Dave Bassett

Bob Bassett was a builder. In Plymouth during the late 1940s, a builder was a good thing to be. Piecing together a war-ravaged city meant he was never short of work.

Bob the Builder’s son, David Bassett, was born on June 28, 1940, and rode in gymkhanas at an early age. Aged twelve and weighing 8st 7lb, he joined Gerald Balding’s stables at Bishops Cannings, near Devizes, with private tuition substituted for traditional school lessons and slotted in between morning and evening stables. But when rising weight ruled out any chance of riding on the Flat, he returned home and took up showjumping.

In order to satisfy his offspring’s insatiable desire to race ride, Bassett senior bought a gelding called Memory Man, formerly owned by Dorothy Paget. The only horses he’d trained before were show jumpers; all that he knew about getting a racehorse fit was learned from a book. Nonetheless, after several placed efforts, Memory Man, owner-trained by Bob and ridden by David, finally came good on the Saturday (May 19) and Monday (May 21) of Buckfastleigh’s 1956 Whitsun fixture, winning novice chases on both days. He won twice more on Memory Man the following season before turning professional during the 1957/58 campaign.

Plymouth bookmaker Charlie Stuck harboured an ambition to own and train a string of racehorses and in 1960 had purchased Crossways Stables at Yelverton, South Devon, bought eighteen horses, registered his wife as their owner and installed National Hunt jockey Mick James as his private trainer. The enterprise made a good start, highlighted by the 25-1 victory of Fidus Achates in the 1961 Imperial Cup, yet despite the success of that first season, there was a falling out between owner and trainer. Bob Bassett duly took over the licence for the 1961/62 season and became Stuck’s right-hand man in the training operation, with Dave Bassett, who was by then combining riding with farming 60 acres at West Woodburn, near Tiverton, as stable jockey.

Among Stuck’s horses were Politics, who had won four novice chases for Peter Cazalet the previous season, and the mare Dark Venetian, formerly with Richmond Sturdy. It was decided to aim both horses at the 1962 Grand National. Paddy Cowley took the mount on Dark Venetian with Dave electing to ride Politics, although he feels it may not have been entirely his choice.

“Politics was a little horse, about 15.1 hands. I’m sure I was conned into riding him,” Dave later reflected. “Charlie Stuck convinced me, saying that he was a brilliant jumper and he thought I ought to ride him, whereas I think it was really that he wanted Paddy to be on Dark Venetian because he thought she had the better chance. Charlie backed both of them; he had £500 on each.

“I caught the train up to Liverpool and, as I struggled to do ten stone, went straight to the Turkish baths. I met my father on the course, walked down to the first fence and thought to myself ‘No way will I get over that with Politics’. My instructions were to stay on the inside, and back in those days it was a hell of a drop. Also, he’d been running on fast ground in the summer, so the heavy ground at Liverpool wouldn’t have suited him.”

Rain had marred the first two days of racing, which had taken place on soft ground. By Saturday morning the course had dried out fairly well but as the crowds began to arrive the skies darkened again. A combination of heavy rain and sleet for two hours before the race resulted in sodden ground, yet despite the gruelling conditions only three of the 32 runners failed to negotiate the first circuit. Seventeen runners, just over half the field, completed the course, including Politics, who finished last but one.

Recalled Dave: “Going down to Becher’s second time round, I was just behind the winner, Fred Winter on Kilmore. I can remember that white diamond on the blue colours in front of me. Then at Becher’s Politics did the splits and I was up around his ears. I was determined to get round and I picked him up with a ‘come on, let’s go’. I’m sure if I hadn’t nearly fallen, I’d have given them something to think about.”

Dave made a good start to the 1962/63 season, riding doubles on Dark Venetian and Fidus Achates at both Devon & Exeter and Newton Abbot in August and making it three in a row on Dark Venetian at Devon & Exeter on September 6. All those firm ground wins around the Devon courses were achieved well before the worst winter since 1947 wiped out virtually all British racing between Christmas and the second week of March. The far south-west of England was more fortunate than most, hence Charlie Stuck’s horses were able to keep going in the snow. Although Dave wasn’t riding races, he was kept active on the farm, making just occasional visits to Crossways Stables to ride schooling.

Dave and Dark Venetian reappeared on March 16, a fortnight before the 1963 Grand National, to beat Vivant in the Coventry Chase at Kempton. The mare was short of work and wasn’t expected to win but was lucky in that both her main rivals, Taxidermist and the odds-on Laffy, failed to get round. By the day of the National, she should have been just about on song. Alas, the tune was flat.

Said Dave: “Charlie said to me: ‘David, she’s a lot fitter. We’ve galloped her every day since Kempton.’ That was the problem – she was overdone. When I took her out onto the course she didn’t want to know. It was the same in the race, I was kicking and shoving all the way. In the circumstances, she did well to finish ninth.”

The following season saw yet another fallout between the enigmatic Stuck and his trainer, meaning that the horses left Bob Bassett’s yard to be trained by Jim Bowie at Cirencester.

Dave’s natural weight was around 11st 7lb and the continual starvation to keep his body a stone and a half below normal took a heavy toll. He didn’t last very long as a jockey; his body wouldn’t allow it. By the time he was 28, with a total of 42 winners to his name, his riding career was at an end. But far worse was to follow for he developed ulcerative colitis which resulted in a colostomy.

“The last few rides I had, I used to wear a sanitary towel in my backside because of the bleeding,” he recalled. “Everything was bleeding inside. I couldn’t eat and my weight dropped to eight stone. I was dying. I’d gone on several years with tablets and retention enemas. It was touch and go whether I lived. I had an operation that didn’t go straightforward, then, twelve months later, just when I was getting right, I was rushed back into hospital and they had to open me up again. Altogether I had five major operations.”

When sufficiently recovered, he trained as a permit holder for a while and managed to saddle a couple of winners, combining that with farming beef and sheep at his farm at Stoodleigh, near Tiverton.