Richard Flutter

(1844 - 1901)

Amateur rider Richard Kingston Flutter was born in 1844. A Pembrokeshire farmer, he rode a total of 40 winners over jumps in Britain.

He achieved his greatest success when winning the 1875 National Hunt Chase on Gazelle. The race was held on the inaugural day’s racing at Sandown Park, Thursday, April 22, 1875, the first of a three-day meeting over jumps and on the flat.

Gazelle was the first four-year-old winner of the race. She had won the Consolation Hunters’ Stakes over two miles on the flat, at the Carmarthenshire Hunt meeting in February, but as the race was worth less than £20, she remained qualified for the National Hunt Chase.

Gazelle had also been beaten in another race at that same Carmarthenshire Hunt meeting and Mr Flutter had been hauled before the stewards who ‘severely censored and cautioned him’ for his suspicious riding. Baily’s Magazine duly reported that “the interview, we believe, much impressed ‘Mr Flutter’, who certainly did not forget to win at Sandown, whatever he did at Carmarthen.”

Gazelle had also won a hunter chase by six lengths at the Ross Hunt meeting six days before her Sandown triumph. Again, the race was only worth £19 to the winner.

Returning to the Carmarthenshire Hunt fixture in 1876, Mr Flutter and Gazelle made all to win a two-mile hurdle race for hunters. Later that month, they landed bumpers at Croydon and Streatham. They started at 40-1 for that year’s Grand National but Gazelle refused at the third fence. She never won again.

Richard Flutter died on May 11, 1901.