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Do you have any memories of All-time Great hunter chasers/point-to-pointers from any year or era?
If so we would like to hear about them . . . let’s hear reflections which convey why they were good in your eyes. If you ever looked after, owned, trained or ridden a good horse – in races or at exercise – we would like to hear what made them special. Maybe you were a spectator who has a fond memory of a particular horse and one of their races.
Lord Fortune is a name that has cropped up during the ‘All-time Greats’ series which has been running on this website. One reader sent in their memories of Lord Fortune, while in an article on the West Midlands website – pointingwm.co.uk – press officer Peter Mansell rates him the best horse to emerge from that region of the country.
Email us at info@p2pa.co.uk
Craig Pilgrim, who lives in the South Midlands
I have been enjoying your series on great hunter chasers.
When I started out point-to-pointing I was at Cirencester college and rode out for Jackie Brutton’s stable at Compton Abdale near Andoversford. Mrs Brutton had been a prominent master of the Cotswold for many seasons and had a string of good point-to-pointers including Snowdra Queen who was later a successful brood mare.
However, the star of the show when I was riding out was Lord Fortune, who was in his twilight years by then, but still came out and won the Coronation Cup at the start of the season (February in those days!). He had won and been placed in Aintree’s Foxhunters Chase and put together a string of other wins under the late Derek Edmunds, who was Jackie Brutton’s trainer.
Yet Lord Fortune could be vicious, and would bite you if he hadn’t kicked you when you went into his box. The first time I got the leg up at home one morning he bit the lad holding him and nearly took his finger off.
The following year Derek was killed in a road accident. I had left Cirencester and never did find out what happened to the horse. Anyone who is a year or two older than me and with a better memory would be able to describe this great horse’s best years.
Footnote: The first time I was allowed to school a young horse at the yard alongside Derek and Lord Fortune left me feeling very pleased with myself. As we pulled up Derek looked across and said ‘How did he go Craig?’. Breathlessly, I replied ‘. . . very well Derek, he certainly seemed to know what he was doing.’ To which Derek responded with typical laconicism ‘That’s more than his ******* jockey did then!’.
Craig Pilgrim
Peter Mansell, press officer for the West Midlands Point-to-Point Association
Lord Fortune won the Beaufort Maiden on his racecourse debut but his exploits later in the season earnt a comment in the Annual ‘has ability but a difficult ride’.
He flourished [initially] under George Hyatt and they gained their first success in the 1970 Heythrop four-miler (beating Winter Willow and Tradesman), finished third behind Frozen Dawn and Sunarise in the Dudley Cup, then won the Players Gold Leaf Final Hunter Chase Championship at Newbury and finished three quarters of a length behind Some Man in the Horse & Hound Cup.
Derek Edmunds took the ride in 1971 and a year later they won two opens and also finished runner-up to Credit Call in the Cheltenham Foxhunter Chase and to the same rival in the Horse & Hound Cup.
Twelve months later the partnership won five races including the United Hunts Challenge Cup at Cheltenham and also finished a short-head second to (you have guessed it) Credit Call in that season’s Horse & Hound Cup.
Lord Fortune won another five races in 1974 and at 12-years of age had his best season which culminated in victory over Crème Brule and his nemesis Credit Call at Aintree. This earnt him the description of ‘a top-class Hunter Chase with brilliant acceleration’.
He ended his career on a high note in 1976 when he won a Division of the Coronation Cup and the Lord Ashton of Hyde Cup for an unprecedented third time with a cheeky win over Irish Mist and Whaddon Hero.
For the length of his career, the standard maintained, the races he won and the horses he defeated the best horse to be trained in the West Midlands has to be Lord Fortune.
Peter Mansell
