Chance encounter with Archer’s ghost

A chance encounter with another erstwhile amateur rider at Punchestown revealed that his ancestors had bred Birdcatcher.

His grandmother was a Knox from Brownstown, said to be the world’s oldest thoroughbred stud in continuous existence.

If that were not enough, Mark’s grandmother used tell of being dandled on Fred Archer’s knee as a very small girl. Quite plausible – once over the initial surprise – for Archer had been left with a small daughter, following his wife Nellie’s death at 23.

He would never get over that loss. Asked why he did not remarry, the grieving widower invariably replied: “Oh, if I could only love a woman half so well as I love her, I would, but I could not.”

Before all-weather racing became part of the English racing year Newmarket Heath in the off season was all but deserted, racehorses confined to winter quarters.

However, one mounted grey galloper was to be seen – by some anyway – flitting across the heath by the light of a silvery moon.

Those who witnessed this spectral vision were in no doubt. It was Fred Archer’s ghost.

Across the heath, along the course, ‘Tis said that now on phantom horse, The greatest jockey of our days Rides nightly in the moonlight’s Rays

Revered and renowned as the greatest flat jockey in the already long history of horseracing, Fred Archer plunged England into prolonged national mourning on the news of his tragic death by his own hand on Monday, 8 November, 1886.

Aged just 29, Fred Archer had been champion jockey in the last 13 of the 17 seasons in which he rode. From 8,084 mounts he had ridden 2,748 winners, including 21 classics.

The Derby had fallen to him five times in ten years. During his spectacular career Fred Archer had performed before an Irish audience just once.

Towards the end of yet another punishing campaign Archer accepted an invitation from the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Londonderry, to ride his Cambusmore in the Lord Lieutenant’s Plate at the Curragh finale.

While in Ireland – staying at the Shelbourne Hotel – Archer received a fateful telegram: ‘My horse runs in the Cambridgeshire. I count on you to ride it. – MONTROSE.’

The Cambridgeshire was the only feature race in the English calendar to have eluded the champion, who determined to do the 8st 6lb the St Mirin was set to carry.

Weighed at the Curragh that same day, Fred Archer tipped the scales at 9st 4lb.

Resorting to what he called Archer’s mixture – a physic that had damn near killed anyone else rash enough to try it – the champion duly did the required 9st on the Lord Lieutenant’s Cambusmore, getting his mount home with a length to spare and returning to a hero’s welcome.

His immediate victim was Kildare, owned by Mrs M. Knox of Brownstown Stud.

Half an hour later Archer did 8st 12lb to complete a quick double on Charles Blake’s Isodore, named after the owner’s nephew.

In the final race of the meeting Black Rose went off odds-on to complete Archer’s treble. In a ding-dong finish the champion had to give best to Mr Tommy Beasley on Spahi and Mr William Cullen on Lord Chatham, the judge giving it as a length and the same. It was Tommy Beasley’s turn to acknowledge rapturous applause for upholding national honour.

Harry Custance, Archer’s travelling companion, recorded the events that followed, days of physic in the evenings and mornings in the Turkish bath.

“I have never won the Cambridgeshire and if I don’t succeed this time I’ll never try again.”

Try as he might, Archer put up 1lb overweight, at 8st 7lb. In a driving finish St Mirin went down by a head.

Days later Archer was diagnosed as suffering from typhoid fever. That in turn induced delirium, with fatal consequences.

Remarkable, really, how a chance encounter at a very lowkey Punchestown in January 2012 could send time spinning back to people and events from the time that Victoria reigned and the sun never set on the British Empire.

It has always been held that history in Ireland is an oral tradition, handed down, but rarely written down.

This presumably explains why the custodians of Irish racing steadfastly set their faces against the crying need for a national archive of Irish racing history.

This grudging mindset only serves to make those boasts about Ireland being a world leader in horseracing ring strangely hollow in the woeful absence of any reference source to support such claims. Archer’s ghost indeed.