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I hadn’t picked up on Martin Molony. My second jockey was Aubrey Brabazon who, in fact, performed the feat twice. He won the Gold Cup on Cottage Rake & the Irish Oaks on Masaka in 1948 followed by successes on Cottage Rake (Gold Cup) Hattons Grace (Champion Hurdle) and Mighty Ocean (Irish 2,000 Guineas) in 1950.
Apologies for a flawed question but since I only asked for two, ivanjica, you get the win.
Do you want to set a question?
Name the two jockeys to have won a race at the Cheltenham Festival and a Classic in the same year.
OK, I’ll post another question tomorrow evening unless somebody else pops in with their own question before then.
Have a good weekend!
Katie, may I suggest that if you don’t post another question within 24 hours then anyone may post one. If the thread lies fallow for another 24 hours after that then I’m quite willing to set another question myself. That way we can keep the thread from going defunct.
If anyone (especially Yeats who started the thread) violently disagrees with this proposal then please let me know in no uncertain terms.
Katie strikes again.
The answer is indeed Pershore. There have been two racecourses at or near the town. The first was at Weir Meadows which hosted racing for about 60 years before being abandoned because the site was prone to flooding. A totally new racecourse, more distant from the River Avon, opened for business in 1935. It put up the shutters in 1939 when the army set up a training camp at the site. The course didn’t reopen after the war.
Not Worcester.
But, to employ the language of Private Eye magazine, the racecourse in question was not a million miles away.
In fact, the AA Route Planner gives a distance by road of under 10 miles from Worcester to the town where the racecourse stood.
Let’s continue with an easy one.
Which was the last new racecourse to open its gates for business prior to Great Leighs/Chelmsford City in 2008.
The off-time for the race is 2:20. C4 coverage begins at 12:45 and ends at 3:10.
The above off-time is taken from the RP website.
However, attheraces says the CC is off at 3:15.
Fire Fighting is an idle beast compared to Madame Jones.
In 2001 the 6-y-o, trained by David Evans, raced 61 times winning 12 races primarily over 7f & 8f. She was still winning in December of that year, being successful on her 54th & 55th starts. She raced 8 times in that month alone.
On an historical note, 61 is a record number of races for a horse in a British season and her tally of 11 handicap wins in one season has only ever been achieved by two other horses back in 1858 and 1869.
More to the point, does anyone know which horse was the most prolific NH performer in terms of races run in a) one season and b) over an entire career.
Correct, Katie.
Lester Piggott got off Roberto that day to ride Rheingold, who finished 4th, leaving a vacancy filled by Braulio Baeza. Roberto was a superstar that day and few would argue that Brigadier Gerard ran below form since the first two both broke the course record.
The jockey in question, although not born in the US, rode there for 16 years. He has one Kentucky Derby win to his credit.
Details of Murphy’s French exploits are thin on the ground. Or, as they might say in France, ‘mince sur le terrain’.
Anyway, there is some vague news from July this year:
http://www.geegeez.co.uk/lost-in-france-but-not-forgotten-ferdy-murphy/
“Based in the North-East of France, Murphy runs a small yard and is also involved in the sourcing of racehorses. He’s even taken to Twitter in an attempt to check-in on old friends in the UK. He appears to have settled well into his new life across the channel.
It’s hoped that one day we may see a Murphy raiding party at the likes of Cheltenham or Aintree. But for now, tracks in Northern France can expect to see a host of Murphy trained staying chasers scooping their major prizes.”
If anyone can find out how he is doing results wise over there that would be great.
At 5:15 on Saturday April 9th, 2016, the sun in the Liverpool area will be on a bearing of 249 degrees and an elevation of 23 degrees above the horizon. This is not a wild guess, it’s a scientific fact.
The section of the National course from the home turn to the elbow on the run-in is on a bearing of approx 250 degrees.
So if it’s a bright, sunny day, that sun will be shining straight into the eyes of the jockeys as they approach the second last and last fences of the National. Now it may well be that the sun will be high enough in the sky for that not to be a concern. But rather than burying heads in the sand and ignoring this possibility until the horses are milling around at the start in front of, hopefully, a 10M+ TV audience, perhaps it would be sensible to address the issue in advance.
Anecdotally I can’t ever remember issues with low sun in April. But of course, the plural of anecdotes is not data.
I would hope that the BHA have done their homework in addressing the key details of races affected in this and previous seasons. If you look at racecourse, date of meeting, time of race, what the jockeys said, and maybe one or two other factors I can’t think of right now, you should be armed with enough data to enable a sensible decision on a revised off time.
You probably know this already but about 6 weeks ago the BHA issued a ‘low sun’ protocol, like so:
http://www.britishhorseracing.com/new-low-sun-protocol-to-be-introduced/
“The new protocol, which we discussed with the jockeys at their recent Jump Jockeys Seminars and kicks in straight away, just asks them to follow a few steps before that decision (to request obstacles be omitted) is made, as follows:
If riders consider there may be a problem they should inform the Stipendiary Stewards as soon as possible, who will then inform the Clerk of the Course;
Riders should ride past the obstacle(s) that they have concerns over on the way to the start;
If riders still have concerns when arriving at the start, they should inform the Starter who will radio the Stipendiary Stewards;
The Stipendiary Stewards will then liaise with the Clerk of the Course to consider alternatives to removing obstacle(s);
If obstacle(s) have to be removed an announcement will be made;
If there are further races remaining on the card then the process above should be repeated for each race.”
Personally I don’t think this helps much. The jockeys still make the call, which is as it should be. Jockeys, though, have been known to make calls that are best described as peculiar:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/horse-racing/30641490
“After concerns raised by the jockeys, the three flights of hurdles on one side of the track were omitted in two races, reducing the number to be jumped to a paltry four.
However, the runners in the steeplechase staged in between those two hurdle races – with the sun still shining bright – jumped all of their fences, including those adjacent to the bypassed obstacles.
And, there’s more: in the final race of the day, which took place with dusk gathering, inexplicably, the same three hurdles were again missed out.”
Several jockeys who rode in the chase also rode in the hurdle races affected.
Thank you Drone.
Momentarily resisting my passion for 19th century racing, I’ll move forward at least 100 years from 1854.
Which overseas jockey, still alive now, flew into this country for one Group 1 ride, won the race and went straight back home. He had never raced in this country before and he never returned to race here again.
