CARDIFFREMEMBERED A toast to George Frederick, a right royal Derby winner

MANY Cardiffians will know of Cartwright Lane in the Ely/Fairwater district of Cardiff, and the not-too-faraway Wroughton Place.

I assume that Cartwright Lane gets its name from William Sheward Cartwright, a solicitor, colliery owner and Lord of the Manor at Llandaff.

Mr Cartwright had a number of racehorses which he named after members of the Royal Family and areas in and around Cardiff. For instance, he had a steeplechaser named Penarth and a very good flat horse called Ely or The Beautiful Ely which won among other races the Ascot Gold Cup and the Goodwood Gold Cup.

Mr Cartwright had his horses in training with the famed Tom Leader at Wroughton, near Swindon, and I wonder if that is how Wroughton Place in Fairwater got its name?

Mr Cartwright’s most famous horse was George Frederick, named after the second son of the Prince of Wales. Bred at Ely Farm in Cardiff on the site of the old Ely Racecourse, George Frederick made racing history by becoming the only horse bred in Wales to win the world’s most famous flat race – the Epsom Derby in 1874.

In my book Racing Rogues – The Scams, Scandals and Gambles of Horse Racing in Wales (published by St David’s Press at £14.99) I tell how George Frederick in a field of 20 runners won in a canter from Lord Roseberry’s Couronne De Fer at odds of 9-1.

Henry Custance, who rode George Frederick, in his Riding Recollections and Turf Stories, has described Mr Cartwright as being “eccentric in manner”, and this was certainly true as he was so confident of his horse winning that he sent out 30 telegrams to his