SHARPE MIND: Trevor’s National Treble

In this week’s SHARPE MIND blog sports betting PR legend GRAHAM SHARPE brings us a rundown of sensational, hard to believe, amusing, remarkable, pertinent & entertaining events which have happened over the years in the worlds of racing and betting during each specific week of the year. This week he digs out some of the golden moments from between 10 October to 16 October.

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🗓️ OCT 10, 1866………….GRAND BEGINNING FOR RACE SPONSORSHIP………..…..There was an early example of race sponsorship as William Blenkiron of Middle Park Stud, Eltham, Kent, put up £1000 to support the Middle Park Stakes at Newmarket, which was won on its first running by 4/1 The Rake, ridden by Jack Loates.

🗓️ OCT 10, 1985……DEC’S BRIEF RETURN…..Declan Murphy won the 12 runner 7f Annual Flat vs Jump Jockeys Challenge Handicap at Chepstow, on Geoff Lewis-trained 3/1 favourite Jibereen – eighteen months after being all but killed after falling at Haydock in May, 1994. It was his first ride back after the accident which left him with terrible injuries. And he retired immediately after the race. His book Centaur tells the full, amazing story.

🗓️ OCT 11, 1981……..KING OF THE SABBATH…….Bookie Herbert King, operating as Jack Warner, flouted the law to bet in public on a Sunday – taking bets on the Newmarket Town Plate to demonstrate to the Jockey Club and the government that there was a demand for Sunday racing with betting. Police turned a blind eye as Warner took £1000 – handing over half of his profit to the Injured Jockeys’ Fund.

🗓️ OCT 11, 2021…TREVOR’S NATIONAL TREBLE……Trevor Hemmings, whose famous green, yellow and white colours were carried to Grand National glory by Hedgehunter, in 2005; Ballabriggs in 2011 and Many Clouds, in 2015, died at the age of 86.The billionaire businessman-owner was one of jump racing’s most familiar and biggest supporters. His first winner was Northern Trust at Bath on June 15, 1985, and his first over the sticks, Northern Gambler at Ludlow on March 27, 1987.

🗓️ OCT 12, 1993……….DUKE’S ROYAL APPROVAL..…The Princess Royal officially opened Jackdaw Castle, the £1.8m training complex in the Cotswolds that became the new base for David ‘The Duke’ Nicholson.

🗓️ OCT 12, 2003…….DEATH OF A LEGEND…Legendary US jockey turned trainer, Bill Shoemaker died, aged 72. The Texan, whose first ride was in March 1949, had 8833 career winners, winning 15 North American jockeys’ championships. In 1955 on Swaps he scored the first of his four Kentucky Derby wins. He retired from the saddle in 1990 and trained successfully despite being confined to a wheelchair after an accident in 1991.

🗓️ OCT 13, 1990…..PHOENIX NEVER ROSE AGAIN….The last meeting at Phoenix Park took place with a card worth £1.32m prize money. On 14 August 1983,U2 had played there to 15,000 people at a nine-hour concert at the racecourse.

🗓️ OCT 13, 1992………..GEOFF DARED TO WIN 90 GRAND………..Jockey turned trainer, Geoff Lewis landed a reported £90,000 gamble when Dare To Dream at Leicester became his 50th winner of the season. He struck a 40/1 bet at the start of the season to reach that target….on the same date another Geoff – Baxter – rode his final winner before retirement – Falcon’s Dawn at Leicester, also his 942nd winner over 30 seasons.

🗓️ OCT 14, 1813…..TEENAGE ROCK STAR?……A notice appeared in the Irish Racing Calendar, placed by one Robert Hamilton: ‘I hereby CAUTION the public against employing James Rock, a stable-boy between 13 and 14 years of age, with fair complexion and fair hair, very small and light for his age, he having run away from my service, carrying off my clothes, etc….’

🗓️ OCT 14, 1992…….REDCAR’S ROYAL RECORD……….Ingenuity, 14/1, won at Redcar to give Her Majesty a record 24^th winner of the season – the Queen’s previous best had been achieved in 1957.

🗓️ OCT 15, 2011…SACRE BLEU! MORE SOUMILLON WOE…..….French jockey Christophe Soumillon won the Qicpo Champion Stakes at Ascot on Cirrus des Aigles. But a whip ban cost him his £52,000 prize money and left him asking Racing UK’s Nick Luck: ‘Do you have £20 for me because now I have no money to pay for the taxi?!’

🗓️ OCT 15, 2012…..HUGHES WHIPS IN AT WINDSOR…..In mid October, 2011, the Racing Post reported: ‘Richard Hughes quits in protest at new whip rules.’ After those rules were amended Hughes decided to carry on riding – and almost exactly one year later, on October 15, 2012 he achieved one of British racing’s more extraordinary feats when he rode the winners of seven of the card’s eight races at Windsor.

🗓️ OCT 16, 1920…….. STARTED AS HE MEANT TO GO ON – LIKE CLOCKWORK!………Gordon Richards, future MULTIPLE champion jockey, top trainer – and knight of the realm, made his racecourse riding debut – unplaced on Clockwork at Lingfield.

🗓️ OCT 16, 1993…..BLYTHE’S SPIRITED WINNER…..….Blythe Miller was the first female jockey to ride a Breeders Cup winner, when Lonesome Glory won the Breeders Cup Chase at Belmont Park.

🗓️ AND FINALLY…….FRANKIE-SPEAK…….In a Classic example of what was once known as ‘Colemanballs’ in ‘tribute’ to the excitable commentator David of that name, Frankie Dettori, without  a win in the Champion Stakes, declared on October 16, 2004, ‘I’ve got beaten on some great horses in the Champion – Daylami, Halling, Noverre, Best Of The Bets’….after remembering and reeling off these names, he added: ‘I don’t even want to remember them!’…

GRAHAM SHARPE

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