Cliff Beechener

Cliff Beechener

Article by Chris Pitt

Cliff Beechener was a successful amateur rider before turning professional. He accumulated more than 50 winners and came close to winning some major races, finishing second in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the National Hunt Chase and the Welsh National. But he is equally remembered as the trainer who took on and mentored Josh Gifford as an 11-year-old apprentice and, in Josh’s words “put me on the map”.

Clifford Charles Beechener was born on February 6, 1902, and began riding in the late 1920s. He took out a trainer’s licence in 1931 and immediately had his first good horse in Holmes, who joined his yard as an 11-year-old via the hunting field.

Cliff rode Holmes in a dozen races in 1931, winning five, including the Hunters’ Grand National Trial at Towcester. They also finished second in the National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham and fourth in Sandown’s Grand International Chase.

In 1932, Holmes ran 22 times and won seven, ridden throughout by Cliff. They finished third in that year’s Grand Sefton Chase and also took part in the 1932 Grand National, refusing at Becher’s first time.

Although failing to visit the winner’s enclosure in 1933, Holmes and Cliff performed well in defeat, finishing second in the Welsh Grand National at Cardiff, reappearing seven days later to fill the same position in the Loughborough Open Chase at Quorn Hunt. They finished fourth in the Grand International Chase, fifth behind Golden Miller in the 1933 Cheltenham Gold Cup, and were going well in that year’s Grand National when Holmes ran out on the second circuit.

While hardly in the same league as Holmes, Somercotes flew the flag in 1935, with Cliff winning five selling chases on him in as many months between January and May. He won a couple of Leicester selling chases on Hypericum during the 1936/37 season, by which time he’d turned professional.

He kicked off the 1938/39 campaign by winning a brace of 3m 1f handicap chases on Shiny Knight on successive days at Newton Abbot. Later that season he teamed up with the best horse he would ride in his career. That horse was Schubert, trained then by Dick Thrale. Cliff first rode him on April 4, 1939, Schubert’s debut over fences, at the Household Brigade fixture at Hawthorn Hill. They won by three lengths and followed up at Worcester later that month, completing a double for Cliff that day as he had earlier won the Worcester Handicap Chase on Le Titien III.

Cliff subsequently took over as Schubert’s trainer and saddled him to win a couple of minor chases at Nottingham and Southwell early in 1941 and another at Nottingham in December of that year, partnered by Gerry Wilson. Wilson also rode Schubert in 1942 Cheltenham Gold Cup, finishing fourth, but that would be the horse’s last race for almost three years due to the wartime cessation of National Hunt racing.

When racing resumed on a restricted basis, Cliff and Schubert made the perfect comeback, winning the New Year Chase at Cheltenham on January 6, 1945. They won Cheltenham’s Cirencester Chase and Windsor’s Boveney Chase in February, then finished second to Red Rower in first post-war Cheltenham Gold Cup.

They returned to Cheltenham in December that year to win the Honeybourne Chase and went on to finish fifth behind Lovely Cottage in the 1946 Grand National. They won races at Huntingdon, Fontwell and Wolverhampton later that year and once again completed the Grand National course in 1947, this time finishing in fourteenth placed behind 100/1 outsider Caughoo.

Cliff and Schubert won first time out at Worcester on December 6, 1947, but their journey together ended when being brought down at Cheltenham on January 17, 1948. Leo McMorrow took over and steered Schubert to victory at Fontwell in February and was also in the plate when Schubert completed the Grand National course for the third time, finishing thirteenth behind Sheila’s Cottage. It gave McMorrow some valuable experience of the Grand National fences, experience he obviously put to good use when booting home 66/1 outsider Russian Hero twelve months later.

Having retired from the saddle, Cliff combined training with farming a bloodstock breeding. He saddled over 300 winners from his stables at Denton, near Northampton and was mentor to a number of apprentices.

Some apprentices make it, others don’t. One who didn’t was Terrence Patrick Hanwell, who joined Cliff just after the war and had several rides but never made the grade, eventually leaving racing altogether and becoming a car mechanic at British Telecom’s motor transport division in Northampton.

One who most definitely did make it was Josh Gifford, who joined him in 1953 and remained for three years before moving on to Sam Armstrong at Newmarket. It was for Cliff that Josh had his first ride in public on Controller (finished sixth) in a Newmarket apprentices’ race on April 28, 1953, and also for Cliff that he rode his second winner, Gaiety Lady at Birmingham on July 31, 1956, just 24 hours have after registering the first victory of his career on Dorsol for Syd Mercer.

Cliff Beechener died in 1983, aged 81. Paying tribute, Josh said: “I learned everything about riding from Cliff. He always believed in me and was a very genuine man.”