Fred Sergeant

1898 -1976

Born on January 5, 1898, National Hunt jockey Frederick William Sergeant rode 60 winners over jumps between 1920 and 1938.

He had his first ride in public when finishing sixth of 17 on Chariot in the Hants Hurdle at Newbury on November 16, 1919. He got off the mark within two months, riding Bedplate to victory in the Licensed Victuallers Selling Handicap Hurdle at Tenby on January 14, 1920.

It was that same race, the Licensed Victuallers Selling Handicap Hurdle, seven years later that would destroy Tenby’s reputation and lead to its eventual demise (see story below).

Fred enjoyed his most successful year in 1924 with a total of 11 wins, including three in a row within the space of a month on Ballyalton. They were:

October 11: Holmer Hurdle, Hereford.

October 23: Bosbury Maiden (at closing) Hurdle, Colwall Park.

November 3: Thorneycroft Hurdle, Wolverhampton.

He came closest to winning a major race when second, beaten a length, on Sir Ernest Wills’s seven-year-old Animated in the 1927 Welsh Grand National at Cardiff. Jumping the last fence a length or so behind the 13-year-old Snipe’s Bridge, Fred brought Animated with a strong challenge on the run-in but Snipe’s Bridge had sufficient in reserve to hold him off.

The only other occasion on which Fred got close to a big race win was when finishing third, beaten eight lengths and six lengths, on Elevator in the 1936 Lancashire Chase at Manchester.

He achieved the last of his 60 wins on Turmoil, scraping home by a head in the Stalbridge Hurdle at Wincanton on Easter Monday, April 18, 1938. He rode for the final time on June 6, 1938 when pulling up his Lancashire Chase third Elevator in the Ely Handicap Chase at Cardiff, the course where he had come within a length of winning the Welsh Grand National 11 years earlier.

Fred Sergeant died on February 8, 1976, aged 78.

The Oyster Maid Coup

Local trainer David Harrison fielded three of the eight runners for the Licensed Victuallers Selling Handicap Hurdle at Tenby on Thursday, January 13, 1927. They were the odds-on favourite Bubbly, the mount of Dick Rees, Oyster Maid, partnered by Billy Stott, and Fairy Light, ridden by Harrison’s head lad Tommy Duggan.

It was a dismal winter’s afternoon with snow, sleet and then torrential rain driving spectators for what little cover there was and making it virtually impossible to see what was happening out on the course. Despite the race taking place during a snowstorm, one intrepid race reader was able to report that the early running was being made by Any Excuse from Fairy Light, Oyster Maid and Paddy Milestone. Bubbly and Oyster Maid went to the front around halfway and were still together turning for home.

But what the reporter didn’t see was that, once the horses had gone out of view on the far side of the course, the two amateur riders in the race were badly impeded. With that pair out of the way, the remainder stopped to a walk, allowing Oyster Maid and Bubbly to go clear. Oyster Maid drew clear on the run-in to beat his odds-on stablemate by five lengths. The bare result appeared nothing special – just another odds-on shot beaten by a longer-priced stablemate.

Although Oyster Maid’s starting price was 100-6, the best odds available on the course were 8-1, which was not altogether surprising, considering that the official SP reporter had been promised, as had the jockeys involved, the starting price odds to £50.

For the bedraggled on-course bookmakers it wasn’t a bad result, as all the on-course money had been for the hot favourite, Bubbly. But for the off-course SP bookmakers, operating from their dark and shady boltholes, or those firms offering a telephone service to credit clients, it was a disaster. Hundreds of betting slips, all for Oyster Maid, had arrived just before the ‘off’. Numerous telephone bets were also taken in the final minutes leading up to the race.

Those firms who tried to hedge their liabilities by sending money back to the course to reduce the odds were out of luck. The nearest telephone was at a house situated on top of a hill half a mile away. Arrangements had been made with its owner to place a tic-tac man there to signal back to the course news of any large bets placed off-track. Unfortunately, with visibility down to almost nil due to the appalling weather, he faced an impossible task. It was weather tailor-made for skulduggery and the off-course bookies had been taken to the cleaners.

Rumour was rife as to who was behind the coup. Some said it was Oyster Maid’s owner, professional punter Ben Warner, while others maintained that leading jockeys, trainers and racecourse officials were in on the act.

Whoever the perpetrators were, Tenby became a dirty word in bookmaking circles. Hardly any bookmakers would go there or offer prices on the meeting. With nobody to bet against, punters stayed away too. Crowds withered and the course was doomed.

The meetings staggered on for a few more years, becoming ever more pathetic, before Tenby racecourse closed its doors for good in 1935.

The Welsh name for Tenby is ‘Dinbych-y-pysgod’, meaning ‘Tenby of the Fish’. There was certainly something ‘fishy’ about that dismal January afternoon in 1927 when the Oyster Maid coup determined that Tenby races would thereafter fade into oblivion. As for David Harrison’s training yard, located in Tenby’s Upper Frog Street, it later became the site of an ice cream factory.