It has been a bad week for horses in Trimdon, but an excellent week for a horse called Trimdon.

The Northern Echo has been reporting the horrific discovery at stables in the County Durham village where the remains of 16 horses have been found.

But down at York, they are preparing for the next week's Royal Ascot meeting by putting up the Trimdon Suites.

It is the first time the Royal meeting has been held away from Ascot in 300 years, and to show how united the two courses have become, York's new hospitality boxes (prices start at £360 per person per day) have been named after the first horse to win both the Ascot Gold Cup and the Yorkshire Cup in the same year.

Trimdon was that horse. He was bred in 1926 by the 3rd Earl of Durham, John George Lambton. Although the Earl's seat was at Lambton Castle near Durham City, the Earl appears to have spent much of his time in Newmarket where Trimdon was bred.

Trimdon's first victory was in 1931.

The Northern Echo's tipster Tattenham tipped him to win the Ascot Gold Cup at 9/4, and he did - in controversial style. In a close finish, his jockey Joe Childs dropped his whip and Trimdon veered across the track. Secondplaced Singapore had grounds for protest but in those days it was not the done thing to complain at Royal Ascot, and so Trimdon kept the prize.

Previewing the 1932 Gold Cup, Tattenham said that he "fully expected Salmon Leap, who came third last year, to turn the tables on the older horse".

This race was a real Lambton battle, for Trimdon was now owned by Brigadier-General Charles Lambton and Salmon Leap was trained by a third brother, George - the most famous of all the racing Lambtons.

And it was Trimdon, lame just a week earlier, who ran out the winner by more than two lengths - only the eighth horse since the race started in 1807 to win in successive years.

The Ascot Gold Cup, wrote Tattenham, is the "supreme test of stamina which sets the seal on a racehorse's claim to fame". Unfortunately for Trimdon, though, he passed the supreme test on the day that "Yorkshire's famous opening batsmen" Herbert Sutcliffe and Percy Holmes broke the world record by putting on 555 for the first wicket. This made front page news in the Echo - and it, too, was hugely controversial.

The Yorkshiremen had made 423 on the first day's play at Essex. Overnight, journalists had discovered that 554 was the record opening stand set in 1898.

Just after lunch, Sutcliffe hooked the ball for four to take the score to 555 but then was out the next delivery. As he walked back to the pavilion, the scoreboard clicked back to 554 - the record hadn't been broken! Pandemonium broke out, and it took 30 minutes for the umpires to persuade the obstinate Yorkshire scorer that he had missed a no-ball while filling in two scorebooks.

Sutcliffe and Holmes' record stood until 1977; Trimdon's still stands.

Presumably, Trimdon was named after the Durham village close to the Lambtons' family castle.

Even if he isn't, there's another local connection worth recording. Trimdon's trainer was a fellow called Joe Lawson who was born in County Durham in 1881.

Lawson's horses won 12 Classic races. His best known horse won the Derby at 33/1 in 1954. It was called Never Say Die and was ridden by an 18year-old jockey called Lester Piggott.

Published: 11/06/05