Wilfred Clark
Article by Alan Trout
Wilfred Clark enjoyed one very good year over jumps, 1922, when he rode eleven winners, but he only managed another five during a brief career in the early 1920s.
Granted a licence in 1920, he had his first success at Newport on May 17, 1921 when riding 9-4 on favourite The Wish to take the Blaina Selling Hurdle by ten lengths. There were three more wins that year, and it was the last of them, two-mile handicap chaser Flying Winkfield, that contributed to such a successful campaign in 1922.
Trained by Richard Hatt, the six-year-old gelding won six races for Wilfred, four within a 25-day period, including on successive days at Buckfastleigh’s Whitsun meeting. The first of those Buckfastleigh successes was the second leg of a Whit Monday double for Wilfred, having already won the Licensed Victuallers’ Selling Chase on Dick Behan.
Sadly, he was unable to build upon that level of success and recorded only one more win, when Resilient took the Kingsteignton Hurdle by half a length at Newton Abbot on August 7, 1923.
Wilfred Clark’s winners were, in chronological order:
1. The Wish, Newport, May 17, 1921
2. Wingate, Wolverhampton, September 27, 1921
3. Smashaway, Cardiff, October 5, 1921
4. Flying Winkfield, Windsor, December 15, 1921
5. Wingate, Manchester, February 24, 1922
6. Flyting Winkfield, Monmouth, March 30, 1922
7. Pabulum, Monmouth, March 31, 1922
8. Flying Winkfield, Banbury Hunt, April 5, 1922
9. Flying Winkfield, Newton Abbot, May 11, 1922
10. Flying Winkfield, Colwall Park, May 15, 1922
11. Dick Behan, Buckfastleigh, June 5, 1922
12. Flying Winkfield, Buckfastleigh, Jine 5, 1922
13. Flying Winkfield, Buckfastleigh, Jine 6, 1922
14. Swallow VIII, Pershore, November 1, 1922
15. China Lall, Cheltenham, November 14, 1922
16. Resilient, Newton Abbot, August 7, 1923
