A trainer, a racing Rabbi and a pair of gamblers
Jenny Pitman, the first woman to saddle a Grand National winner – she did it with Corbiere (1983) and Royal Athlete (1995) – was a little-known trainer of point-to-pointers when I visited her and her husband, the then leading National Hunt jockey Richard Pitman, back in the 1970s at their Hinton Parva livery yard.
I was accompanied by two racing pals and the purpose of our visit was to see a horse called The Rabbi, which she was going to train for them and which they had leased from Lord Cadogan.
Jenny later entered The Rabbi for a point-to-point race at Kingston Blount where Bryan Smart, now a leading Flat trainer, rode him.
In her fascinating book Glorious Uncertainty, Jenny tells how two Welsh gentlemen – both of whom she later discovered were great gambling men – produced £500 in cash at the races which they were going to put on the horse. She advised them to put just £100 on the horse and give her the other £400, which she kept safely for them in her handbag.
Although I wasn’t there that day, I know for a fact that my two friends had a lot more than that on The Rabbi, who had made the pace for most of the three miles but who had looked like being overtaken in the closing stages, only to run on again and capture the spoils.
The fact that The Rabbi, who had poor form under National Hunt Rules, was backed off the bookmakers’ boards tells us that someone had landed a big betting coup – namely my two racing pals, who had kindly put on a couple of quid for me and who shall remain nameless.
As well as training two Grand National winners, Jenny also trained three Welsh Grand National winners at Chepstow. In my book The Welsh Grand National from Deerstalker to Emperor’s Choice, I write: “Jenny Pitman saddled her third Coral Welsh National winner in five years when Stearsby, who was giving weight to all except I Haventalight, finished six lengths clear of stablemate Macoliver. In fact, she almost made it a 1-2-3 as her other representative, Corbiere, came in fourth, beaten only by haf-a-length for third place by MH Easterby’s Jimbrook.” That was in 1986, two years after Jenny’s autobiography was published.
Little did I think that day we visited the Pitmans that their young lad Mark, who was playing with his toys in the room where we were talking to her, would go on to ride a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner.
That was back in 1991 when Mark, riding Garrison Savannah, trained by his mother, scored a famous victory in one of the best Gold Cups ever staged.
Incidentally, when Sirrell Griffiths’ Norton’s Coin won the 1990 Cheltenham Gold Cup at odds of 100-1, the racing press informed their readers that the former Welsh point-to-pointer was the first horse from Wales to win steeplechasing’s most important horse race.
However, 90 years ago in 1928 a horse called Patron Saint, trained by Herbert Stanley Harrison at Bangor, and ridden by legendary Welsh National Hunt jockey Fred Rees, was successful.
Fred, also known as Dick Rees, was the son of a Pembrokeshire veterinary surgeon and in winning the race he beat his older brother Lewis Rees on Vive.
Fred was champion jockey five times and he won the Grand National on Shaun Spadah (1921), the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Patron Saint in 1928 and again in 1929 on Easter Hero, the Grand Steeplechase de Paris on Silvo in 1925 and the 1929 Champion Hurdle on Royal Falcon. Lewis Rees won the 1922 Grand National on Music Hall and the 1928 Champion Hurdle on the famed Brown Jack.
■ Send your racing news and views to Brian Lee by emailing brianlee4@virginmedia.com or telephoning 029 2073 6438.