Frank Ryall

Frank Ryall was one of the leading amateur riders of the 1950s. Based in the south-west, he enjoyed a long and notable career in the saddle and was a familiar and successful figure at his local courses, both under National Hunt rules and in point-to-points.

His baptism into the sport as a teenager in the late 1930s came through the ride on a pony owned by his father in a point-to-point race held on the moorland Dunnabridge course, near Princetown. There was no fairytale beginning. Instead, the enterprise ended with the pony falling and his rider sustaining a broken collarbone.

However, that mishap proved to be of no detriment. When point-to-point racing resumed after the war, Frank was soon among the winners, recording his first victory on his father’s Lucky Dip at the Lamerton point-to-point in 1946.

His first win under National Hunt rules came on Bad Night for East Lynch, Minehead permit holder Leslie Scott in a novices’ hurdle at Buckfastleigh on Whit Monday, May 29, 1950. He rode two winners the following season, both at Devon & Exeter, one in August meeting, one in September. (Back in those days, those two two-day meetings were Devon & Exeter’s only fixtures of the entire season.)

He enjoyed a fruitful association with a horse named Royal Sun, a son of the well-known sire of steeplechasers Sun-Yat-Sen. He was owned and trained by Gerald Cottrell at Cullompton, in Devon, who had bought him after he’d won a Buckfastleigh selling hurdle in August 1949. Cottrell introduced Royal Sun into point-to-point racing in 1950 with instant success, winning three ladies’ races at the Dart Vale & Haldon, the West Somerset Vale and Tiverton Foxhounds meetings, plus the prestigious Staghunter’s Cup Men’s Open race at the Devon & Somerset fixture, when ridden by Bertie Hill.

Royal Sun won six point-to-points in 1951 including a second Staghunter’s Cup under Bertie Hill. Frank Ryall then took over in the saddle, winning the Lamerton Men’s Open and then achieving the pinnacle of the horse’s pointing career with victory when defeating 24 rivals in the Coronation Cup at Larkhill.

Royal Sun’s next four seasons were devoted entirely to National Hunt racing, during which Frank was almost exclusively his pilot. In the spring of 1952, the combination won at Taunton and Newton Abbot and were placed at Beaufort Hunt, Taunton and Buckfastleigh. The following season they won a Taunton selling chase.

They teamed up to win three chases during the 1952/53 season, at Buckfastleigh in August, Taunton in October, and at Newton Abbot’s Christmas meeting. However, their best performance that season came in defeat, at Wincanton’s October meeting, finishing second, beaten just half a length by future Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Gay Donald, with another high-class chaser, Irish Lizard, back in third.

Frank also visited the Cheltenham winner’s enclosure that season, winning the Nailsworth Handicap Hurdle on Spring Corn – the best hurdler he rode during his career – in October 1953. The best chaser he rode was Stalbridge Rock, although he did not actually win on him, being placed twice at Wincanton and also riding him in Mildmay Memorial Chase at Sandown Park in 1954.

Frank rode five winners during the 1954/55 season. He won three times within a fortnight on Royal Sun in August, landing chases at Newton Abbot, Devon & Exeter and Buckfastleigh, the latter occasion following a ding-dong struggle with the useful chaser Steel Lock, Royal Sun prevailing by a neck.

Frank also won on another of Gerald Cottrell’s horses that season, Texas Dan, who had been one of a dozen fallers in the infamous first fence pile-up in the 1951 Grand National. Having won four point-to-points together in 1953, they landed a Devon & Exeter selling chase in September 1954. Frank’s last win of that campaign came on Tatler III, making his debut under rules in a hunter chaser at Newton Abbot’s 1955 Easter meeting. Tatler III would go on to win ten handicap chases, partnered in all bar one by Billy Williams.

A natural lightweight, Frank was able to ride at close to the minimum weight of 10 stone under NH rules. His services were much in demand during the 1950s from local permit holders and professional yards alike. The West Country was at that time a source of top-class amateurs, its ranks including George Small, Clarence Pocock, John Daniell, Andy Frank, Peter Slade and Bryce Bloomfield, not to mention Billy Williams and Jim Renfree, both of whom subsequently joined the professional ranks.

Frank was noted for his propensity of sticking to the inside rail in his races, which at sharp tracks like Buckfastleigh and Newton Abbot was a big advantage. Jim Renfree was once quoted as saying that “there was no such thing as being on the inside of Frank Ryall,” while Fred Winter reflected that he was the best amateur he rode against during the 1950s.

Frank won three races on Tamar Valley, the last of which was his 25th and final success under National Hunt rules, coming in the Licensed Victuallers’ Handicap Chase at Buckfastleigh on May 24, 1958.

He twice shared the National Point to Point Championship for the most winners ridden in a season, in 1954 and 1960. Having given up riding under NH rules, he continued to ride with great success in point-to-points, including at Buckfastleigh, where he had won seven races prior to its closure as a NH course in 1960. It was used as a point-to-point venue between 1963 and 1977 (reopening again in 1998 and still going strong today). Among the point-to-point winners he rode there was Tawny Pipit, who subsequently finished second in the Aintree Foxhunters’ Chase.

In 1964 Frank won six races on his mare Shirley Jones. In 1968 he registered his 200th winner when winning the Bolventor Harriers maiden race on Mama’s Boy.

He rode his final winner in 1975 at the age of 53, on Peter Wakeham’s horse In Again (right), a half-brother to 1986 Grand National winner West Tip, at the Bolventor Harriers meeting. Remarkably, apart from the broken collarbone he suffered on his first ride in public, he did not sustain a fracture of a single bone during the rest of his long career.

Following his retirement from the saddle he maintained his interest in the sport through his duties as clerk of the course at the Lamerton point-to-point, also periodically acting as judge under the same code.

Frank Ryall died in 1991, aged 69. A tribute published in Horse and Hound concluded that “a rider should be assessed not only by the number of winners that ought to have won, but by those that ought not to have won. Frank Ryall scored highly in the latter category.”

Frank Ryall’s National Hunt’s winners were, in chronological order:

1. Bad Night, Buckfastleigh, May 29, 1950

2. Dupath Well, Devon & Exeter, August 23, 1950

3. Night Gown, Devon & Exeter, September 13, 1950

4. Royal Sun, Taunton, March 8, 1952

5. Royal Sun, Newton Abbot, April 14, 1952

6. Bad Night, Buckfastleigh, June 2, 1952

7. Cottar, Newton Abbot, October 4, 1952

8. Royal Sun, Taunton, March 26, 1953

9. Royal Sun, Buckfastleigh, August 29, 1953

10. Royal Sun, Taunton, October 10, 1953

11. Spring Corn, Cheltenham, October 14, 1953

12. Royal Sun, Newton Abbot, December 28, 1953

13. Royal Sun, Newton Abbot, August 14, 1954

14. Royal Sun, Devon & Exeter, August 18, 1954

15. Royal Sun, Buckfastleigh, August 28, 1954

16. Texas Dan, Devon & Exeter, September 9, 1954

17. Tatler III, Newton Abbot, April 9, 1955

18. Blackburn, Devon & Exeter, April 2, 1956

19. White Paint, Buckfastleigh, May 19, 1956

20. Tamar Valley, Buckfastleigh, April 6, 1957

21. Midstream. Newton Abbot, April 22, 1957

22. Tamar Valley, Newton Abbot, September 27, 1957

23. Dinaran, Newton Abbot, April 5, 1958

24. Middlegate, Newton Abbot, May 10, 1958

25. Tamar Valley, Buckfastleigh, May 26, 1958