Horace Hirst

Horace Hirst

Article by Alan Trout

Horace Hirst was in trouble with the stewards even before he rode in his first race. At Leicester on February 19, 1896 he weighed out and set off to the starting post on his mount Hawkesbury to take part in the Selling Hurdle. However, it turned out that he did not possess a jockey’s licence. The stewards allowed Dick Challoner to substitute and Hawkesbury duly won the race, but they reprimanded Horace for his actions. 

Fortunately, when he did receive his licence a few days later it did not take him long to win a race. At Warwick on February 26, just a week after the Leicester fiasco, Horace won a match for the County Handicap Hurdle on Alcaeus, beating FitzMorgan, the mount of leading amateur Charlie Beatty, by two lengths. 

The very next day at the same course, horse and jockey won again, this taking the Spa Handicap Hurdle, beating seven rivals. 

The undoubted star of that two-day Warwick fixture was the 1892 Grand National winner Father O’Flynn. Starting a shade of odds-on, he won the Warwick Handicap Chase by 20 lengths in the hands of George Williamson, stined himself to win the Grand National on Manifesto in 1899. 

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Horace rode Alcaeus five more times that year and was placed on three occasions. They failed to finish on their last outing together, at Hurst Park on November 28, and Horace never won another race.

He had his final ride when None So Pretty was unplaced in the Cumberland Selling Handicap Hurdle at Carlisle on April 25, 1901.