October 4, 2013

FINEST HOUR 102, SPRING 1999

BY KATHERINE THOMSON

Ms. Thomson is a member of the cataloguing team on the Churchill Papers at the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge. “Racing to Victory,” an exhibition on which this article is based, is on display through 30 July at the National Museum of Horseracing, Newmarket, near Cambridge.

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In 1951, Clementine Churchill wrote to an old friend, remarking on her husband’s peculiar new interest: “Have you seen his horse Colonist II?….I do think this is a queer new facet in Winston’s variegated life. Before he bought the horse (I can’t think why) he had hardly been on a racecourse in his life. I must say I don’t find it madly amusing.”¹

Clementine could not have been more wrong. Before their marriage, Winston had not only been on racecourses but had ridden round them, with some success. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he had presided over a revolutionary change in racecourse betting. And in the next thirteen years he would go on to become one of the most successful racehorse owners and breeders in England.

Given Sir Winston’s background, it would have been more surprising if he had not been interested in racing. His maternal grandfather, Leonard Jerome, was a great supporter of the turf in America, building his own racecourse, while between 1889 and 1893 Lord Randolph Churchill, Winston’s father, was a leading English owner. Lord Randolph only really became interested in horses after his withdrawal from politics in 1886, buying a black filly, “L’Abbesse de Jourrare.” (The public promptly labelled her “Abscess on the Jaw.”)

Nobody had any great hopes for the Abbesse, and although Lord Randolph did enter her for the Oaks (a classic race for fillies), he did not bother to back her or even to watch the race, disappearing instead on a fishing holiday. Possibly the Abbesse felt she had a point to prove, for she amazed everybody by winning. Her owner (in between remarks on the fishing) wrote to Lady Randolph: “Just a few lines to tell you how overjoyed I was last night to hear of the Abbesse winning the Oaks. I hope you were there to see her win….What a surprise!…We must not any longer talk of ‘worthless animals.'”²

The Abbesse went on to win over £10,000 in her career, and 16-year-old Winston was as enthusiastic about her as his father. From Harrow he explained, “I have been congratulated on all quarters on account of the ‘flukey filly’ After another success he wrote: “I drank the Abbesse’s health in lemon squash and we eat [sic] her luck in strawberry mash.”³

Even before this, young Churchill had been fond of horses; at school in Brighton he liked riding better than anything else. He took to horse racing as a cavalry subaltern at Sandhurst, and his delight in the sport comes across years later, in this passage from My Early Life:

Horses were the greatest of my pleasures at Sandhurst. I and the group in which I moved spent all our money on hiring horses…We organised point-to-points and even a steeplechase in the park of a friendly grandee, and bucketed gaily about the countryside.⁴

Churchill was anxious to excel. “I should like nothing better than to win the cavalry prize,” he told his mother.⁵ He duly took part in the competition, but failed to win—just:

My dearest Father….The Riding Examination took place on Friday….all the cadets were examined who pass out this term – 127 in all. Then 15 were picked to compete together for the prize. I was one of those….Well we rode -jumped with & without stirrups & without reins – hands behind back and various other tricks. Then 5 were weeded out leaving only ten of us. Then we went in the field & rode over the numerous fences several times – 6 more were weeded out leaving only 4 in. I was wild with excitement and rode I think better than I have ever done before but failed to win the prize by 1 mark being 2nd with 199 out of 200 marks. I am awfully pleased with the result… I hope you will be pleased.⁶

A few months later, in March 1895, Churchill experimented with steeplechasing, and rashly told his mother about a misunderstanding with his horse: “The animal refused and swerved….Very nearly did he break my leg, but as it is I am only bruised and very stiff.”⁷ Lady Randolph seems to have taken a poor view of her son’s hazardous exploits. In his letter of 15 March, Churchill tried to be reassuring:

I think – if you will let me say – that you take rather an extreme view of steeplechasing – when you call it at once ‘idiotic’ and ‘fatal.’ Everybody here rides one or other of their chargers in the different military Races which are constantly held. Of course for this year I cannot ride, but I hope to do so next year.⁸

The unsuspecting Lady Randolph wasn’t to know that just five days later her unregenerate son would be borrowing another subaltern’s horse, and riding under the name of “Mr. Spencer” in the 4th Hussars Subalterns’ Challenge Cup. Churchill was more frank with his brother Jack.

It was very exciting, and there is no doubt about it being dangerous. I had never jumped a regulation fence before and they are pretty big things as you know. Everybody in the Regiment was very pleased at my riding, more especially as I came in third. They thought it very sporting. I thought so too.⁹

Unfortunately the race was later declared void. Moreover, the review Truth suggested that the winner had been a “ringer” substituted for another horse, while all those in the race must have been in on the plot; or as Truth put it, “the coup which resulted in the defeat of a hot favourite by the last outsider in the betting.” Churchill, by then in India, was upset by these allegations and urged his mother to take legal action, but the matter was allowed to drop.

Being stationed in India was no bar to racing, as Churchill had been given a racing pony, Lily. Lady Randolph asked him to sell the pony: “You don’t know but everyone else does that it is next to impossible to race in India & keep clean hands.”¹⁰

Churchill, however, was determined to have his way, protesting that everyone raced, and that selling Lily “would…rob my life out here of one strong interest.”¹¹ Lady Randolph relented, and Churchill duly raced his pony, although being unused to the conditions, Lily proved a disappointment.

As a member of the regimental polo team, however, Churchill had ponies to draw on, taking part in several races, including one with “a ripping line of 49 fences” where he was one of only five from thirteen to finish.¹² Though he never won, he came third three times, and as this letter to Jack shows, enjoyed himself immensely: “We have a pony race meeting this week here and I have entered some of my numerous polo ponies in every race – & hope to have some fun. Chocolate-pink sleeves and cap will appear for the first time on Indian soil.”¹³ (These were his fadier’s racing colours, and the colours of Churchill College today).

Pony racing was all very well for a young Hussar; less so for an ambitious MR The chocolate and pink colours were not to be seen for another fifty-two years, when the unimportant Lieutenant Churchill had become one of the great statesmen of the twentieth century.

Almost exactly halfway between these two periods in Churchill’s life, he had another more bruising encounter with the turf. In 1925, as a Chancellor of the Exchequer permanently trying to balance the books, Churchill was presented with the idea of a tax on betting. The betting laws of the time were certainly in need of reform since, although it was legal to bet on the course, or by telegraph to a betting office, most people gambled illegally with cash on the street. Even on the racecourse conditions were far from ideal, as this disapproving Cabinet report points out:

The payment of £1 2s 6d for admission to Tattersall’s Ring enabled one to see the horses in the paddock before each race. But the Ring itself was made up of a Sahara of asphalt occupied by a howling mob of bookmakers and their clerks packed cheek by jowl with burly runners dashing here and there….There were far too many of these toughs pushing and jostling the unfortunate spectator, who was compelled to shove as in a rugby scrum in order to obtain breathing space in the narrow strip of grass between the asphalt and the rails which made an apology for a lawn.¹⁴

The Government’s idea was to register the street bookmakers, and set them up in offices. In theory, betting could in one stroke be regulated and taxed at a rate optimistically estimated at £17 million a year.

Churchill was no longer the carefree young man scrambling round racecourses on his polo ponies. He had to placate public opinion and was nervous about appearing to encourage gambling. Writing to his advisers in the Treasury, he warned that “it would be essential to prohibit any notice, placard, list of betting odds, or other street sign which would flaunt itself before the passer-by…Do not suppose that I have in the slightest degree made up my mind on this proposal, about which I entertain the gravest doubts.”¹⁵

As he told a deputation of experts, “I am afraid we might be accused…of having deliberately spread and multiplied the vice – I won’t say vice, but evil?”¹⁶

This was a far cry from Churchill’s own racing days, but despite his concerns, he went ahead and imposed the tax in the budget of spring 1926. Unfortunately it proved difficult to enforce and roused great opposition among the racing fraternity. A petition received from the trainers of Newmarket complained about “the very serious effect” of the tax, as it was putting off racegoers. The Home Secretary warned that Churchill was alienating both God and Mammon, “in other words, the Churches and the betting fraternity, both of whom are supporters of the Tory Party.”¹⁷

Churchill himself favoured sitting tight, “simply to let the tax work itself into the life of the community,” but as opposition grew, was forced to cut the rate of tax twice. As this still did not mend matters, he finally repealed the measure. Reluctant to give up a revenue of some £3 million entirely, however, he introduced a new scheme which did prove a success, the totalisator, or “tote,” a machine which registered bets and gave the odds automatically. Setting out the advantages of the tote in a letter to the Home Secretary, Churchill explained:

The rowdy rascal element so prominent on our race courses is eliminated. The running of horses to suit the interests of the bookmakers disappears, and an altogether cleaner and healthier condition prevails … It would yield a revenue to the upkeep of bona fide racing sport, and the State contributions could be collected in the easiest manner.¹⁸

The tote is still used on British racecourses today, and earned the thanks of the industry. As Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, one of the Stewards of the Jockey Club, told Churchill, “you have helped us to make racing a better and a straighter game than it has ever yet been; and you have helped to prevent its becoming a game that only millionaires and sharps can play.”¹⁹

Churchill had not made much political capital out of his services to racing, but he was to receive his reward years later when he finally returned to the sport. In 1949, the Epsom vet Major Anthony Carey Foster (later Sir Winston’s racing manager) saw an unprepossessing grey colt running in France; while only half-fit, the horse still finished second. Impressed, Carey Foster bought him for the trainer Walter Nightingall, who showed him to Christopher Soames, Churchill’s son-inlaw. Churchill was Leader of the Opposition, having been cast out as Prime Minister in 1945; Soames evidently felt that his father-in-law needed a new interest and talked him into buying the grey. The horse’s name was Colonist II, and a great racing partnership was born.

Churchill did not make his foray into racing without opposition. It seemed uncomfortably like a throwback to a privileged aristocratic past, from which a modern politician might prefer to distance himself. Clementine was frankly disapproving, and his secretary Jo Sturdee actually wrote him a letter warning that he might damage his reputation. She also told one of Churchill’s former assistants: “Had you heard Mr Churchill is now going in for owning race horses?….I must admit I intend to have a bob or two on them. All the same I told him I thought it would lose him votes at the General Election.”²⁰

Churchill stuck to his guns despite these criticisms, and at Salisbury, in August 1949, Colonist II carried his old colours back onto the racecourse. Christopher Soames later admitted his fears over the race:

I was very worried before the race—not because I did not think it would win but because I was frightened something might go wrong, or the unforeseen happen….At the start he jumped off in front and…never looked like being caught…just strode away from them and won comfortably by four lengths…There was a terrific cheer from the crowd when he won – and they all surged forward to see him come in and gave him a wonderful reception.²¹

The race-goers had backed Colonist heavily, sure that Churchill’s horse could not lose, and the shout “Winnie wins!” became a familiar one as Colonist went from strength to strength. Far from being an electoral liability, Lord Derby told Churchill that “the Tory cry at the next election would be ‘the Conservatives and Colonist.”²² Churchill’s popularity was undamaged and racing correspondents were equally impressed. One said that “this tough and indomitable grey horse has performed miracles. No horse in living memory has put up such a sequence of wins in good-class races in one season. Eight wins…in 11 races, reads like something inspired, and that…was just what this horse seemed to be, by the great spirit of his indefatigable owner.”²³ Colonist even reflected Churchill’s politics by running best on courses bending to the right. He was held by his owner to have been sent by Providence as a comfort for his old age to console him for his disappointments.

Colonist won thirteen races in his career and nearly £12,000 in prize money. He was even mentioned in Hansard, as when called on by a Labour MP to sell him. Churchill retorted: “I could sell him for a great deal more than I bought him for, but I am trying to rise above the profit motive.”²⁴

Covered in glory, Colonist retired to the royal stud at Sandringham. (Churchill is said to have vetoed an earlier suggestion in this line with the words, “To stud? And have it said that the Prime Minister of Great Britain is living on the immoral earnings of a horse?”)²⁵

Colonist was only the best-known of Churchill’s horses; in all, Walter Nightingall saddled seventy winners for his most famous owner. A lucky buy of an American-bred brood mare by Christopher Soames encouraged Churchill to set up his own stud, first at Chartwell, then at Newchapel in Surrey. Le Pretendant, Colonist’s half-brother, won the Churchill Stakes, and also ran in the Washington International. High Hat walked away with the Ali Khan Gold Cup. Vienna took the Prix Ganay in France, and although not bred by Churchill, the filly Dark Issue provided him with a classic victory by winning the Irish 1000 Guineas in 1955. Churchill had to miss this race, explaining that “The General Election was my owner, and I was already entered among the runners.”²⁶

Even as Prime Minister, Churchill almost always managed to make time to watch his beloved horses run. He had pictures of them in his bedroom at Chartwell, which may still be seen. It was a great blow to him when, in 1964, the year before his death, he had to give them up because of ill health. His last letter to his trainer shows his attachment to the sport which had given him such pleasure, both in youth and old age:

It is very sad for me to have to end my racing activities owing to the fact that my health does not allow me to attend race meetings any more. I know that this decision will cause sorrow to you too, since we have had such a long association. My mind goes back to the Spring of 1949, when Christopher persuaded me to buy COLONIST. He gave us all great excitement and pleasure, and he was also the forerunner of many successes….It doesn’t fall to many people to start a racing career at the age of seventy-five and to reap from it such pleasure.²⁷

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NOTES

1 Mary Soames, Clementine Churchill (London: Cassell 1979), p- 428, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Volume 8 (London: Heineman 1988), p. 563.

2 Churchill Papers: CHAR 28/9/17-18.

3 Churchill Papers: CHAR 28/17/48-51.

4 Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, Vol. 1 (Heinemann, 1966), p. 213.

5 Winston S. Churchill Vol. 1, Companion Vol. 1 (Heinemann, 1967), p. 518.

6 Winston S. Churchill Vol. 1, Companion Vol. 1, p. 540.

7 Winston S. Churchill Vol 1, p. 247.

8 Winston S. Churchill Vol 1, p. 247.

9 Winston S. Churchill Vol 1, p. 247.

10 Winston S. Churchill Vol 1, Companion Vol. 1, p. 308.

11 Churchill Papers, CHAR 28/22/11-13.

12 Churchill Papers, CHAR 28/21/29-30.

13 Churchill Papers, CHAR 28/22/30-31.

14 Churchill Papers, CHAR 22/159/80.

15 Churchill Papers, CHAR 18/13.

16 Paul Addison, Churchill on the Home Front (London: Pimlico 1993), p. 257.

17 Churchill Papers, CHAR 18/51/23; 18/59.

18 Churchill Papers, CHAR 18/59.

19 Churchill Papers, CHAR 2/158/115.

20 Churchill Papers, CHUR 2/165/152-3.

21 Churchill Papers, CHUR 1/46/311-12.

22 Churchill Papers, CHUR 2/162/26-7.

23 Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Vol. 8, p. 563.

24 Churchill Papers, CHUR 1/157/193.

25 Kay M. Halle, Irrepressible Churchill (Cleveland: World 1966)

26 Churchill Papers, CHUR 1/93/177.

27 Churchill Papers, CHUR 1/158/262

WSC, MY EARLY LIFE, 1930:

“Don’t give your son money; as far as you can afford it, give him horses. No one ever came to grief through riding horses. No hour of life is lost that is spent in the saddle. Young men have often been ruined through owning horses or through backing horses, but never through riding horses. Unless, of course, they break their necks. Which, taken at a gallop, is a very good death to die.”