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Thank you for the encouragement. i have 275 entries out of 800 done. Well, I say done, but it is capable of perpetual revision/checking. I would like to put it online before too long. I am on the lookout for a suitable Idiot’s Guide or one-day Adult Education course that will make it as simple as possible for me to start putting something on the web.
Thanks, Ruby. That Newton race didn’t feature in 1982, so it’s not on my list. Was it a regular event, and if so, roughly when? Adding races from other years will make the project last a few extra decades.
I compiled a list of old race names used by each racecourse in 1982 (excluding nearby villages, and sponsors) with a view to writing a few paragraphs about the derivation of each one. Explaining, for example, who was Jim Ford? What is Victor Ludorum? What is the temple referred to in the Temple Stakes, and so on.
It’s all in the rather esoteric interest of preserving some increasingly forgotten racing heritage. I’m glad to see some people here care about it. One day I hope to start putting it on a Jockeypedia-type website. I have about 800 names on my list and I’ve written mini-essays about a quarter of them.
1982 was an arbitrary choice, before sponsorship was completely rampant.
If any of you would like to chip in with contributions, however obscure, please answer here or message me. There’s no rush, this is taking me years.Jonathan Neesom on RTV is the man for form negatives. He is not afraid to identify dodgepots with fair form figures but who have shown signs of less than total gameness. I spoke to him at the races a few months ago and suggested he broadcast Neesoms Negatives to subscribers.
He gently declined the suggestion, recalling a long shot he’d rubbished years ago that won.Thanks again, everyone.
Ian, who or what was Welbred? (I am braced for the obvious jokes) And do you have “Horse Racing in Beverley and Yorkshire” by Ken Brooke? I only met Ken once, but he was a lovely chap and to say he was a regular at Beverley was an understatement. His little book also talks about Yorkshire trainers, jockeys, studs, journalists and racecourses past and present. Unusually, it has no contents page, so you never quite know what you’re going to read about next! I recommend it. He was awarded the BEM for good works – proper good works – and part of the book sales proceeds went to the IJF. I was sad to see he died in January.
I had to draw a line somewhere and sponsors’ names are on the other side of it, even though Whitbread, Hennessy, Mackeson, Magnet etc are embedded in our memories.
St Hugh’s is a prep school between Swindon and Oxford that I sometimes pass. Its catchment area includes Lambourn. St Hugh’s is also an Oxford college. The derivation of the Newbury race must be something to do with that, but I’m guessing; it is on my list of To Dos, along with hundreds of others.
That new not-Radley Stakes name is truly ghastly.
Tomorrow’s 4.33 at Ripon is the Happy 70th Birthday Duchess Dotty Cleevely Handicap. It’s not registered as anything, but I believe Ms Cleevely must have some nice kind friends.Seasider, I monitored all the race names in the Racing Post online throughout 2021 and listed them separately from my 1982 collection (mega-anorakish, I know).
Very few races in 2021 (according to the RP) carried “Registered As” in their descriptions. If they were incomplete I may well have missed some connections between past and present.
My 1982 collection took no heed of registeredness.
Though many names on the 1982 list have gone,the 2021 version is almost as long due to the popularity of memorial races for recently deceased friends and relatives, who were nothing to do with the racing industry. I suspect most of these titles will be short lived. Pun intended.I haven’t looked extensively, beyond finding that the Houghton meeting dates back to at least 1770, and that in 1765 HRH the Duke of Cumberland, between attending Newmarket meetings, stayed at Houghton Hall in Norfolk. Further research needed!
Thanks for the book recommendation and the speech – whose ending is eerily appropriate in this day and age. I am waiting for Admin to reply to my message about moving some of this into a separate Old Race Names thread in the hope that I can ask Forumites to chip in and we can all expand our knowledge/wallow in nostalgia.
The 2m start had a loop as well, so 4m races would start at the stand and go 2m there and 2m back.
Here is a better illustration of the 2m course.
https://www.oldmapsonline.org/map/nls/102347737
The loop is visible on an 1813 Ordnance Survey map, but I can’t find that image online right now. It might be deep in my (paper) archives.
Scrambles – also called Scurries – were fairly common consolation races for beaten horses, especially at minor meetings.Yes, there were indeed steeplechases at Epsom from 1850-54. The finish could be watched from the grandstand although the course itself ranged over Epsom Common, not the Derby course. There was a Great Metropolitan Steeplechase.
Seasider, I recall reading of one horse that bolted off from the 1m4f start down to Roedean, which is near where the 2m course started.
Ian, they used to have a few hurdle races in the 19th century.
Apracing, the Temple Stakes we know began at Sandown in 1965 but there was one in the 1880s. Bearing in mind there was a Claremont Handicap from its inception, with reference to the nearby stately home, it’s possible that early Temple Stakes was named after the ornamental temple in the grounds of Claremont. Or it could be the Inns of Court Temple. Or the Henry II connection.
The Atalanta Stakes began in 1907. I surmise that many of the Sandown management had a classical education. Atalanta, a Greek word meaning equal in weight, is the name of a female character in Greek mythology. She was not only equal, but better than men when it came to running and hunting; so much so that she promised to marry anyone who could beat her in a race. As was often the way in those days, for no very good reason the penalty for failing a challenge was death.
Her smartest suitor, Hippomenes, sought help from the goddess Aphrodite, who had a downer on Atalanta. She provided him with three irrestible golden apples and at intervals during the race with Atalanta Hippomenes tossed one into her path. She was compelled to stop and pick up each of them and lost the race as a result. There were no stewards’ inquiries then, so Atalanta had to marry him.
Brighton’s 2m course ran south from the 1m4f start towards the coast. This is the best illustration I can give you off hand; you’ll have to zoom in though.
https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/475305356/1873-map-scan-brighton-sussex-england-ukOn the northern side of the course you’ll see a loop on the inside at around 7f out. They used to have 1m6f races starting near the winning post, running away from the stands to go round that loop and then come back the conventional way.
I’m going to have a couple of long paragraphs about today’s two races!
At the risk of being overbold, could I ask Admin if posts about this subject should go on a separate thread with its own title?
