Tom Cavanagh (Major)

Major Thomas Francis Cavanagh was born on May 3, 1892. He served with the Royal Artillery and had his first ride in public on Martynside in a Cheltenham novices’ hurdle on December 29, 1919, finishing unplaced. 

He rode his first winner on Varminty in the Lightweight Hunters’ Chase at the Royal Artillery steeplechases fixture at Aldershot on April 10, 1920. 

He was particularly effective around Sandown Park, where he rode a total of 14 winners. They included a treble at the 1922 Royal Artillery meeting, landing the Welter Hunters’ Chase on Wave’s Crest, the Ubique Chase on Progress and the Lightweight Hunters’ Chase on Ranee IV. He won two of those races again the following year, the Welter on Carnarvon II and the Ubique on Icon. He won the Welter race for a third consecutive time in 1924 on the 9-4 favourite Ardruel, despite having to remount after falling. At that year’s Grand Military meeting he won the Grand Military Handicap Chase on Lightfoot. 

He enjoyed his most successful period in the second half of the 1925/26 campaign, booting home 14 winners between January and May, placing him third in the list of leading amateur riders for that season. They included wins on both days of Sandown’s Grand Military meeting, notably the Victory Open Chase on Ghent Of Old, and Sandown’s Royal Artillery Gold Cup on the Percy Woodland-trained Snapper. 

That same year, 1926, he rode Ghent Of Old to finish third in the Stanley Chase and fourth in the Grand Sefton Chase, both being over the Grand National fences. He also had the first of three consecutive rides in the Grand National, but his mount, Patsey V (the 1924 National Hunt Chase winner), was brought down on the first circuit. 

He fared much better in the 1927 Grand National, finishing fifth on Master Of Arts. The following year they were was among a score to be put out of the race when Easter Hero landed on top of the Canal Turn, which in those days was an open ditch.

He gained his greatest triumph when winning the 1928 National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham on 20-1 shot Cryptical.

Cryptical was 13 years old and had plenty of experience, though he had yet to win a race under NH rules. He had finished second in the 1924 Cheltenham Foxhunters’ Chase and completed the course in the 1925 Liverpool Foxhunters. He was making his third attempt in the National Hunt Chase, having pulled up in 1926 and fallen in 1927.  

Major Cavanagh rode a total of 58 winners under National Hunt rules, the last of them on Wise Don in the Ladies’ Chase at Rugby Hunt on March 19, 1930. He had his final mount the following month on Windswept at Towcester’s Easter Monday fixture on April 21, finishing second, beaten three lengths in the two-mile Towcester Handicap Chase.

He died on August 25, 1973, aged 81. 

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