The going at Cheltenham on Wednesday, April 11, 1956, was rock hard with jockeys and trainers saying that the surface had not recovered from its pounding through the season.
Pointsman and Spartleton were sent home without being saddled.
In the BBC-televised Stayers’ Handicap Hurdle, Reginald Frederick Charles Mansbridge, aged 18, climbed aboard Siren Light for Basil Foster’s stable. Mansbridge had won on Siren Light at Chepstow just eight days earlier, his fourth winner altogether.
Half a mile from home, the leader, Mandavee fatally fell, bringing down Galloway Hills. Siren Light, just behind, jumped into the fallen horses. Mansbridge received a kick in the back of the head and, unconscious, was rushed to hospital.
He was dead on arrival. A fractured skull was diagnosed as the cause of death.