Letter: Memories of winter

I stayed at my friend Ken Barton's house, in Monkmoor, and his parents took me to Eaton Constantine the next day where I was working at Bill Brookes' racing stable.

I was living in a caravan in the stableyard with three other lads – Derek Moxon, Doug White and Paul Morris.

Everything used to freeze up daily but the horses never missed a day of being ridden out in the fields which were surrounding the farm.

After about two weeks the horses started to get a bit too fresh and there would be loose horses every morning, so the head lad Pat Comerford decided we would take them twice a week to

The Wrekin, which meant leading the horses on foot – about 10 or 12 of them – a mile and a half to The Wrekin.

Once there the snow was not too bad because of the trees.

We would make our way past the old rifle range where there was a track which had a foot of leaf mould on it for about seven furlongs up to the old cafe near the top, which did not freeze.

So we could canter the horses and keep them fit

I suppose it could have been one of the first all-weather gallops in Britain.

There was no racing for about 12 weeks, so Peter O'Sullevan, Fred Winter and Lord Oaksey organised with the Daily Express a collection from readers which amounted to thousands of pounds and was divided between the jockeys depending on the number of rides we had the previous season.

It was from this that the Injured Jockey Fund was then started.

So, the winter of '63 did have its good points as far as racing was concerned, although we did not think so at the time.

Colin Moore

Walcot