BETWEEN them, they boast more than 3,000 winners, seven champion jockey titles, a Grand National and a Cheltenham Gold Cup. Rarely has Sedgefield’s winners’ enclosure witnessed a greater concentration of racing success.

What might have looked like a fairly mundane midweek meeting at the County Durham course was enlivened by the presence of John Francome, Bob Champion and Jack Berry, figures who can rightly regard themselves as racing royalty. Over the course of the last three decades, they have also proved as effective in the charitable sphere as they were on the track.

Sedgefield’s Remembrance Raceday was also the course’s main charity afternoon of the year, so Francome and Berry were there to support the Injured Jockeys’ Fund, and more specifically to help raise money for the building of a new state-of-the-art recovery centre in Malton, and Champion had travelled to the North-East to support his own charity and Macmillan, both of whom fund cancer research and treatment.

“I’m trying to rack my brain for the last time I was here, and I think it’s probably about 32 years ago,” said Francome, who was interviewed in the paddock before racing by television legend, and one-time Northern Echo point-to-point contributor, Derek Thompson. “It’s great to be back and great to be part of a day that goes wider than racing.

“Brian Toomey is here today, and he was supported by the Injured Jockeys’ Fund after a really bad fall last year. Sadly, there’ll always be injuries in our sport and it’s important that jockeys in the north have somewhere that can help them if things go wrong.”

Toomey, who is now based in North Yorkshire after recovering from a life-threatening fall at Perth last summer, has become a regular at Sedgefield, but despite spending more than a fortnight in an induced coma because of swelling on the brain, the 25-year-old remains determined to return to the saddle, and is hoping to receive the all-clear from the British Horseracing Authority before the end of the year.

“That sums up jump jockeys for you,” said Champion, who has his own remarkable story of heroism thanks to his Grand National success aboard Aldaniti in 1981. “It’s a unique way of life – but it’s a great one.”

More than £10,500 had been raised for charity before racing began, and further funds were generated through a variety of stalls, bucket collections and competitions. Perhaps it said much about conditions that the coffee and hot chocolate stall was doing by far the best trade.

For once, however, there was no excuse for the punters concentrated around the betting ring not to dig deep as the first four races were won by either the favourite or co-favourite, all of whom were well supported before the off.

If it had been 32 years since Francome had last been at Sedgefield, then it’s fair to assume that Gordon Elliot hasn’t been a much more regular visitor in that time, but the County Meath man’s long trip across the Irish Sea was worthwhile as Balbriggan ran out a ready winner of the opening novices’ hurdle.

The seven-year-old, who is co-owned by former Sunderland footballer Lee Power and football agent Willie McKay, is better known as a chaser and had been third to last weekend’s controversial Badger Ales Trophy winner, The Young Master, on his last outing at Cheltenham.

Yesterday’s spin over the smaller obstacles should have him perfectly tuned up for a return to fences, which could come as quickly as this weekend given that he is entered in the Opus Energy Amateur Riders’ Handicap Chase back at Cheltenham, although Elliott later admitted he had an ulterior motive for his rare trip to the North-East.

“I wanted to catch up with the owners because I want to try to sell them another couple of horses,” he joked in the winners’ enclosure. “He ran very well at Cheltenham, and he’s won three out of four for us now.

“Chasing is his job really, and hopefully he’ll have some more good days in the future. I need him to because I forgot to bring my shoes and coat across from Ireland with me so I’ve had to borrow some and promise to buy some more back.”

Elliott had used a helicopter to travel to Sedgefield, but John Wade could have walked the couple of miles that separate his Mordon base from his local course, and two days before his 71st birthday, one of the North-East’s most popular racing figures was able to celebrate a quick-fire double towards the end of the card.

Jukebox Melody defied odds of 7-1 to land the Nortonthorpe Young Fillies and Old Nags Handicap Hurdle, before Runswick Days produced a brilliant leap at the last to edge the Santander in Memory Of Robert Forster Handicap Chase and end a run of three successive second places.

“It’s not my birthday until Thursday, but it’s not a bad little present,” said Wade, whose haulage and waste disposal business continues to be one of the biggest of its type in the region. “We’ve scaled things back a bit now and we’ve only got the 35 horses whereas once upon a time we had about 70. It’s an expensive hobby – but it’s great fun.”

The stand-out training performance of the day came from Kim Bailey, who coaxed Darna to victory in the feature Hellens Group Handicap Chase despite the eight-year-old having had a lay-off of more than two years.

A formerly talented novice chaser, who came close to breaking the track record at Ascot in the early stages of his career, Darna has suffered from a serious leg injury and breathing problems, but Bailey refused to lose faith in him and was rewarded by a faultless display that suggests bigger prizes will be on the agenda in the remainder of the season.

“He’s a very special horse,” said Bailey. “We thought we had him back last year, but he wasn’t right and he’s had a few operations to get him back to fitness. We always knew the ability was there though, and when you’ve got that, you’ve got half a chance.”