30.04.10
The past couple of months have seen the death of two renowned Welsh jockeys who both left their mark on the sport of kings.
Dick Francis, who was born at Coedcanlas Farm in the village of Lawrenny in Pembrokeshire, was a champion jockey who won 350 races, but his most memorable moment was the 1956 Grand National when he rode Devon Lock. He recalls the dramatic incident in his autobiography: “Never had I felt such power in reserve, such confidence in my mount, such calm in my mind and it was clear that there was only going to be one winner.” But disaster struck as spectators began to salute rider, horse and owner (the Queen Mother) in celebration of a famous victory. Inexplicably, the horse jumped into the air and collapsed onto his stomach. Francis made a desparate attempt to continue the race, but the eventual winner E.S.B raced past to win. It was a memorable finale which brought both frustration and disappointment to the Welshman. He was dismissed as a rider by the royal patron the following year, and years later claimed that, as he walked through Hyde Park, “I nearly flung myself into the Serpentine, I was so depressed”.
As an eight-year-old child he had ambitions to become a jockey after listening to Tipperary Tim winning the 1928 Grand National on the radio. He was never to equal William Parker Dutton, the jockey who rode Tipperary Tim, but he pursued his chosen sport even during the wartime period when he flew as a Spitfire and Hurricane pilot. His racing career, however, has been overshadowed by his fiction writing which began with his crime novel Dead Cert published in 1962. He was known as “the champion storyteller and master of suspense and intrigue” whose philosophy was to “write about what you know”. His knowledge of the sport was central to the plots of his books, and his death at 89 will be mourned by a legion of readers as well as the horseracing community.
St David’s Day brought the news of the passing of Linda Griffiths who suffered a brain haemorrhage. Better known as Linda Sheedy, in 1980 she became the first female rider to ride in the Welsh Grand National. The following year she became only the third woman rider in Aintree’s Grand National though her mount Deiopea refused to jump the nineteenth fence. She secured her name in the sport’s history books as the first female jockey to race in the Welsh, English and Scottish Grand Nationals.
Linda Sheedy was from the Upper Cwmbran area. After she left Llantarnam Comprehensive School, she went to work, aged 15, on a farm in Penhow. Having started as a point-to-point racer, she became a highly respected rider, the first Welsh woman to score under National Hunt rules. She was the first female jockey to ride at Cheltenham, and the first to ride for the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Her sister remembered her in The South Wales Argus: “She has always been an animal lover and she loved racing. I remember her fracturing her neck racing back in 1986, but less than a year later she was back racing. That was Linda. She had a great sense of humour, made everybody laugh and was larger than life.”
Neither jockey will be remembered for any particular victory; but both will have a prominent place in the annals of horse riding as formidable and unique characters.