SANDY DUDGEON Gordon Brown Gordon Brown
Sandy Dudgeon, Senior Steward of the Jockey Club, gets us in the mood for Aintree as he reminisces with Gordon Brown about his golden time in the saddle, which culminated with victory in the 1984 Fox Hunters and a safe passage in the Grand National two years later.
“FROM OUR VIEWPOINT, EVERYONE IN THE JOCKEY CLUB IS A HORSEMAN”
N
ot even The Voice of Racing himself could have predicted what the future held for the riders who came first and second in the 1984
Haig Fox Hunters’ Chase at Aintree. So as a pre-knighted Peter O’Sullevan called home Sandy Dudgeon aboard Gayle Warning ahead of Peter Greenall-partnered Lone Soldier, little did he know that the former would go on to become senior steward of the Jockey Club while the latter, as Lord Daresbury, was to be installed as chairman of the iconic Merseyside venue. It was a convincing seven-length success for the
Scottish raider who had played second fiddle 12 months earlier to Atha Cliath, ridden by a certain Mr W P Mullins. Dudgeon, 63, who became a member of the Jockey Club in 1989, recalls, “I always share a joke
32 RACING TV CLUBMAGAZINE
with Willie Mullins whenever I catch up with him about the time he beat me over the Grand National fences!
“Gayle Warning, or ‘Paddy’ as we nicknamed him,
came over from Ireland as an unbroken four-year- old. Dad’s golf day was rained off and he ended up going to see Padge Berry and chose him from a field full of horses – he always had a fantastic eye for a horse. He wasn’t the easiest and had a terrible habit of napping and rearing which certainly taught us how to stay on! “Gayle Warning actually has the dubious
distinction of ‘winning’ the Buccleuch Cup, a maiden hunters’ chase at Kelso, twice, as he was subsequently disqualified once due to contaminated feed. One of the years he beat Astral Charmer, who a few weeks later won the Scottish
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