A solicitor by profession and an alleged ‘rough diamond’, Mr Horatio Nelson Powell won the 1841 Grand National on the mare Charity, wearing the colours of Lord Craven, although it is widely believed that her Cheltenham-based trainer, William Vevers, had at least a share in the horse.
He was born in Gloucestershire in 1806, a time when Horatio Nelson were very fashionable forenames, following the Battle of the Nile (1798) in which Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson’s fleet defeated that of the French, under Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys d’Aigalliers, at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast off the Nile Delta of Egypt. The three-day battle was the climax of a naval campaign that had begun when a large French convoy sailed from Toulon to Alexandria carrying an expeditionary force under General Napolean Bonaparte.
Horatio Powell began working life an articled clerk in 1823 at Abergavenny prior to qualifying as a solicitor in Cheltenham. On November 20, 1826, at Berkeley, Gloucestershire, he married Susanna Jenner, a relative of Edward Janner, the smallpox vaccination pioneer. He needed his mother’s permission to get married, which implies that Horatio was under 21, while his wife (born in 1798) was not.
An accomplished amateur rider, he contested the Buckinghamshire Steeplechase on Wednesday, November 13, 1834. The starting point was Wadson Mill, some four and a half miles from Aylesbury, the winning post (flags) being planted in a field near the town.
Horatio, riding Captain Fairlie’s black mare, Norna, finished fourth to Vivian who, remarkably under Captain Martin Becher, fell twice and was remounted twice, and still managed to win.
Horatio also contested the Light Weight Stakes at Aylesbury Steeplechases on Wednesday, 10 February 1836. Originally booked to ride Saladin, he switched to Mr Firth’s Laurestina when Saladin ran a temperature that Tuesday evening.
The race conditions make interesting reading.
It was to be started at a barn near the sixth milestone on the Bicester Road and finished in a large field belonging to Mr Simmons, opposite the two-milestone, the turnpike road forming the boundary to the right. No flags were to be used except in the winning field.
The four-mile course was flat throughout with only a slight rise and fall in the first mile, and again at Fleet Marston Chapel, three fields from home. ‘Very severe’ double fences and ditches were to be jumped, plus a 15 feet-wide brook.
Grimaldi fell. Laurestina, lying close behind, ‘jumped clean over man, horse and fence’, while Horatio eventually finished fourth on the 10/1 shot.
Horatio rode in ten Grand Nationals between 1839 and 1849. His record is as follows:
1840: The Nun, 3/1 Favourite, (fell at wall in front of the stands. Horatio remounted, but, discovering the horse was lame, pulled up.)
Lottery, who had won the first National two years earlier, was set the impossible task of carrying 13 stone 4lbs to victory. Incredibly, such was the public regard for the horse he went off the 5/2 favourite. Mercifully, Jem Mason pulled him up before Valentine’s.
1842: Seventy Four (second), a notorious rogue, was 30 lengths clear at one stage. Tried to pull himself up.
1844: Charity (fell at the artificial water. The race was run in torrential rain.)
1845: Peter The Swift (pulled up)
1847: Culverthorpe (fifth)
1848: Variety (pulled up, carried 4 lb overweight)
1849: The Curate 6/1 Favourite (fell, horse broke back and was destroyed)
It is said that Tom Olliver was originally supposed to have ridden Charity instead of Horatio Powell in the year she won the Grand National. They were evidently well acquainted with each other, as evidenced by a report which states: “He (Olliver) mated better with his learned friend and old foe in many a west-country bout, and gloriously would they keep the ball rolling in the bar snuggery or with the ordinary (dinner) well over. And what stories they would tell …”
However, in 1853, Horatio Powell, by then a practicing solicitor in Chipping Sodbury, defended himself against a Herefordshire innkeeper who successfully sued him over a promissory note. Two years later, he was declared bankrupt and confined to a debtors’ prison in Lancaster.
Following his release, he emigrated to Australia and lived there throughout the 1860s (possibly earlier), continuing to practice law until he once again went bankrupt.
Horatio Powell, aged 63, died on November 20, 1869, at Echua, Victoria, in Australia, after being thrown from his buggy, sustaining ‘such injuries that he never recovered’.
His widow, Susanna, died on November 20, 1870, aged 72, at 3 Rodney Terrace, Cheltenham. One can only speculate whether she had accompanied him to Australia.
Based on information supplied by the late David Boyd.