Cecil Andrews
Article by Alan Trout
Cecil Andrews rode for three seasons as an apprentice on the Flat in the 1920s but did not manage to register a win.
He served his apprenticeship initially with Herbert Lines at Exning, Newmarket (1919-20) but for the 1921 season he joined Captain Darby Rogers, who had been a useful amateur jump jockey before the First World War.
Cecil’s first ride was at Newmarket on September 30, 1919 when he finished a respectable fourth of eleven runners on Summer’s Joy in the Visitors Apprentices’ Handicap, the last race on the card. The winner was Atrocity, ridden by Albert Garnett. Drama followed the race when the Stewards received communication from the War Cabinet regarding a railway strike. The Stewards were requested to bring racing at Newmarket to a close. They duly abandoned the remaining three days of the meeting.
Cecil had a few rides over the next two years but without success. His final mount was at Windsor on November 2, 1921 in the Rays Selling Handicap won by Robert Grace on Leatherhead. Cecil’s mount Cutty Sark finished down the field.
Captain Darby Rogers, however, continued to train. During the 1930s, he was based initially at Tern Hill, near Market Drayton, in Shropshire, then at Chitterne, near Warminster, in Wiltshire, and lastly at Wimborne, in Dorset.
Following the death of his father, the legendary Irish trainer J. T. Rogers, Darby Rogers returned to Ireland in 1940 to supervise the dispersal of the family’s stable at Crotanstown, The Curragh. Having decided to remain in Ireland, he commenced training at nearby Curragh Grange and was immediately successful, winning the 1940 Irish St Leger with William Barnett’s colt Harvest Feast.
A further seven Irish Classic winners followed, including the 1946 Irish Derby with Bright News and the 1955 Irish 1,000 Guineas with Sir Winston Churchill’s filly Dark Issue. That particular owner-trainer association had come about from Darby Rogers’ elder son, Tim, being appointed ADC to Churchill following his defeat as Conservative Prime Minister at the first post-war General Election. Mainly for security reasons, Churchill never fulfilled his wish to see his horses run in Ireland.
Darby Rogers retired from training in 1958, the same year that his son, Mickey Rogers, won the Epsom Derby for the first time with Hard Ridden. He won it again six years later with Santa Claus.
