Born on August 30, 1953, Christopher John Cundall was an accomplished Malton-based amateur rider who rode 43 winners under National Hunt rules during the 1970s and 1980s.
Chris rode just three winners over the course of the next two seasons but then recorded six victories during the 1975/76 campaign. Four of those came courtesy of Guy Cunard’s hunter chaser Greystoke Pillar, whose successes were at Leicester and Nottingham in March, at Cartmel on Whit Monday, and culminated in the John Player Special Point-to-Point Championship Final at Catterick on June 5, 1976.
The following season Chris won on Greystoke Pillar at Leicester (the race he’d won 12 months earlier) on March 7, then four days later partnered another Guy Cunard-trained horse, Noon, to victory in the Dick McCreery Cup Past and Present Handicap Chase at Sandown’s Grand Military meeting. Chris also scored on a couple of horses owned by his wife Jill, landing a novice hurdle at Nottingham on Et Tu and a Market Rasen amateur riders’ novice chase on Ellerby Lord.
His highlight of the 1977/78 season came when winning Hexham’s prestigious Heart of All England Hunt Cup Maiden Hunter Chase on 13-2 chance High Rebel.
On Saturday, August 26, 1978 Chris registered a hat-trick at Cartmel’s bank holiday meeting, landing the second, third and fourth races aboard 7-1 chance Ellerby Lord, 9-1 shot Brother Broncho and 7-2 third favourite Fine Fellow, an achievement that merited a small front-page mention in the following Monday’s edition of the Sporting Life. He won twice more on Ellerby Lord that term, landing a two-mile handicap chase at Teesside Park (Stockton) in October and the George Stevens Handicap Chase at Cheltenham in December. He ended the season with a score of six wins.
Ellerby Lord won three times the following season but two of those were ‘opportunity’ races at Uttoxeter, in which amateurs weren’t allowed to ride, hence conditional jockeys Graham Bradley and Andy Stringer had the mounts. Chris was reunited with Ellerby Lord at Wetherby on May 6, 1981 to win a two-mile handicap chase. He rode the horse to victory again at Market Rasen in September.
Those two wins were among the last Chris rode, as he gradually became more immersed in his Scarborough veterinary practice.
In 2017 he was called to a nearby farm to look at a bull that was lame. Chris went to examine the animal which first crushed him against one wall before spinning around and pounding him again into the back wall of the enclosure. Chris suffered a spinal fracture which impinged on his spinal cord leaving him partially paralysed from the waist down.
He was airlifted to the James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough, by Yorkshire Air Ambulance. His accident was featured in an episode of the series Helicopter ER, a UKTV programme which followed the life-saving work of the rapid response emergency charity.
The accident left Chris in a wheelchair with an ‘incomplete’ paralysis and he had to move out of the family’s Sherburn farm into a wheelchair accessible house. He was at least fortunate in having the state-of-the-art rehabilitation unit at Jack Berry House, run by the Injured Jockey Fund, just a few miles away at Malton.
Determined to walk again, he attended Jack Berry House twice a week and, after a while, was able to move his legs and bear weight with just a little support. His goal, he stated, was to do a sponsored walk on a Zimmer frame, either at different racecourses or between the penultimate and last fence of one course to raise money for both Yorkshire Air Ambulance and the IJF.
