Will Lefebve at Fontwell's Centenary Raceday

SussexWorld

Will Lefebve at Fontwell's Centenary Raceday - talking about his father Len, who rode in Fontwell's first race in 1924

Transcript

00:00 My next interviewee today is Will Lefebvre, who has been instrumental in putting things

00:07 together for today. But first Will, just tell me about your special connection to the very

00:13 first race meeting and the first race at Fontenelle 100 years ago.

00:18 Quite simply, my father, who was born in 1898, I was born very late in his life obviously,

00:25 he rode in the very first race ever run here on the 21st of May 1924, there were four runners,

00:32 the winning jockey was Fred Rees, who was five times champion jockey, he won a Grand

00:37 National on Sean Spadar, three gold cups, one champion hurdle, five times champion jockey,

00:42 my father finished second, there were four runners, the horse that finished third was

00:48 Test Match, the fourth horse was Lancaster Rose, that fell, it wasn't fourth, it fell,

00:53 I obviously wasn't about then, and he didn't ride any winners that meeting, there was a

00:59 two day meeting in May, but in the October meeting, two days, he rode three winners from

01:04 about seven rides, which meant he ended up 1924 top jockey at Pontwell.

01:11 And he went on to have a career in other forms of racing as well.

01:18 Including one year in winter in Calcutta, rode a few winners, long time before I was

01:23 born obviously, and then he trained and he was doing quite well up to the outbreak of

01:28 World War II, and then obviously the war stopped everything, and when it resumed after the

01:35 war, he had a bit of a struggle I think, his last winner as a trainer was in 1948, in which

01:42 the jockey called Sam Rag, brother of the famous Harry Rag, got up on the line on a

01:47 horse called Charlgrove Way to beat Gordon Richards and deny him a treble, a hat trick

01:53 would have been, and then after that, I think it must have been a struggle, I was only a

01:57 little boy baby at the time, and he then decided to pack it up and became a race leader for

02:03 race form, and he worked for race form from about 1950 to about 1976 or 7, and then he

02:11 retired and he kept going racing and he died in 1981 aged 82, and without him I would not

02:18 be speaking to you today. As a jockey, two extraordinary statistics, his first winner,

02:26 when he went to Lewis, he was born in Tottenham, I don't know if he was a Spurs supporter,

02:32 but he went to Lewis and he was a slightly older sidekick of Towser Gosden, father of

02:38 John Harry Martin Gosden, the John Gosden, and they would have been knocking around together,

02:45 and I nearly forgot what I was going to say, his first ever winner, it was on his first

02:50 ever ride, would you believe it was a walk over at Folkestone, and his second winner

02:54 was a two horse race at Windsor, so he went on to ride about 150 winners including in

02:58 Calcutta, and then I think I've gone through it all, so today is a special day for me because

03:05 obviously I didn't learn a lot about it, he never told me, but after he died I did

03:10 some research, looking at the form books, and you know this is a very very special day

03:15 for me, and I'd say he's been dead 43 years, and if there's such a thing as looking down

03:20 from heaven, I'm sure he'd have gone to heaven, because he had a lot of friends, and what

03:25 has been my good luck in racing, there were a lot of famous people who knew him, and it's

03:31 like opened a door for me, because I was his son, if I'd been the son of somebody else

03:36 who wasn't well known, he wasn't well known, he was like one of the boys, he was like a

03:43 middle of the road jockey, and he was Fred Rees, and people like Freddie Maxwell, god

03:49 he was a great trainer, Harry Hannan, grandfather of Richard Hannan, there was Keith Pickett,

03:55 father of Lester, there was, Freddie Maxwell I think, there were a whole load of them,

04:00 and they used to ride, and my uncle Tim, Tim Hamey, who was my father's brother in law,

04:04 who rode the winner of the Grand National in 1932, having six years early won the gold

04:10 cup in 26, most wonderful wonderful man, I learnt more about the past life of my uncle

04:16 after my father died, and that is why I am such a huge supporter of the injured jockeys

04:22 fund, Uncle Tim, he didn't save his money like they do nowadays, pension funds, and

04:28 he was struggling a bit, and John Oakesy, the great Lord Oakesy, took him under his

04:33 wing through the injured jockeys fund, found a little apartment for him in Bishop's Cleve

04:37 next to Cheltenham, and he died in 1990, and when he died, my, I'm sorry I'm going on about

04:43 my uncle rather than my father, but Uncle Tim, his family said, will you ask John Oakesy

04:49 to come and pay tribute, his memorial service, Bishop's Cleve just next to Cheltenham, and

04:55 he said William not only will I do it, it will be an honour and a pleasure, and I remember

04:59 him speaking, you know at the service, and of course his son was a jockey, called Rex

05:05 Hayme, my cousin, and he described Uncle Tim as a diamond of a man, he was, I mean Edward

05:12 Gillespie at Cheltenham loved him, he was there until he was 85, you know, everybody

05:16 wanted to talk to him about the olden days, he was a wonderful, but back to my father,

05:20 he was my father's brother-in-law, with a pedigree like having Tim Hayme and Len Lefave,

05:27 my father, that's why I'm here today, I love racing, I'm retired now, I do a little odd

05:34 bits of work, freelance work, but the wife said I should pack it up, I'm too old, and

05:39 I know a man called Steve Bone, who I go with, and we did a swap, he wrote a lovely piece

05:44 for the race card today, I did a piece for the Chichester/Bognor Regis Observer, so I

05:50 don't know if Steve will be around, we'll meet again in the 200th anniversary in 100

05:54 years time, I can't really tell you anything else, no, no, no, but what a nice day it's

06:00 been today, the signs come out, you've had some old faces and names from racing, well

06:04 there's been a bit of a splinter, on my table, should have been, but there are some of them

06:09 on the next table, David Mould, Bill Smith, Graham Thorner, Ron Atkins, Buck Jones, Richard

06:21 Lindley, Ali Branford, between them, they rode 5000, sorry I pick up on, 3053 winners,

06:31 three of them, Ali Branford, David Mould, Bill Smith, rode 180 winners for the Queen

06:37 Mother, it's not bad is it? Yeah, terrific, and I've got, the man I brought along was

06:41 the man who owns the race card, first ever meeting here, just a random thing, I knew

06:48 this guy and he'd got this race card, he brought it along, he's also brought, I haven't seen

06:53 it yet, a race sheet rather than a card made of silk, apparently Queen Victoria and Prince

06:59 Albert were, when she'd just become King, were invited to the Derby in 1840, when race

07:06 cards had only been going a few years, and apparently the story goes that Queen Victoria

07:11 said well how are we going to know which horse is which, and whoever the powers that be were,

07:14 it wouldn't have been weather, but it was someone, produced a silk sheet of all the

07:19 runners, and it wouldn't have had the actual colours in the card, obviously not, it would

07:23 have had black and white stripes, red sleeves sort of thing, and he bought it at auction,

07:28 I won't tell you how much, he bought it at auction, when it was actually miscategorised

07:33 as if it were a piece of silk, instead of which being a silk race card, and he paid,

07:39 what he paid, put it this way, I'll tell you, he won't mind, he paid £350, according to

07:45 my very good friend Colin McKenzie, the former racing editor and reporter for the Daily Mail,

07:51 he said it's worth thousands of pounds, so he came, I've got my nephew with me, my father's

07:59 grandson, I've got great friends, we have had a ball of a time, look at the weather,

08:03 this morning where I live in Farring, it was spitting with rain, but thank you God for

08:08 giving us a lovely day, thank you Steve for being a great help in everything I've done,

08:13 and you've done, this fantastic centenary.

08:15 And thank you Will for your part in putting it all together.

08:18 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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