Leslie Brabazon

Article written by Derek Gay

Leslie Brabazon was born in 1885, one of six children of farmer William Thomas Brabazon.

The family lived near Mullingar, Co Westmeath, Ireland and although not directly involved with racing, his father always had horses around the farm on which Leslie and his older brother Cecil learned to ride. William later trained a few horses for pointing.   

Graduating via the point-point fields, the brothers both went into racing and, although Cecil was a decent jockey, it was Leslie who overshadowed him.

He rode his first winner in 1907 on Wrong Age at Skerries Strand, then went on to become champion amateur 6 times in Ireland and was overall champion jumps jockey 3 times from 1912-1914.

He was regarded as one of the best amateurs and was highly sought after on both sides of the Irish sea, twice riding in the Grand National in 1913 and 1915. He failed to complete in either.

He rode the 6/1 favourite Irish Mail in 1915, but pulled up two fences from home. His two Cheltenham Festival wins came in 1915, the first one hardly caused him to break sweat. He had a walkover in the 3m Stayers selling hurdle on Rathduff.

This he followed up with a win in the Gloucester hurdle on the mare Oppliger.

Irish racing pre-war was somewhat haphazard, In one particular instance at Kells, he won a flat race, only to weigh in a stone light. The race was awarded to his brother, Cecil, riding a horse bred by their father.

The stewards in no way blamed Leslie for this mysterious loss of weight and said he was above suspicion.

On another occasion, he arrived late one evening at Ballyhaunis to ride a well-fancied mare in a chase the following day. The problem was the mare had an aversion to open ditches and it was thought she would more than likely refuse. In the dead of night, Leslie and his great friend Harry Ussher took a can of petrol and burned the fence to the ground.

In September 1910, Leslie rode in one of the most extraordinary races ever seen on an Irish racecourse.

Three horses ran in the race: the first, St Dunstan, was not qualified as he was 3yo and the race was for 4yo and up, the second - Marble Hall ridden by Leslie - was ineligible to ride owing to a technicality, leaving just one horse, Bell H, qualified.

Bell H collided with a post in running and was killed instantly, leaving the stewards to declare the race void, with one horse disqualified, one rider disqualified and one horse lying dead.     

Leslie's riding career came to a halt when he took a crashing fall at Tramore. He was carried away unconscious to an adjacent golf course before being taken to hospital.

He lay in a coma for 98 days.

Although a few years later he made a comeback in the saddle, he was never the same man again.

He never fully recovered from his accident and died in 1964.