Des Dartnall

Des Dartnall

Article by Alan Trout

National Hunt jockey Desmond John Adair Dartnall, known as Des, rode 23 winners over jumps in the years immediately following World War Two.

Granted a licence for the 1945/46 season, he had his first success when Southborough, owned by the Contessa di Saint Elia and trained by Bill Wightman, won the Westbury Chase at Wincanton by eight lengths on November 15, 1946. The same owner/trainer combination would figure in many of Des’s wins over the next few years.

Des and Southborough followed their Wincanton success by dead-heating for second place at Plumpton 12 days later, following that with a third-place finish behind Camas Bridge and Wake Robin in Windsor’s Wraysbury Handicap Chase on January 10, 1947.

He rode five winners that season, including two on Well Fire, comprising a Beaufort Hunt novice chase and a Wye handicap chase. He equalled that score in 1947/48. An Easter Monday double at Plumpton for Bill Wightman and Ken Cundell was the highlight of his four-winner haul for the 1948/49 season. He rode just two winners the next and four in 1950/51, including victory on 12-year-old Southborough in Windsor’s Royal Lodge Handicap Chase, four years after that horse had given him his first success.

In November 1951 Des rode Wightman’s stable star Halloween in the valuable Newbury November Handicap Chase, worth £1,102 15s to the winner. Halloween had won five chases the previous season in the hands of his owner, Captain Dick Smalley, but had fallen at Hurst Park in October when ridden by Dick Francis. Now Des was entrusted with the ride for what might well have been the highlight of his career. Alas, Halloween fell at the very first fence.

Des gained a small measure of compensation the following month when winning a Hurst Park handicap hurdle on another of Captain Smalley’s horses, Clay Pit. Kandy Boy was Des’s only other winner that season, at Plumpton in January.

Kandy Boy also provided him with the last success of his riding career in the Surrey Handicap Chase at Hurst Park on November 20, 1952. He relinquished his jockey’s licence at the end of the 1953/54 season.

Des Dartnall trained successfully during the 1960s and 70s, initially at Old Lane Stables, Condicote, near Stow on the Wold, then at Old Park Farm, Chepstow, and finally at Windy Hollow, Lambourn. His son, Gerald Dartnall, rode as an amateur and then a professional and partnered longshot On The Move in the 1970 Grand National.

Des Dartnall’s winners were, in chronological order:

1. Southborough, Wincanton, November 15, 1946

2. Sun, Wincanton, March 20, 1947

3. Sun Cheer, Plumpton, April 5, 1947

4. Well Fire, Beaufort Hunt, April 26, 1947

5. Well Fire, Wye, May 19, 1947

6. Petrograd, Plumpton, January 3, 1948

7. Sun Cheer, Lingfield Park, January 16, 1948

8. Sun, Wincanton, January 22, 1948

9. Sun, Windsor, February 7, 1948

10. Clay Pit, Lingfield Park, February 13, 1948

11. Kitson, Fontwell Park, September 20, 1948

12. Tarka, Wincanton, March 17, 1949

13. Kitson, Plumpton, April 16, 1949

14. Hereford, Plumpton, April 16, 1949

15. Tarka, Wincanton, December 27, 1949

16. Compensation, Lingfield Park, January 13, 1950

17. Ben Moor II, Wincanton, September 21, 1950

18. Ben Moor II, Fontwell Park, October 9, 1950

19. Southborough, Windsor, December 9, 1950

20. Kandy Boy, Windsor, February 28, 1951

21. Clay Pit, Hurst Park, December 21, 1951

22. Kandy Boy, Plumpton, January 9, 1952

23. Kandy Boy, Hurst Park, November 20, 1952