DID you go to the Galway Festival in 1962?
Probably not. In those days it was Ballybrit’s only meeting of the year, it lasted just three days and, of course, there was no television coverage.
However, those who were there would have witnessed something unusual in the amateur riders’ flat handicap, which even nearly 60 years ago was very much one of the feature races of the meeting. Up against the top Irish amateurs a young British rider appeared – even nowadays a rare occurrence. He was Sir William Pigott-Brown.
He had in fact between British champion amateur in the 1960/’61 season and he proceeded to win the race, defeating top riders Bill McLernon and Bunny Cox to fill the placings.
I first saw Sir William in 1960 at the South Oxfordshire point to point but with his title I, at 17, assumed that he was a lot older than me and it was not until he died in June of this year that I discovered that he was only 18 months older than myself.
As with so many racing personalities, he had a remarkable family pedigree. He was the third baronet of a title that was given to his grandfather Alexander Hargreaves Brown, a former Liberal Unionist MP. I am led to believe that he was distantly related to the great amateur rider, Harry Brown, the last amateur to be champion jockey (in 1919) and his brother Frank – they were all old Etonians.
Killed in action
Sir William’s father, Sir John Pigott-Brown, was an accomplished military rider in the 1890s, being particularly associated with his own horse, The Stroller, on whom he rode a good number of wins. However, as a captain in the Coldstream Guards, he was killed in action in North Africa in 1942. As a result, his infant son William succeeded to the title a few weeks before his second birthday.
It was on his mother’s side that the racing lines ran deeper. She, Helen, was daughter of Gilbert Cotton, who had been a more than a decent amateur rider himself, winning the National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham in 1912 on The Rejected IV. He was a respected inspector of the course at Aintree from 1920 until he retired at the age of 90 in 1970.
Gilbert’s own father Frank had also finished first in the National Hunt Chase in 1885 when it was run at Lincoln as the first race at what was, for many years, the opening meeting of the flat racing season.
From 1860 when the race was first run, it moved to a different venue each year and it was not until 1902 when the race moved to Warwick that it virtually stopped its travels that course vying with Cheltenham to become a permanent home with the latter course staging all runnings since 1911.
After his father’s death, William’s mother married Captain Charles Radclyffe in 1948 and so the young baronet grew up in a very equine setting. Captain Radclyffe broke and schooled some horses who were to feature in both the Cheltenham Gold Cup and Grand National, most notably The Dikler.
It was not surprising that the young man, after a single point-to-point ride in 1959, turned his back on a ‘proper’ job at the family bank, Brown Shipley, and started to appear as an amateur the following season.
Champagne underpants
His first point-to-point win came at the Cotswold and, days later, his first on the racecourse at Lingfield. I saw him ride three point-to-point winners during the school Easter holidays but my greatest memory of him was at Crowell where, after an unsuccessful first race, he won on his second ride, run in a very heavy downpour.
Young William was wearing a new pair of nylon breeches but the rain made them completely translucent revealing him to be wearing a very snazzy pair of Y-fronts decorated with champagne glasses! Not surprisingly, an edict appeared from the regulatory authorities banning the wearing of such garments and manufacturers had to use an opaque nylon thread.
He ended the 1960 point-to-point season with six wins but the next season turned his attention to the racecourse proper, though he did win the Old Etonian race at the Heythrop point to point; he made his mark there by becoming leading amateur just over four months after his 20th birthday.
His next significant winner was Superfine, on which he emulated his grandfather by winning the National Hunt Chase.
I remember seeing Sir William at Leicester in February of 1962 at the last meeting I went to before taking up an army post in Germany. There he rode a double on Superfine in a handicap chase and Golden Seabright in a maiden hunter chase. Although the latter was a rather moderate performer, his rider almost repeated his win of the previous year when second to Go Slow at Cheltenham.
He did not win the amateur title that season and came to Galway while there was no jump racing in Britain over the summer. The next season, he was back on top, winning the championship for a second time.
On his 21st birthday in 1962, he inherited what was then a fortune worth £750,000 but this did not transfer to the racecourse and it came as something of a surprise when Sir William quit the saddle in early 1964. He confided to a friend in later years that he had “lost his bottle” though I would guess that he also disliked the disciplined regime required of a serious rider. He was undoubtedly a very talented rider able to win races on horses that others could not and it is a pity his riding career was over shortly after he turned 23.
Company crashed
However, his involvement with the bloodstock industry was not over as he almost immediately set up Aston Upthorpe Stud in Oxfordshire which stood some very commercial stallions – this was at a time when British studs were able to compete on equal terms with their Irish counterparts.
While principally a financial backer rather than a hands on manager, he used his fortune to invest in numerous business ventures until in the late 1970s his property company London Bridge Securities collapsed with major debts and he was obliged to sell the stud.
All the while he enjoyed the good life, especially the nightlife in London where he had a house in Belgravia. He also had charm, good looks and a reputation for generosity and women loved him. He was seen with some of the world’s most glamorous and desirable beauties. However, none managed to get him to the altar.
In the 1980s, finding the expense of running his life in London rising inexorably, he decided to decamp to South Africa where he still was able to afford his preferred lifestyle. There he lived a comfortable life with a housekeeper and an odd-job man but he never lost his love of racing, owning or co-owning several horses out there, one appropriately called Legendary Lover.
Having inherited a decent fortune it was much reduced by the time he died but he was not a wastrel and always able to support himself. In any case, never having married there was no heir to inherit either money or title.
As a rider he flashed across the racing scene for just five years. One commentator at the time reckoning him to be the best of his kind since Lord Mildmay. Luckily he came to Galway and those lucky few at that Festival were given a chance to see him at his best.