Thomas Bissill

Thomas Harold Bissill was born on April 10, 1874. He rode 133 winners under National Hunt rules, achieving his biggest success on Moorside II in the 1909 Becher Chase. 

Surprisingly, despite being over the formidable Grand National fences, that year’s Becher Chase, held on November 10, 1909, was restricted to five-year-olds. Rather less surprisingly, there was considerable grief, with Moorside II being the only one of the eight runners to complete the course – and he’d been remounted after falling. 

Evidently, the experience did Moorside II no harm for he went on to win four more chases in a row, with Thomas Bissill on board for the last two of them, at Doncaster in February and Derby in March 1910.

He rode in just one Grand National, in 1902, when brought down on 33-1 shot Arnold.

Thomas Bissill died on February 21, 1940, aged 65.