Mr Edward Clifford Jr.

Mr Edward Clifford Jr.

There was a time in horse racing when cruel indifference made the sport as inhuman as bear-baiting or bullfighting is today. One such occasion arose at Bromley racecourse on Tuesday 5 April 1868 during the running of the Steeplechase Plate Handicap. Mr Edward Clifford Jr. aged 19,  of Thame, Oxon, was leading the field on his father’s Vindicator some three-quarters of a mile from home. The same combination had won the Railway Steeplechase over the same course and distance the previous afternoon and a double looked very much on the cards. Then - disaster! Vindicator fell heavily, pitching his jockey forward onto the ground. The horse then rolled over his rider, killing him on the spot. So little notice was taken of the event that the race was completed. Then a meeting was called of all the jockeys who had taken part in the race, but not to discuss the demise of young Clifford. The stewards wanted to settle a dispute as to whether some of the horses had run on the wrong side of a particular post. This went on for some thirty minutes until, unable to reach a decision, the stewards declared the race void. In all this time, not a word was mentioned of Clifford, whose mangled body still lay in the rain-sodden field. Two schoolboys, whose habit was to scour the racecourse seeking dropped coins, stumbled across it shortly before the running of the remaining four races. His body was quickly and surreptitiously removed before the day’s racing was completed.

Clifford was not a qualified gentleman rider, but it was intended at the next meeting of the Grand National Committee to move that his name be added to the list. Clifford was the first jockey fatality since Joseph Wynne lost his life in the Grand National.