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Video here of a big crowd turing out for the new ‘wonder’ stand at Kempton on Rosebery Handicap day.
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=3584
This site is a gold mine of old racing history. Put Cheltenham into the search and you get several pages of film from old Gold Cups and it’s amateur equivalent, the N H Chase.
Try ‘id=5251’ for a fascinating idea of what Cheltenham was like pre war – if you hadn’t been told it was Cheltenham, I doubt if you could identify it from the film.
Another Cheltenham film, ‘id=12570’ is a classic of the sort of background music and commentary that Pathe considered appropriate – and we complain about Ch4!
AP
Fabulous stuff, Alan. It’s remarkable just how much some things have changed and how much some things have stayed the same.
Was that you in the Kempton ring trying to get a bit of 1000/80?!
Oh dear how the mighty has fallen! Great pictures though, the days of seeing those sorts of crowds at most courses is well and truly over.
By use of the search on that site, I’ve found film of races from Ascot, Alexandra Palace, Brighton, Doncaster, Epsom, Goodwood, Lincoln, Manchester, and Salisbury.
There’s also plenty of film from Ireland of Punchestown and past Irish nationals, as well races from abroad, like the Melbourne Cup.
Putting ‘bookmakers’ into the search also brings up some great vintage footage of tic tacs and on course bookies.
One thing that looked really odd was film of jockeys walking to the paddock at the 1949 Lincoln – they were all wearing thick overcoats on top of their colours. I wonder when this habit died out?
AP
A super site, thanks
On one clip – Dorothy Paget’s Mont Tremblant winning the Gold Cup, I think – the commentator (I use the term loosely) referred to a jockey being
thrown
from his horse, rather than the horse falling (which it did) or being unseated. Not a term we hear much today, during a race at least
The signature stirring Pathe rum-ti-tum oom-pah-pah makes-yer-proud-to-be-British music is always wonderful, though normally somewhat-to-totally out of keeping with what’s actually being filmed, as you say
What a marvellous resource indeed!
An absolute treasure of a site.
The Waterloo Cups from the 1920’s are of particular interest to me.Many thanks for putting this up.
Take a look at film ‘id=26523’, which is of the 1949 N H Chase at Cheltenham won by Lord Mildmay.
In the race coverage, you can clearly see at one point that the track is running parallel to a railway line – there’s a faller at one fence and you can see the old metal signal behind him, quite close to the course.
Now I know there’s a rebuilt track and station there now, but it’s a long way from the current course, so I wonder which has moved since those days. It suggests that the line of the chase course was very different then to what it is now.
AP
I noticed that too, AP, but I can’t answer your question.
Anyway thanks for putting up this link, which is a brilliant resource for all sorts of things. I’ve been lucky enough to find footage of my grandparents in the crowd at Punchestown in 1927.
From the Cheltenham Racecourse website:-
”1950s
The stands changed little between the 1930s and 1950s when the National Hunt Steeplechase course ran behind the back of the stands”using Google Maps we can see the original Station building right by the A435 roadbridge on the corner near the entrance to the course.
I think it’s possible to still see an outline of parts of the old NH chase course by following it back around the top of the car park along a hedge, there seems to be a track of sorts still visible here and there and conforms to what we see in the film to a degree.Ugly Mare beat me to it! There was certainly a chute which started close to the railway line and would have mown through what’s now the tented village, joining the course just before the run-in.
It’s not been published yet, and may actually still be in the latter stages of completion, but former Weatherbys Chase race-reader Peter Stevens has been writing a history of the National Hunt Chase for some time now. I’d expect a definitive answer as to the deployment of the chute (and for how long) to be included in that piece of work once it’s released – I know I’ll be wanting to buy a copy, for sure.
Those of you who’ve read Chris Pitt’s superb "A Long Time Gone" will know that the National Hunt Chase led a very itinerant existence until finally settling at Cheltenham. Long-since defunct courses such as Aylesbury played host to it before it was absorbed as part of the then two-day Cheltenham Festival in 1911.
Back to the Pathe side of this thread, the regulars at
Jumping For Fun
have had fun firing the term "point-to-point" into the search engine and seeing what crops up. Lots, as it happens. I enjoyed watching some splendid 1930s footage on there the other day. Some of the crowd’s ambivalence to the horses pelting towards them at high speed is real watch-through-cracks-of-fingers stuff!
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Some of the crowd’s ambivalence to the horses pelting towards them at high speed is real watch-through-cracks-of-fingers stuff!
Take a look at the ’53 Derby as the field come’s thundering towards Tattenham Corner.
Better Derby Day camera angles back then imo.
Superb site.
Those of you who’ve read Chris Pitt’s superb "A Long Time Gone" will know that the National Hunt Chase led a very itinerant existence until finally settling at Cheltenham. Long-since defunct courses such as Aylesbury played host to it before it was absorbed as part of the then two-day Cheltenham Festival in 1911.
I may while-away the Easter weekend searching for footage from the legion of racecourses in the book, though I guess even Pathe may struggle pre-WW1
In additon to those mentioned by APR Birmingham, Lanark, Bogside, Lewes, Hurst Park and Buckfastleigh would be particularly interesting
Of course the track at Cheltenham used to continue past the current finishing line and loop round to rejoin the course, going through what is now the stable yard.
In additon to those mentioned by APR Birmingham, Lanark, Bogside, Lewes, Hurst Park and Buckfastleigh would be particularly interesting
2010 footage of the last-named can be viewed by subscribers to Weatherbys Chase’s
Viewpoint
point-to-point video archive, the February meeting at that course having been recorded (I presume by Westcountry Videos).
The early December 2009 meeting of another former Rules course, Cottenham, is viewable via the same source, likewise last April’s meeting at the former Rugby racecourse at Clifton-on-Dunsmore.
Useful as historical scene-setters only to a point, of course, as whatever stands were ever at Clifton have long gone and you can’t see the remaining structures at the other two courses given the camera angles, but still a link to a very different racing calendar of times past nonetheless.
Pity the
Viewpoint
cameras haven’t as yet been to either Tweseldown or Dingley, both also former Rules and / or Bona Fide venues. Maybe later this term.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
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