Who Was Dick Francis?

In later life, Richard ‘Dick’ Francis found fame as a best-selling author of crime fiction, known for his formulaic, but nonetheless realistic, stories. That realism should come as no surprise, though, because before turning to fiction, Francis was a successful National Hunt jockey. He started his riding career, as an amateur, in 1946, before turning professional two years later. Between 1953 and 1957, Francis rode horses owned by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and trained by Peter Cazalet and, in 1953/54, shared the National Hunt jockeys’ title with Fred Rimmell.

As a jockey, the most dramatic incident of Francis’ career occurred at Aintree on March 24, 1956, during the running of the Grand National. His mount, Devon Loch, safely negotiated all 30 fences and, on the run-in, held a 5-length lead over his nearest pursuer, ESB. Approaching the wings of the Water Jump – which is ommitted on the second circuit of the Grand National – Devon Loch suddenly fly-jumped into the air and collapsed to the ground, allowing ESB to win unchallenged.

Various theories have been put forward for the mishap, but Francis was of the opinion that, granted that Devon Loch recovered quickly, ‘cramp seemed the only solution’. However, what really happened to Devon Loch remains an abiding mystery, worthy of one of Francis’ novels.

 

Who Was David Nicholson?

Commemorated by the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle, run annually at the Cheltenham Festival, David Nicholson was the son of Herbert ‘Frenchie’ Nicholson, a renowned National Hunt jockey and trainer in the first half of the twentieth century. Nicknamed ‘The Duke’ from an early age, because of his aloof, sometimes arrogant, demeanour, David Nicholson was also a successful National Hunt jockey, with 583 winners to his name.

However, to a modern audience, David Nicholson is probably better known as one of the leading trainers of his generation. He turned to training at Condicote, Gloucestershire in 1968 and saddled his first winner, Arctic Coral, whom he also rode, at Warwick the following January. By the time of his retirement from the training ranks in 1999, Nicholson had saddled a total of 1,499 winners and won the National Hunt Trainers’ Championship twice, in 1993/94 and 1994/95. Indeed, he was the only trainer to interrupt the sequence of trainers’ titles won by Martin Pipe from 1989/90 onwards.

At the Cheltenham Festival, Nicholson saddled 17 winners, most notably winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup with Charter Party in 1988 and back-to-back renewals of the Queen Mother Champion Chase with Viking Flagship in 193 and 1995. Elsewhere, he also win the King George VI Chase at Kempton with Barton Bank in 1993 and was unlucky not to do so with the same horse in 1994; Barton Bank was clear of his rivals when blundering badly and unseating jockey Adrian Maguire at the final fence.

Who trained Aldaniti?

The fairy-tale story of Aldaniti and Bob Champion proved so inspirational that it spawned the 1984 Embassy Pictures film ‘Champions’, starring John Hurt, Edward Woodward and Jan Francis. In 1979, Champion, a leading National Hunt jockey, was diagnosed with testicular cancer and given six months to live. That same year, Aldaniti finished third in the Cheltenham Gold Cup and second in the Scottish Grand National, but was sidelined with recurrent leg trouble until February, 1981.

Remarkably, by that stage, following a gruelling course of chemotherapy, Champion had recovered sufficiently to ride Aldaniti to victory at Ascot. The rest, as they say, is history. At Aintree, Aldaniti was sent off 10/1 second-favourite and took the lead towards the end of the first circuit, eventually coming home 4 lengths ahead of Spartan Missile for an emotional victory.

Emotional it may have been, but victory for Champion owed much to the loyalty of trainer Josh Gifford, who insisted that his position as stable jockey would be waiting for him when he recovered. Reflecting on his unlikely triumph, Gifford said, ‘We only kept Aldaniti in training to keep Bob’s pecker up really. It was touch and go every day he went out, we were scared to look around him or feel his legs in the evening. I was just waiting for the day I would have to call his owners and tell them he was a lost cause.’ He added, ‘But we got through it, Bob got through it and it was just as if it was meant to be. A fairy tale.’

What is Tote betting?

‘Tote’ is short for Horserace Totalisator Board and refers to a statutory corporation established, as the Racehorse Betting Control Board, in 1928. For much of its existence, the Tote was the only company in Britain allowed to accept pool bets. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the Tote has become a privatised, limited company and has lost its monopoly on pool betting. However, Tote betting essentially remains the same as it always has been.

Tote betting differs from fixed-odds betting with conevntional bookmakers insofar that all the money staked on a particular market – win, place, and so on – is pooled together. A fixed percentage is deducted from the pool and a winning dividend is calculated by dividing the remainder by the number of winning bets, or units. Obviously, this introduces an element of the unknown but, because the dividend reflects the popularity of a horse in the betting market, less well-backed outsiders often pay better on the Tote than they do with conventional bookmakers.

Tote betting is not limited to simple win, place or each-way bets. More complex, exotic bets include the ever-popular Tote Placepot, where punters select horses to finish placed in the first six races at a designated meeting, and the Tote Swinger, where they select two horses to finish anywhere in the first three in a designated race.

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