'MEN AND HORSES' I AM CURRENTLY READING ABOUT.

​To those with a racing library no introduction is necessary as to the book I am currently reading. ‘Men & Horses I Have Known’ by The Hon. George Lambton was first published in 1928 by Thornton Butterworth. My edition is more recent, being published in 1963 by J.A. Allen. I suspect a first edition of the original publication in good condition would be worth a considerable amount of money. More than I could afford, anyway.
I am halfway through the book and the Honourable George Lambton is yet to write about his career as a trainer, concentrating on his years as a National Hunt jockey. It is difficult to distinguish through his writing whether he was a professional jockey or an enthusiastic amateur. I think the lines were blurred back in the period from 1880 through to the start of the 1st World War. His distinctive voice, though, comes across the ages remarkedly lucidly, and there is no doubt that if the Grand National escaped him, he won many of the top races of his time and rode for many of the most distinguished owners and trainers.
I will convey what I have learned about horse racing at the time Lambton was a jockey from one sample chapter.
He begins chapter 13 talking about Savoyard, a horse he described as being very unlucky, as with better luck he might have won at least one Grand National if not two or three. He also described him as ‘a lengthy chestnut of great quality, with a mouth like silk, and a perfect angel in character’. He jumped the fiercely unforgiving National fences ‘to perfection’, yet fate contrived to trip him up on more than one occasion. In 1886 he fell at the last hurdle – the race in those days finished with 2 hurdles – as he was challenging the eventual winner, Old Joe. Oddly, though I dare say, accurately, Lambton writes that as he jumped the last hurdle on Redpath, he thought both Savoyard and his jockey Kirby had perished. I say oddly as the record books show Redpath as being pulled up. As it happened neither jockey nor horse were fatally injured, though Kirby was crippled for life.
In 1888 Lambton rode Savoyard in the National – the first year the race was run over the present configuration – and was thinking himself the winner when, he confesses, he made the rookie mistake at the last fence to steady his horse to make certain of jumping it safely, caught the top of the fence and toppled over. The following year, with the connections extremely hopeful of making good the bad luck of the previous year, Savoyard was knocked over at the second fence. Interestingly, and in complete opposition to what would be allowed today, Ringlet, a seven-year-old mare, who finished fourth in 1888, was brought out the following day in the Champion Chase, started favourite, mainly due to her owner betting big on her, and finished second, beaten a length.
What is starkly clear when reading this book, and others of the period, is the truth of the saying ‘The past is a different country’. In 1888 Lambton won two legs of what he describes as the ‘good treble’; the National being the one to escape him. In the race he refers to as ‘The National Hunt’, a 4-mile chase run at Sandown, the horse he rode, with great misgivings, was a 4-year-old with only one hurdle race experience prior to the ‘National Hunt’, in which he carried 10st 10lbs and was equipped with a long-cheeked double bridle. He won in what Lambton described as a hack canter. Later that year he won the third leg of this ‘good treble’, the Paris Steeplechase, on Parasang, the subject of a large gamble by ‘the confederates’ that owned him.
In this period horse racing was still very much a sport of the aristocracy, of which Lambton was a member, his father being Lord Durham. Not that Lambton comes across as anything other than a dedicated horseman and racing enthusiast. In his day it was common for a horse, a very good horse, to run on consecutive days or for classic winners to run in handicaps, with the Cambridgeshire and City and Suburban races of great prestige and value.
In his day horses, as with jockeys, trainers and owners, travelled to race meetings by train. Quite casually he writes about private conversations with legends like Fred Archer, Roddy Owen, Bay Middleton, Arthur Yates, Mat Dawson, John Porter and horses with the pedigree of Ormonde, Diadem and Persimmon. Racing was populated by a succession of colourful characters, many of whom were kept financially afloat by the ‘help’ of moneylenders, many of whom ended up bankrupt or worse by being unable to right their accounts with bookmakers.
Surprisingly, given the huge debate nowadays about inadequate prize money, £1,000 races were not unknown to Lambton, and not only the classics. It is a shame that the level of prize money could not be maintained down the decades. Yet though the differences between then and now loom large from the page, the striking similarity is the fascination with the sport by all walks of society. The past may definitely be a different country but the flowers and fauna remain as true today as when the jockeys wore spurs and members of the aristocracy were of no consequence if they did not admit to at least a passing knowledge of the thoroughbred racehorse.