Most Consecutive Handicap Victories

Haven't a clue Oddy but it isn't Arkle. If I had to guess I would say Crudwell. But it's probably something that goes back further.

 

Camarero was a Thoroughbred racehorse that was raised and raced in Puerto Ricois and is notable for setting the current world record of the most consecutive wins for a Thoroughbred racehorse at 56 in a series of races between April 1953 and August 1955. He was the winner of 73 races, including the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing in Puerto Rico so maybe not a handicapper. But 56 wins on the trot. No wonder he has a racecourse named after him. He was only 14 hands high.

 

Sun Tsui won 5 in a row over the last few months, and he was just denied a 6th when he came 2nd, don't remember many doing more than that

 

Scobie Breasley won seven consecutive races on a two year old for Staff Ingham - in the late fifties or early sixties.
Every one was in a photo finish(most with a lot in hand) and I believe at least six of them werre 'nursery handicaps.'
Problem is I can't remember the horse's name, but I can't think of another horse off hand which bettered that.

 

Crudwell won 50 races but I don't know how many he won on the trot; I just remember always picking him because he had a string of firsts against his name, even when he was 13.

 

You've done it now Tamerlo. I'll have to get the old form books out and spend hours looking for that horse. My wife will kill me and it's all your fault.

 

Good luck Fulkes - on both counts.

 

In terms of consecutive handicap wins, the names that immediately spring to mind on the flat all come from the last thirty years and were sprinters.

Chaplin’s Club won seven handicaps in just seventeen days for David Chapman. The horse won nine handicaps in each of two seasons but I think the seven was the longest streak.

He also trained Soba, who started out in selling races and ended up winning the Stewards Cup but I do not know how many handicaps she won in a row.

Glencroft was another David Chapman sprinter but whilst he won quite a few races I think quite a few of them were claimers and selling races and he probably did not do a sequence.

There was another old sprinter at around the same time who picked up a large number of wins but I cannot remember the name and they may not have been handicaps. That one is going to really annoy me!

I do not think that Jack Berry’s Paris House or Mind Games ran in many handicaps and whilst both were prolific winners they did not have long sequences. As Jack was most famous for his early season two-year-olds they are unlikely to have picked up nurseries as they do not start until the middle of the season.

 

In those days entries were not done on the current five-day basis, so it was possible to enter and run with penalties for winning, which meant that effectively the horse was running on the same handicap mark. I do remember that Chaplin’s Club won two races in less than twenty-four hours as he ran in a race one day at about four o’clock and then ran the next day at about two o’clock.

In those days there was no Sunday racing, so the seventeen days was not seventeen racing days, which makes it even more remarkable.

The other interesting thing about David Chapman’s stable was that he had a jockey called David Nicholls. He has turned out to be a bit of a Dandy. You would have thought that with all the sprinters he trains that he would have run up a sequence with something by now, but I guess it is harder to stay ahead of the handicapper nowadays.

I am going to have to go and dig in the bottom of the cupboard and see if I can find out the name of that other horse.

 

Roger Charlton’s Camberley Two has won 4 handicaps on the trot, this term, and tomorrow, up at Pontefract, bids for number 5.

Its getting tougher for him though as he commenced that run rated just 53 but tomorrow runs off 67.

 

I remember Soba very well. Cracking sprinter.

"September 22nd 2004

SOBA, the extraordinary sprinting filly who rose from rags to riches to be crowned 'Queen of the North' in the 1980s, has died at the age of 25 at the Yorkshire farm where she was foaled.

The winner of 13 races, most memorable among them the 1982 Stewards' Cup, was put down after becoming ill at owner-breeder Muriel Hills's Lane Side Farm, near Bram-ham in West Yorkshire, the place where Soba's remarkable story began.

'She was born here and she died here,' said Hills. 'She had become a bit of a creaky old lady, but she had been in good health until last weekend when she wasn't quite herself. At first we thought it might be colic, but the vet said it was worse than that, so we had to put her down."

Wasn't she almost black in appearance???

 

Reebok, I'm sure it was a two year old- running up a sequence in 'Nurseries.'
Scobie actually rode at 8st 1lb, and would only sweat down to 8st, if really needed.
I can't remember its name for the life in me, probably because I never backed it.

 

Tamerlo - was the horse called Light Catch. I looked at Ingham's winners vs winning horses for that period and he won 51 races in 1957 with just 20 winning horses - so I figure he had plenty of multiple winners that season. Anyway, Light Catch was a two year old which won 7 races with a second place in between them. He was 25/1 ON for one of his victories.

 

Fulkes, I honestly don't know if that was the horse- I just remember reading the details when I was young.

 

Camberley Two who did indeed win his 5th handicap race on the trot yesterday at Pontefract goes for handicap win number 6, on the bounce, up at Haydock Park tomorrow evening (7.40).

Old boy Charlton is obviously keen to strike whilst the iron is hot and he only has 5 opponents who don’t look either the greatest bunch or in the form of their lives – Camberley Two has the potential to perhaps be a ‘modern record breaker’ if he keeps this run going.