Cornelius Hogan rode 18 winners for various trainers around the northern courses between 1948 and 1953. The first was at Kelso on May 5, 1948, when riding the four-year-old Looks Belie, trained by Jack Fawcus, to beat the future champion jump jockey Tim Molony on Blancador in the Sunlaws Hurdle.
Over the next five seasons, Cornelius rode steadily, having plenty of rides – almost 100 in one season – and a few winners each time, achieving a best score of six in the 1949/50 campaign. He finished fourth in the only major race he contested, the 1950 Scottish Grand National at Bogside, on Ballytouchy, trained by John Anthony Marshall. Cornelius had already won three chases on him, including the Perthshire Challenge Cup. However, on this occasion, he was well beaten by Sanvina, owned and ridden by future top Scottish Borders trainer Ken Oliver.
Cornelius won three races on Silken Thomas, trained by Percy Vasey, the first of which, the Hartington Handicap Chase at Cartmel’s 1951 Whitsun meeting, was his 15th, resulting in him losing his right to claim an allowance. The following season, they won the Ladies’ Cup at Rothbury’s annual one-day fixture, then scored a repeat victory in Cartmel’s Hartington Chase.
Cornelius’s last win was at Bogside’s Scottish Grand National meeting on April 17, 1953, when Shemight, trained by George Dickinson and the outsider of the four runners, won the Eglinton Chase by a neck from Bright Bay, the mount of Arthur Thompson. It was the only race the mare won from thirteen starts.
Shemight was one of Cornelius’s last two rides when finishing unplaced in a selling hurdle at Sedgefield on June 2, 1953. Later that afternoon, he rode for the final time when fourth on Cock Feathers in the Coronation Handicap Chase, a race so named to herald the imminent coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
Cornelius Hogan’s wins were, in chronological order:
1. Looks Belie, Kelso, May 5, 1948
2. Ballytouchy, Carlisle, October 16, 1948
3. Ballytouchy, Kelso, October 22, 1948
4. Mountain Cottage, Kelso, October 23, 1948
5. Ballytouchy, Perth, September 22, 1949
6. Mary Scott, Carlisle, October 17, 1949
7. Mary Scott, Haydock Park, January 7, 1950
8. Debatable Point, Doncaster, February 16, 1950
9. Debatable Point, Kelso, March 4, 1950
10. Sonkin, Hexham, May 27, 1950
11. Sonkin, Perth, September 21, 1950
12. Sonkin, Hexham, September 30, 1950
13. Bonnytoun Lad, Hexham, October 30, 1950
14. I’m In, Carlisle, March 26, 1951
15. Silken Thomas, Cartmel, May 14, 1951
16. Silken Thomas, Rothbury, April 19, 1952
17. Silken Thomas, Cartmel, June 2, 1952
18. Shemight, Bogside, April 17, 1953