‘It may well be that true riches are laid up in heaven,’ declared the blues composer W.C. Handy, ‘but it’s sure nice to have a little pocket money on the way there.’ A good turnout can therefore always be relied upon for Newbury’s £155,000 William Hill Hurdle which last Saturday carried a prize of £87,218 for the winning horse.
The richest handicap hurdle in Britain has been one of my favourite races since its inception as the Schweppes Gold Trophy (under other sponsors it has also been run as the Tote Gold Trophy and the Betfair Hurdle). I never attend without seeing in my mind’s eye the tilted trilby figure of the ex-commando Captain Ryan Price, who won the race four times in its first five years.
After Rosyth won his second successive Schweppes in 1964 the stewards removed Price’s trainer’s licence and suspended his jockey Josh Gifford for six weeks, citing ‘abnormal improvement’ from its previous run. Rosyth had come to Price with jarred up shoulders which he eased by towing the swimming horse behind a rowboat off Selsey Bill. The horse was too a ‘bleeder’, prone to breaking blood vessels. He had to be nursed along to fitness gradually, never winning a race in midwinter, and yet when he reversed the form with Salmon Spray by 7lb from the previous race in which they had both run that was deemed evidence sufficient to remove Price’s livelihood. The logic of that would have been that any trainer winning a race with a horse carrying a 7lb penalty was up to no good.
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