by At the end of a long, wet winter, meeting Stan Hayhurst – the oldest living person to ride a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner – at Hexham, where he rode his first winner in 1950, is like a ray of golden sunshine.
Tuesday will mark 100 years since Red Splash won the inaugural Gold Cup, a then-rare age-weight race that was initially considered less important than the National Hunt Chase and less of an end goal in itself than a trial for the Grand. National.
The race, whose profile was raised by the exploits of five-time 1930s winner Golden Miller, was already well established by the time 25-year-old Hayhurst, fresh from National Service, won the 1958 race on the mare Kirsten.
The time and death of 66 years mean that both horse and rider, still respected in northern jump racing circles, are underrated by modern racing spectators; perhaps when Cheltenham laid down the bar named after him to make way for a new grandstand, he should have been replaced.
In 1958 Kirsten, runner-up in 1957 and last runner-up when he was placed third in 1959, won by half a length in a field that included three previous winners: Gay Donald, Limber Hill and Linwell, also like a future winner of Mandarin. .
She is one of four mares who won the race and carried flat weights with the shackles; the 5 pound mares allowance was only introduced shortly before the Dawn Run Gold Cup in 1984.
At a few meetings a week in the north, a two-month ban season in the summer, two years out for National Service and sharing the ride for Major Verley Bewicke, based in Northumberland with George Milburn, Hayhurst rode 300 winners. Who knows how much it would be in modern money?
Apart from the Gold Cup, he also rode Kirsten to win the 1959 Hennessy Gold Cup, held at Cheltenham, and the Imperial Leather’s only run, a prized run at Manchester.
In Oxo’s Grand National in 1959, when the Aintree fences were like straight walls, she carried the top weight but fell after colliding in mid-air with Mainstown at Becher’s Brook the second time. She was singing, six lengths behind the winner.
George Milburn [who rode her when she was runner-up and Hayhurst was on National Service] she always thought she would have won in 1957 if Linwell hadn’t jumped over her in the air at the last second,” he says. “But, you know mares!”
Having ridden in a cork helmet without a chin strap for half his life, Hayhurst, now 90, is sharp in support. The only recording of the race is a crappy 78 rpm recording of Peter O’Sullevan’s commentary and with no hint of any video footage the race is even a bit blurry.
“It’s weird,” he says. “I don’t remember any particular moment of the race other than knowing at the end that I was in the lead and continuing to push. I jumped last on the first Fred upsides circuit on Gay Donald. Going to the top of the hill, there was no fence in those days, so about three out I went down the hill.
“The thing about Kirsten was that she was a real mare. You couldn’t hit or slap her because she would curl up and if you kicked her in the stomach she would throw herself at him. She was a great jumper but you would get to the last one, begging her, you had to sit tight. That’s why she fell a year later, she jumped too much.
“The one thing I was proud of – I was proud of the north. Jimmy Power had won Limber Hill for Billy Dutton two years before but we didn’t win many good races. There was a north-south divide. We have not seen many of them as now when they do not think of coming from Exeter to Perth. Terry Biddlecome was one of the first to start coming north. We met the southern boys at Leicester, Haydock, Doncaster and Liverpool and that was about it.
“I rode along [Kirsten’s owner] Harry Moore before I went into the army, George took charge when I was away and when I came back Harry insisted on me riding his horses. After she came second in 1957 Harry said ‘That’s it. Stan is back.’ You need a bit of luck through life.
“I rode her in King George and I couldn’t get her legs. She finished third in Mandarin. We also took her to Sandown for the Whitbread Gold Cup. By the morning of the race she had come into season. It was the last race of the season so we let her run. It was hopeless, she was cuddling up with everything, she almost ran Obligation out of the race! She didn’t want to know about the race.”
In a 22-year career, the vast majority treated Bewicke until the trainer moved south in 1967, breaking his collarbone six times, his jaw and his wrists. He also had his Adam’s apple dislocated – meaning he could only eat chocolate for a week and his nose permanently disappear as a result – at a “clumsy sod” called In Haste. Hayhurst has two other historic claims to fame as a jockey: he is one of the few to have ridden against Arkle and was one of the first casualties of the pile at the 23rd fence in the 1967 Foinavon Grand National.
“I was riding Border Ring in a novice chase at Cheltenham, the first time Arkle started a fence,” he remembers. “Going down the back, Bill Rees was always jumping right at one of Peter Cazalet. Pat Taaffe going to the fence after water [on Arkle] and I was upside down, and he said ‘Jaysus, I’m going to get out of here.’ He kicked him in the stomach and in five steps he was 10 lengths ahead. After that I said ‘What won that?’ but I didn’t have to ask!
“The National was not my race. I rode Castle Falls in 1967 and was the first to stop when Popham Down ran loose across the fence. Castle Falls got stuck on top of the fence. Francis Short came over on one of the Irish horses and kicked him up the back, knocked him over and he was lying under the fence on the landing side.
“I was like a sprinter. I was aware of the number of horses behind me and I said to myself ‘get the hell out of here.’ I ducked under the rails and I could not believe that anything was coming over. Then, finally, Terry Biddlecombe came over to Greek Scholar and shouted ‘Come on lads, only one’s gone.’ So everyone came back and eventually I came around.”
After racing he ran a livery yard, a paper shop in Consett, was a racecourse judge from 1974 to 1982 and was a steward until he was 74. He watches racing on TV every day and who that many replays of the Gold Cup will be shown. over the next few days, with no known version of the 1958 race, Hayhurst’s greatest moment on Kirsten will not be one of them.
