what do the following race horses have in common with brown jack.

​In the summer, at Ascot, there is a 2-mile handicap named after the legendary former Champion Hurdler and one of the flat’s greatest stayers, Brown Jack. If, for whatever reason, his name should be removed from the title of this race,  I shall go to Ascot and stamp my feet very hard outside the office of the clerk of the course. For anyone unaware of Brown Jack’s place in racing history, I suggest research, or a search for the book by R.C. Lyle on the life and career of the great horse, perhaps the first horse to have the same sort of fame and public adoration that we now associate with more recent equine legends like Desert Orchid, Red Rum or Honeysuckle.
Such was Brown Jack’s fame, he became the first racehorse to have a steam locomotive named in his honour, a class 3 passenger locomotive. He also had a public house named in his honour; a pub you can still eat and drink at in Wroughton, Swindon, close to where he was trained by Ivor Anthony.
Just to dot the I’s and cross the t’s, Brown Jack’s main claim to fame is that he won the Queen Alexandria Stakes at Royal Ascot six-years in a row, along with victories in the Chester Cup, Ebor, Ascot Stakes (same year as he also won the Queen Alexandria) Goodwood and Doncaster Cups. He also won the 1928 Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham. He never won the Ascot Gold Cup as in those days geldings were barred from running in the red riband race and considered as highly regarded as a classic back then.
So what do the following famous racehorses have in common with the legendary Brown Jack: Alycidon, winner of the 1949 Ascot and Goodwood Cups; Ballymoss, winner of the 1957 Irish Derby and English St.Leger; St.Paddy, winner of the 1960 Epsom Derby and Doncaster St.Leger; Meld, the 1955 fillies Triple Crown winner; Nimbus, the 1949 2,000 Guineas and Epsom Derby winner; Tulyar, the 1952 Epsom Derby and St.Leger winner; Pinza, the 1953 Epsom Derby winner (beating the Queen’s Aureole) and the 1957 2,000 Guineas and Epsom Derby winner, Crepello?
While Brown Jack had a steam locomotive named after him, the aforementioned had Deltic electric-powered locomotives named in their honour. Though as far as I am aware not one of them had a public house named after them.
There is an historical social statement in G.W.R. naming their new and revolutionary, at least for Britain, class of train, the start to replacing all steam trains (boo) after famous racehorses of the time, alongside those named in honour of British Army Regiment like the Green Howards, Black Watch, Gordon Highlanders and The King’s Own. It wouldn’t happen nowadays, not even, I suspect, in of the honour the military services. Woke, you know; can’t afford to offend anyone’s sensibilities.
It is why it is important that British horse racing continues to honour the names of famous and great racehorses from the past and into the future. It is why the Brown Jack Handicap at Ascot should be preserved, cherished and possibly upgraded. It should never be seen as a mid-band, quite ordinary handicap. It should be a race jockeys, trainers and owners are proud to have on their c.v.’s. Outside of Eclipse and Derby winners of his time, perhaps horses only revered at the time by a minority of the public, Brown Jack’s name leaped from the pages of the racing press to mainstream, no doubt the first racehorse to gain the genuine affection of the public. When he won the Queen Alexandria for the sixth time, his trainer couldn’t bear to watch the race and only knew the old boy had won by the volume of noise coming from the grandstand as people willed him to win.
I would contend that Brown Jack did more for the sport of horse racing than any, or indeed as a collective, of the horses similarly honoured to have a locomotive named after them. We must continue to honour our great racehorses by naming races, grandstands, bars, etc, as no other sector of British society will do so, though, I admit, there are doubtless residential roads and streets built on the old turf of former racecourses that might bear the name of a racehorse, as it is possible there might be an Eclipse or Golden Miller pub somewhere in the country.
I would ask is Frankel suitably honoured by British horse racing? As the only flat racehorse to challenge, to my mind, Brigadier Gerard as the greatest flat horse of my lifetime, shouldn’t he have a race of similar rank to the Brigadier named after him?
Arkle is honoured both in Britain and Ireland with Grade 1 races named in his honour, not that ‘Himself’ will ever be lost to racing history. Yet Mill House is not honoured in a similar way. Red Rum is poorly honoured by a handicap chase if you consider all that he contributed to the sport.
So, let’s us not forget our equine heroes and never allow a sponsor to submerge the name of a great horse under the wordage of race conditions as has happened to the mighty Golden Miller, and by Cheltenham, the racecourse where his glory was established and immortalised in National Hunt racing history.