IT MIGHT ONLY BE OF INTEREST TO ME.

​When I pop my clogs, I would like my obituary to feature prominently the impressive size of my library of racing books. I have 104 at present, so I have few cheques books still to empty to achieve my last-minute life’s ambition. Good news for Browzers Equestrian bookshop in Whitchurch. I prefer old books as they talk to me about a time in racing before I came into contact with the sport and consequently I learn stuff that would not ordinarily come to my attention.
At present I am reading a book that I have had in my possession for many years without reading, ‘Passports To Life’, the autobiography of Harry Llewellyn, a man more famous for his exploits with Foxhunter, a famous show-jumper of the 1950’s, though he also rode successfully as an amateur jockey for many years before the 2nd World War. I dare say as Llewellyn progresses in life the book will not be so racing orientated, though up to Chapter 7 it is a book that keeps on giving.
In the year 1937 he rode at Colwall, Tenby, indeed the final meeting at Tenby, Cardiff and Manchester. But the thrust of Chapter 7 is about Aintree and Ego, a horse part-owned by his father, who he rode in consecutive Grand Nationals. To return to Tenby a moment, Harry Llewellyn recalls that the Welsh town, though it could no longer boast a racecourse, was responsible for the three Anthony brothers, Ivor, Owen and Jack and also Bill and Fred Rees, and the ‘Oyster Maid Affair’ an infamous betting coup that went wrong at Tenby.
In Chapter 6 Llewellyn wrote about coming second on Ego at Aintree to Reynoldstown and Fulke Walwyn when the reins snapped on Davy Jones and he ran out at the last fence with the great race at his mercy, with Llewellyn thinking himself equally as unlucky as Lord Mildmay as he had been brought to a standstill at Valentine’s when close enough to the leaders to think winning remained a possibility.
The following season, to give Ego every chance of going one better, he was sent to a professional trainer, Frank Hartigan at Weyhill, who, apparently, spent the first part of the morning in bed, catching up on paperwork and occasionally looking out the window to watch his horses at work. Hartigan’s method of training was different to what Llewellyn and Ego were used to as he never worked his horses over long distances, preferring to sprint them three or four furlongs.
Llewellyn and Ego began their Grand National preparation in the Valentine’s Steeplechase and the jockey reports how eerie Aintree is when there are no spectators out in the country, describing the experience as more like a quiet day’s hunting than a serious horse race. Ego finished second to Drinmore Lad, ridden by Evan Williams and owned by Paul Mellon, who Llewellyn had advised when the man who in later life would own one of the great unsung greats of flat racing, Mill Reef, rode at the Chiddingfold Farmers point-to-point, ‘tying his cap and practically dressing him’.
At the time Llewellyn was working full-time in the coal industry, becoming joint owner of both the Rhigos Colliery and a coal exporting firm in Cardiff Docks. He was twelve stone in the summer and had to reduce his weight to 10st 4lbs to ride Ego in the 1937 Grand National and was still trying to lose a pound or two the night before the race by running 3-miles dressed in an airman’s suit, with many layers of wool underneath. Some elements of the sport never change.
Ego was no long-shot. In fact, overnight he was favourite, though displaced on the day by Golden Miller, and Hartigan’s training regime had made him a sharper animal to ride and unlike the previous year Llewellyn was able to keep him up with the leaders and was just behind Golden Miller when the great horse gave yet another indication to his connections of his dislike of Aintree by hanging to the left at the fence after Valentines and unshipping his jockey. At the last open ditch Ego was pulling double and Llewellyn was convinced he had the race in the bag. But this was when Aintree was red in tooth and claw, as can be attested by only 7 horses finishing, with one of those being remounted. At the second-last a loose horse cannoned into Ego just as he was about to jump, causing him to lose his hind legs on landing and slide along the ground with a good amount of spruce between his ears and the jockey. Of course, that was his race run, though he plugged on to finish fourth to Royal Mail, half-brother to the winner of the previous two years, Reynoldstown.
Preparation for a third crack at the race began in the Valentines Chase where he unsuccessfully tried to give a stone to the subsequent Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Brendon’s Cottage, though again demonstrating his proficiency over the big black fences. Unfortunately, Ego and Llewellyn were to be denied another appearance at Aintree as the old horse suffered a heart attack after finishing a 4-mile chase at Gatwick. The post-mortem revealed Ego had a heart nine times larger than normal.
Jockeys in Llewellyn’s time were a mixture of professional and sporting amateur and depending on which accounts you read they either mixed affably or acrimoniously, though as many of the amateurs owned the horses they rode the sport gained immeasurably by the presence. It was though altogether a different era. People like Llewellyn were horseman who rode hunting, show-jumping and what has become known as eventing, though few were involved in heavy industry as Llewellyn was day-to-day. The sporting amateurs were, if not stylish, good yeoman horseman, many of whom went on to serve, and perish, in the 2nd World War. Llewellyn, thankfully, survived. Tis a shame the likes of him have since all but died out.