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Scottish Champion Hurdle
The Scottish Champion Hurdle is a Grade 2 National Hunt hurdle race in Britain which is open to horses aged four years or older. It is run at Ayr, South Ayrshire, over a distance of about 2 miles (3,219 metres), and during its running there are nine hurdles to be jumped. It is a limited handicap race, and it is scheduled to take place each year in April. The event was established in 1966, and the inaugural winner was Blue Venom. For a period it was classed at Listed level, and it was promoted to Grade 2 status in 1991. The race used to be held on the day before the Scottish Grand National, but both events have taken place on the same day since 1994. Its present sponsor, CPMS, has backed the race since 2019. Several winners of the Scottish Champion Hurdle have also achieved victory in the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. The most recent was Alderbrook, the winner of the latter contest in 1995. Captain Christy won the race ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ayr Racecourse
Ayr Racecourse at Whitletts Road, Ayr, Scotland,''British Racing and Racecourses'' () by Marion Rose Halpenny – Page 71 was opened in 1907. There are courses for flat and for National Hunt racing. History Horse racing in Ayr dates back to 1576, but the first official meeting did not take place until 1771 at a racecourse situated in the Seafield area of the town. This first racecourse was a mile oval with sharp bends. In the early days, racing was supported by the local landed gentry and members of the Caledonian Hunt. Important figures in the course's history have included the Earl of Eglinton, Sir James Boswell and the Duke of Portland. In 1824, Ayr's most important race meeting, the Western Meeting, was established and by 1838 it offered £2000 in prize money and the most valuable two-year-old race of the season in Britain. The meeting's feature race, the Ayr Gold Cup, became a handicap race in 1855 and is now the richest sprint handicap in Europe. Due to the small ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Granville Again
Granville Again (20 June 1986 – August 2003) was an Irish-bred racehorse who competed in National Hunt races and recorded his most important win in the 1993 Champion Hurdle. In his early career he won two of his three National Hunt Flat races and was a successful Novice Hurdler, winning the Dovecote Novices' Hurdle and Top Novices' Hurdle as well as finishing second in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle. In the 1991/1992 season, Granville Again won all five of his completed races including the Champion Hurdle Trial and the Scottish Champion Hurdle but fell when second favourite for the Champion Hurdle. In the following season he was beaten in his first three starts but returned to his best form to defeat a strong field in the Champion Hurdle. He never won again and failed to finish in the first three in his last ten races. He was retired from racing in 1996 and died in 2003 at the age of seventeen. Background Granville Again was a chestnut horse with a narrow white blaze, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comedy Of Errors (horse)
Comedy of Errors (1967–1990) was a champion British Thoroughbred National Hunt racehorse. He won the Champion Hurdle in 1973 and 1975, becoming one of only two horses to regain British hurdling's top prize. A huge horse of over 17 hands, "Comedy", as he was affectionately known, won 23 races. Timeform rate him among the top half-dozen hurdlers ever in Britain. Background Comedy of Errors was a brown horse sired by the King's Stand Stakes winner Goldhill out of the mare Comedy Actress. He was trained by Fred Rimell at Kinnersley in Worcestershire. and ridden by Bill Smith and Ken White. Racing career Comedy of Errors finished second in the Gloucestershire Hurdle at the 1972 Cheltenham Festival. In 1973, he won his first Champion Hurdle, beating Bula who had won the race in 1971 and 1972. He finished runner-up to Lanzarote Lanzarote (, , ) is a Spanish island, the easternmost of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. It is located approximately off the north coa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Dickinson (horseman)
Michael W. Dickinson (born 3 February 1950 in Yorkshire, England) is a retired Champion Thoroughbred racehorse trainer. Having been educated at Rossall School, Dickinson was an amateur champion rider before becoming a professional jockey for 10 years. His rides included a Classic winner, Boucher. Lester Piggot rode Boucher when it won the 1972 St Leger at Doncaster. Training career Dickinson got his trainer's licence in 1980, taking over his parents' stables. He trained at Dunkeswick near Harewood in Yorkshire and was the Champion Trainer of National Hunt racing for three years in England. Two of his formative years were spent under the tutelage of Vincent O'Brien, the legendary Irish trainer who was master of Ballydoyle, the training center in County Tipperary. Michael Dickinson is perhaps most famous for his extraordinary feat of training the first five in the 1983 Cheltenham Gold Cup. In order: Bregawn, Captain John, Wayward Lad, Silver Buck, and Ashley House. The BBC h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bobby Beasley
Bobby Beasley (26 August 1935 – 9 January 2008) was an Irish jockey and horse trainer. Background Beasley was born in London in to an Irish racing family. His father, Harry, also known as "HH" Beasley, was an outstanding flat jockey and rode the winner of two Irish Derbys. Beasley's grandfather, also named Harry, trained and rode Come Away to victory in the 1891 Grand National. His great-uncle, Tommy, was twice Irish Champion Jockey and won the Grand National at Aintree on three occasions (Empress 1880, Woodbrook 1881 and Frigate 1889). Jockey He was reared in Ireland. His first winner was as an amateur came at Leopardstown when he was sixteen years of age. Three years later he enjoyed his first winner as a professional at Naas. In 1960 he captured the Champion Hurdle on Another Flash. In 1961 he was victorious in the Grand National with Nicolaus Silver at odds of 28/1. He was among the leaders from early on the second circuit and gradually drew clear over the final two fenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fred Rimell
Thomas Frederic Rimell (24 June 1913 – 12 July 1981), better known as Fred Rimell, was a British champion National Hunt racing jockey and horse trainer. He was champion jockey three times and leading trainer five times. Rimell was the first jumping trainer to earn £1 million in prize money for his owners. Rimell gained the title of “Mr Grand National”, having trained four winning horses of the steeplechase. They were ESB ( 1956), Nicolaus Silver (1961), Gay Trip (1970) and Rag Trade, who beat Red Rum in the 1976 Grand National Rimell was also responsible for two Cheltenham Gold Cup winners. He trained Woodland Venture to victory in 1967 ridden by Terry Biddlecombe Terry Biddlecombe (2 February 1941 – 5 January 2014) was an English National Hunt racing jockey in the 1960s and 1970s. He was Champion Jockey in 1965, 1966 and 1969. Biddlecombe was born in Hartpury, Gloucester on 2 February 1941. He rode 1 ... and in 1976 Royal Frolic came home first with Joh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Denys Smith
Denys Smith (13 August 1924 – 13 November 2016) was a British racehorse trainer whose horses competed in both Flat racing and National Hunt racing. Smith's training stables were located at Bishop Auckland in County Durham. He trained the winners of over 1,600 races during a 45-year career and gained his biggest success when Red Alligator won the 1968 Grand National. Smith worked as a taxi driver before his joining his father-in-law, Bert Richardson, as a cattle dealer. Richardson owned horses which took part in harness racing and Smith assisted him with buying horses and training them before moving on to training point-to-point horses. He eventually became a fully licensed trainer himself and sent out his first winner in 1958 with Owen's Mark at Sedgefield Racecourse. His first Flat race winner came in 1964 when Miss Autumn won at Aintree Racecourse. In 1969–70 and 1970 Smith became the first trainer to send out 50 winners in consecutive National Hunt and Flat seasons. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Fletcher
Brian Fletcher (18 May 1947 – 11 January 2017) was an English jockey known for riding the horse Red Rum to win the Grand National in 1973 and 1974 and for second place in 1975. He first won the Grand National at the age of 20, in 1968 riding Red Alligator. Horse racing career Fletcher began his horse racing career aged 16 with trainer Denys Smith. In 1967, Fletcher rode Red Alligator in the 1967 Grand National, finishing third. The next year, Fletcher rode Red Alligator and won the Grand National. The day before, Fletcher had had a fall and most fellow jockeys had not expected him to race in the event. After missing 10 months after a head injury sustained in 1972, Fletcher returned to horse racing. He won the 1973 and 1974 Grand Nationals riding Red Rum. His record winning time on Red Rum in the 1973 Grand National was to stand for 17 years till beaten by Mr Frisk ridden by Marcus Armytage, and apart from Ernie Piggott, (Lester Piggott's grandfather) and George Stevens (wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fulke Walwyn
Fulke Thomas Tyndall Walwyn CVO (8 November 1910 – 18 February 1991) was a British jockey and a celebrated racehorse trainer, who was particularly successful in National Hunt racing. Life Walwyn was born in Wrexham. His twin sister, Helen Johnson Houghton (1910–2012), was a racehorse owner and trainer who was one of the first women elected as a member of the Jockey Club. Their cousin, Peter Walwyn (1933–2017), was also a racehorse trainer. His father, Colonel Fulke Walwyn, was an officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and Master of the Monmouth Hounds from 1922 to 1931. His mother died when Helen and Fulke were still young. He was educated at Malvern College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and then became an officer in the 9th Lancers but resigned his commission in 1935. He was a military policeman for two years in the Second World War, before serving with the 9th Lancers in France. Career As a jockey, his most notable victory came as an amateur rider on Reyno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pound (mass)
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in British imperial and United States customary systems of measurement. Various definitions have been used; the most common today is the international avoirdupois pound, which is legally defined as exactly , and which is divided into 16 avoirdupois ounces. The international standard symbol for the avoirdupois pound is lb; an alternative symbol is lbm (for most pound definitions), # ( chiefly in the U.S.), and or ″̶ (specifically for the apothecaries' pound). The unit is descended from the Roman (hence the abbreviation "lb"). The English word ''pound'' is cognate with, among others, German , Dutch , and Swedish . These units are historic and are no longer used (replaced by the metric system). Usage of the unqualified term ''pound'' reflects the historical conflation of mass and weight. This accounts for the modern distinguishing terms ''pound-mass'' and '' pound-force''. Etymology The word 'pound' and its cognates ultim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stone (unit)
The stone or stone weight (abbreviation: st.) is an English and imperial unit of mass equal to 14 pounds (6.35 kg). The stone continues in customary use in the United Kingdom for body weight. England and other Germanic-speaking countries of northern Europe formerly used various standardised "stones" for trade, with their values ranging from about 5 to 40 local pounds (roughly 3 to 15 kg) depending on the location and objects weighed. With the advent of metrication, Europe's various "stones" were superseded by or adapted to the kilogram from the mid-19th century on. Antiquity The name "stone" derives from the use of stones for weights, a practice that dates back into antiquity. The Biblical law against the carrying of "diverse weights, a large and a small" is more literally translated as "you shall not carry a stone and a stone (), a large and a small". There was no standardised "stone" in the ancient Jewish world, but in Roman times stone weights were c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Pipe
Martin Charles Pipe (born 29 May 1945), is an English former racehorse trainer credited with professionalising the British racehorse training industry, and as of 2021 the most successful trainer in British jump racing. The son of a West-Country bookmaker, Pipe was an amateur jockey before turning his attention to training in 1974 at Nicholashayne, Somerset, near Wellington, England, at Pond House stables. Pipe is broadly credited with professionalising National Hunt racing. He made multiple simple but effective changes to what had been then the traditional methods of training racehorses, specifically those in jump racing. His training innovations included using interval training, using daily blood tests to assess fitness, and keeping horses lean during the racing season, all intended to ensure his horses were at peak fitness for races. His methods came into broad use during the period he was training. Pipe was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
