•  Retired Press Association racing reporter Will Lefebve recalls a history-making meeting at Hereford Racecourse, and speaks to jockeys and officials involved in a marathon occasion which took place 40 years ago tomorrow.

ON May 1, 1975, Hereford Racecourse set a UK National Hunt racing record that will never be equalled – 14 contests on a single horse-racing programme.

Only six races were originally advertised, but such was the volume of entries that two novice hurdles became seven, and three extra novice chases were required to fit in the 219 runners.

It was originally advertised as an evening meeting – first race 5.30pm – but the huge entry resulted in a start time of 1.30pm!

The number of races caused a severe dent in the finances of Hereford racecourse, and after similar extended cards around the same time at Stratford and Warwick, rules were brought in limiting the number of races at a meeting to a maximum of eight, and funding was introduced by the turf authorities to help meet the costs of any divided races.

John Williams, who was secretary at the time and became clerk of the course in 1976, can still vividly remember the crippling effect on the course’s finances of having to stump up all that extra money.

“It nearly ruined us because we didn’t get any help towards the prize money we had to find for those extra races. We were always living hand-tomouth, and it really rocked our financial boat,” recalls workaholic Williams, 69, whose CV also includes auctioneer, farmer, helicopter pilot, successful point-to-point and amateur National Hunt rider, and nowadays chairman of Sidney Phillips, chartered surveyors.

“The daily rate we received for prize money from the Levy Board was only £2,500, which meant we had to find more than £6,000 extra, and there was no subsidy for evening racing.

“And spreading the meeting over two days was out of the question because there was no prospect of getting a licence for the bars at such short notice.”

Williams also remembers there were two sets of officials in attendance during that elongated fixture, and “course commentator Graham Goode had a helper to get him through his marathon session on the microphone, but I can’t remember who it was.”

The meeting brought together 116 different jockeys, Sandy May having most rides (7, including one winner, Nescio); and there were four champion jockeys in action – Bob Davies, Tommy Stack, John Francome and Graham Thorner.

Ken White, who six weeks earlier had enjoyed Champion Hurdle glory on Comedy of Errors, went home between rides “to feed the cattle”, returning to score on the Fred Rimell-trained All Spirit, while Bob Champion, famous for his emotional Grand National success on Aldaniti six years later, remembers “an awful long day made worthwhile when I pinched a race in the stewards’ room after finishing second on a horse trained by Josh Gifford who told me I was mad to object!”

Triple champion pilot Bob (Lucius) Davies, who has been associated in an administrative capacity with both Hereford and Ludlow courses since retiring from the saddle, was another to land a winner (Pardinia) from his six mounts, while other previous and future Grand National heroes on target that day were Thorner (Well To Do) and amateur Dick Saunders (Grittar).

Thorner landed a 220-1 double on Proper Gent and Golden Batman, and the day concluded with Creevelea (Steve Taylor up) romping home at 33-1 in part 3 of division two (!) of the Madley Novices’ Hurdle – while That’s Penny brought down the curtain on proceedings by trailing home last of the day’s 219 contestants.

Just for the record, for the duration of those 14 jump races, a 228-passenger and 9-crew Boeing 757 jet simultaneously taking off at 1.30pm from Gatwick as the field lined up for the first race at Hereford would have landed in Bahrain around the same time as the winner of the finale was being unsaddled.