Basil Briscoe

The son of William Arthur Briscoe, of Longstowe Hall, Cambridgeshire, Arthur Basil Briscoe was described by John Randall, racing statistician at the ‘Racing Post’, as “little more than a two-horse wonder”. However, following his appointment as private trainer to the eccentric Dorothy Wyndham Paget, in 1931, Briscoe persuaded his main patron to invest heavily in two geldings, Golden Miller and Insurance.

Golden Miller remains a legendary name in the sphere of National Hunt racing, having won the Cheltenham Gold Cup five years running between 1932 and 1936, albeit on the latter occasion when saddled by Owen Anthony after Briscoe and Paget split, accrimoniously, in the wake of the 1935 Grand National. The previous year, under 12st 2lb, Golden Miller had won the Grand National, thereby becoming the first and, so far, only horse to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Grand National in the same season. For the record, Briscoe also saddled Insurance to win the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival two years running, in 1932 and 1933.

For all his success in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Grand National and Champion Hurdle, Basil Briscoe was young, unexperienced and highly strung and his falling out with Paget sounded a death knell for his training career. Despite carrying top weight of 12st 7lb in the 1935 Grand National, Golden Miller was sent off 2/1favourite, but unseated jockey Gerry Wilson on the first circuit, leading Paget to take her horses away from Briscoe.

Briscoe had once said, “Training horses is child’s play, but it’s a hell of a bloody job trying to train Miss Paget.” He never recovered from the removal of her powerful string, though, and his propensity for reckless gambling sent him into a rapid decline towards bankruptcy, and the end of his training career, in 1940. Briscoe was, in fact, just 48 years of age when he died in Newmarket in 1951, a sad end for a man who, for a time, enjoyed unprecedented success in the three top National Hunt races in the country and, in that respect, rivalled the likes of Fred Rimmell and Vincent O’Brien.