John Alder

Article by Chris Pitt

Practically every racing fan will have a favourite horse, one whose career they followed avidly through thick and thin. For many people, they’re greys, those that can easily be picked out in large fields and become whiter with age. For some it’s a bold front-running grey like Desert Orchid, or maybe One Man, while on the Flat it might be Daylami, or perhaps Further Flight.

Mine is Tant Pis, a smooth jumping, near-white chaser whose career spanned virtually the entire 1960s, usually ridden by his owner-trainer John Alder. And while Jockeypedia is ipso facto a website about jockeys, the stories of Tant Pis and his rider are inextricably linked. You cannot have one without the other.

To begin with John Alder, a man born and bred from north-eastern farming stock. His ancestors all rode and there were always horses around the place. He rode his first winner on Ovingstone for a local Northumberland permit holder in the Huntsmen’s Hurdle for amateur riders at Hexham on Whit Monday, May 26, 1958. His second, almost three years later, for another local owner-trainer, came on Volcanic in division one of the Carterside Novices’ Hurdle at Rothbury’s annual fixture in April 1961.

By then John was training a couple of horses under permit at West White Hill, Kirkwhelpington, about 13 miles north-east of Hexham. They comprised Raslink, on whom in 1959 he’d finished fourth in Hexham’s Heart of All England Hunt Cup and second in Sedgefield’s South Durham Open Hunt Perpetual Challenge Cup – both races being of significant local importance to the north-east and Borders hunting/point-to-point community; and a grey gelding by Tantieme out of Rosy Dawn called Tant Pis.

Tant Pis had been discovered at the back of a hen house in South Shields. John’s mother, bought him for 150 guineas as a twenty-first birthday present for her daughter-in-law. He was small and looked like a ladies’ horse, so he was bought as a hunter. He turned out to be somewhat better than a ladies’ hunter.

In 1962 and ridden by John, Tant Pis opened his account in point-to-points by winning the Morpeth Hunt race, followed by the Haydon Adjacent. Although unplaced in the Heart of All England on his rules debut, he managed to finish second in Hexham’s Adam Scott Memorial Cup Hunters’ Chase.

Switched to handicap company for the 1962/63 National Hunt season, Tant Pis won twice in October, an amateur rider’s race at Hexham and the unattractively-titled Bogend Chase at Ayr. He then added Newcastle’s John Eustace Smith Trophy Handicap Chase in the hands of professional jockey Paddy Broderick, John being unable to make the 10st 1lb weight.

He won three more races the following season, beginning with the Farnsfield Handicap Chase at Southwell in September 1963. Ernie Fenwick had the leg up for the other wins, in the Joan Mackay Handicap Chase at Ayr in October and the Boston Spa Handicap Chase at Wetherby in November, again due to John being unable to do the weight.

John did, though, ride two more winners later that season, both on the giant Sizzle-On, owned and trained by Ian Jordan, beginning with the Heart of All England Hunt Cup at Hexham – a maiden hunters’ chase that has almost the same resonance in the north-east as Cheltenham’s four-mile National Hunt Chase – and following up in a novice hunters’ chase at Ayr.

In February 1965 John rode Tant Pis to victory in the Wetherby Grand National Trial. Six weeks later the pair lined up as 40-1 shots for the Grand National itself, jumping superbly and staying on when others had cried enough to come home ninth of the fourteen finishers. 

John finished that season with a flourish, riding five winners, comprising two on novice hurdler Veronate, the South Durham Open Hunt Perpetual Challenge Cup and Adam Scott Memorial Cup on Sizzle-On, and an Ayr hunters’ chase on Quanah for neighbouring Belsay permit holder George Coatsworth. 

John won just once on Tant Pis once during the next two seasons but they came close on several occasions, notably in the spring of 1967 when finishing second to Arthur Stephenson’s Richard’s Jubilee (Paddy Broderick up) in the valuable Wetherby Handicap Chase; being beaten by the Denys Smith-trained Johnnie Walker (ridden by 3lb claimer Brian Fletcher) in the Haddington Jubilee Cup at Kelso; and coming within a short-head of beating Ken Oliver’s Moidore’s Token (Barry Brogan) at Newcastle in May, a finish so tight that the judge originally placed Tant Pis first but subsequently reversed his decision.

John and Tant Pis began the following season, 1967/68, with another short-head defeat at the hands of Barry Brogan,  this time on the Denys Smith-trained Sixty Nine on firm ground at Newcastle on September 23. Seven days later they finished second again, beaten two lengths by Red Alligator (Brian Fletcher) at Hexham. The combination then finished third behind Vulmidas at Teesside Park’s inaugural National Hunt meeting on October 14, and followed that by winning at Catterick the following week. They returned to Catterick in November, this time gaining revenge on their Kelso conqueror Johnnie Walker, beating him a neck in the ITV-televised William Christie Memorial Trophy Handicap Chase. That was followed by three successive .runners-up spots before a deserved victory at Teesside Park in April. John also won a pair of late season novice chases on another of his horses, Doublewoods. 

John began the next season by winning Perth’s Colonel John McKie Memorial Challenge Cup, an amateur riders’ handicap hurdle, on the Bobby Fairburn-trained Light Reading. Tant Pis finished in the frame on seven occasions before finally getting his head at Hexham on May 1, 1969, ridden as usual by his owner-trainer.

By then Tant Pis was 14 years old but still spritely and competitive. Tragically, five months after that Hexham victory, on October 22, 1969, ridden that day by Pat Buckley, he lost his life in a match race with Red Alligator at Newcastle. It was firm ground and they’d watered the take-offs and landings of the fences. Tant Pis slipped as he took off, lost his hind legs and broke his femur on the guard rail. He is commemorated annually at Hexham by the Tant Pis Handicap Chase.

John’s next good horse was Low Pastures, on whom he won a pair of novice hurdles at Teesside Park and Kelso in October 1970. Low Pastures progressed to win five more races that season, partnered by professional jockey Phil Mangan.

Another horse to carry the Alders’ colours of pale blue, black hoop and armlets with distinction was Lothian Brig, who gave John the last two winners of his career when landing handicap chases at Hexham in October 1972 and May 1974. He developed into a multiple winning chaser and provided John’s 17-year-old daughter Valerie with her first success under Rules in a Nottingham hunter chase in May 1977. The pair followed up at Wetherby a fortnight later, winning the Sporting Chronicle Ladies’ Point-to-Point Championship Final.

In 1979 John brought Val a horse named Bush Guide for her twenty-first birthday. In 1982, exactly 20 years after Tant Pis had won the same race, Val Alder rode Bush Guide to win the Morpeth Members’ race at Tranwell, her local point-to-point course. In September that year, Bush Guide made his debut under Rules in a Hexham bumper, making the running, going clear six furlongs out and being untroubled to win by twelve lengths. By-passing the hurdling phase, he was put straight over fences. Partnered throughout by Val, Bush Guide landed three Newcastle novice chases and Sedgefield’s Durham National.

In December 1983, Bush Guide and Val  made all to win the Ladbroke Trophy over three and three-quarter miles at Newcastle, followed 12 days later by a three-and-a-half-mile chase at Haydock. The horse was not yet eight but was clearly an out and out stayer. Val rode him in the 1984 Grand National but he got in too deep at the Canal Turn first time round, hit it in front and toppled over.

By the time Bush Guide reappeared in the autumn of 1984, Miss Alder had become Mrs Jackson, having got married that August. Over the next three seasons Bush Guide made the frame several times without winning. He finally scored his first victory for more than four years when winning the Stewart Wight Memorial Trophy at Kelso in January 1988. He ran his last race, aged 14, when fifth in a Newcastle hunter chase in March 1990. Bush Guide went on to live contentedly for ten years in retirement at his owner’s farm.

Today Val is a permit holder and trains point-to-pointers at home at Belsay. In 2008 she owned, trained and rode Robbers Glen to win Stratford’s John Corbet Cup, the champion novices’ hunter chase and was still winning races on him in 2010, living proof that there is life after fifty.

Her father, meanwhile, is still extremely active and continues to farm at West White Hill, maintaining the tradition of his ancestors. And in the lounge of the Alders’ home hangs a painting of Tant Pis jumping Becher’s alongside another almost white grey, Irish challenger Loving Record, in that 1965 Grand National.

Horses come and horses go, the great, the good, the not so good, the just plain bad, but for me I doubt there’ll ever be one to replace Tant Pis in my affections. Nor, I suspect, in those of John Alder.

John Alder’s winners were, in chronological order:

1. Ovingstone, Hexham, May 26, 1958

2. Volcanic, Rothbury, April 8, 1961

3. Tant Pis, Hexham, October 1, 1962

4. Tant Pis  Ayr, October 15, 1962

5. Tant Pis, Southwell, September 9, 1963

6. Sizzle-On, Hexham, April 25, 1964

7. Sizzle-On Ayr, May 12, 1964

8. Tant Pis, Wetherby, February 13, 1965

9. Veronate, Hexham, April 24, 1965

10. Quanah  Ayr, May 17, 1965

11. Sizzle-On, Sedgefield, May 22, 1965

12. Veronate, Sedgefield, May 22, 1965

13. Sizzle-On, Hexham, June 5, 1965

14. Veronate, Hexham, September 25, 1965

15. Tant Pis, Hexham, May 10, 1967

16. Tant Pis, Catterick Bridge, October 21, 1967

17. Tant Pis, Catterick Bridge, November 18, 1967

18. Tant Pis, Teesside Park, April 1, 1968

19. Doublewoods, Kelso, April 30, 1968

20. Doublewoods, Sedgefield, May 18, 1968

21. Light Reading, Perth, September 25, 1968

22. Tant Pis, Hexham, May 1, 1969

23. Low Pastures, Teesside Park, October 10, 1970

24. Low Pastures Kelso, October 24, 1970

25. Lothian Brig, Hexham, October 30, 1972

26. Lothian Brig, Hexham, May 25, 1974