Albert Ripley

Amateur rider Albert Horace Ripley was born in Surbiton in 1862. He did much of his early riding at Epsom and its neighbourhood, and there were not many fences or ditches in Surrey that he did not know.

He had his first mount in public on Faultfinder in the two-mile Cranberry Park Hunters’ Chase at Chandler’s Ford on February 26, 1883. Chandler’s Ford racecourse, in Hampshire, had opened the previous year and a bright future was predicted. It staged five or six meetings a year, one of only a handful of National Hunt venues to stage more than a single annual fixture. Sadly, however, the venture turned out to be overly ambitious and racing at Chandler’s Ford ended in 1885.

Albert rode his first winner at the West Kent Hunt meeting at Sevenoaks on May 13, 1885. Prior to that he’d finished third in that year’s National Hunt Chase, held at Sandown Park, on the four-year-old Olibanum.

He rode in two Grand Nationals but failed to complete on either occasion. His first mount, 200-1 shot Adelaide in 1891, pulled up. His second, 100-1 outsider Calcraft in 1894, fell at Becher’s Brook first time round.

He did, though, win several races on Calcraft and never tired of relating how he once outwitted Joe Widger on Grand National winner Wild Man From Borneo in a race at Plumpton. On that occasion, Albert set off as if it was a five-furlong sprint rather than a three-mile chase, running Wild Man From Borneo to a virtual standstill by the last fence.

Albert’s most successful year was in 1894 when he rode 11 winners. He went on to ride exactly 50 winners over jumps in Britain, the last of them on Servius in the Lingfield Hunters’ Hurdle Race on May 2, 1898.

He had his final mount in public on a horse named Loppy at the Southdown Hunt fixture at Plumpton on April 24, 1901, trailing in last of the three runners in the Sussex Steeplechase, the race being won by his younger brother Harry ‘Snip’ Ripley on Miss Heather.

Harry Mylius Ripley (1868-1922), universally known as ‘Snip’, was a leading amateur rider of his generation and that win on Miss Heather was the third leg of a four-timer for him that day. Interestingly, when ‘Snip’ had had first ride under National Hunt rules on a horse named Sweetheart at the United Hunt meeting at Edenbridge in 1890, he finished second to his elder brother Albert, on Rowland.

Although Albert did not ride in public anything like as often as his younger brother, he was nonetheless a fine horseman and quite at home on any type of horse he threw his leg across. Both Albert and ‘Snip’ rode a lot in Germany – at Hamburg and elsewhere – during the summer months and enjoyed a fair measure of success there.

Albert Ripley died in Surbiton on February 2, 1904, aged only 41.