It appears Newbury’s Christmas Fayre made a loss of £670,000. I am not sure how much of that loss is borne by the company which organised the fayre and how much by the racecourse – but it was hardly a roaring success.
I was once an annual member at “The Racecourse, Newbury” as it was then branded, and I didn’t pick a bad year to be one as, among other things, I saw Frankel win the Lockinge there.
You could drive right down to the Lockinge start, too, and there was a secret exit there to avoid traffic.
But tbh, I’ve always thought it a venue that looked better on TV than the reality and all the Yuppie housing merely adds to that impression.
It’s half an hour from me yet I never go there any more.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"
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