Like Doncaster and Cheltenham, Newcastle has a racing heritage, although, TripAdvisor only has two courses to recommend to tourists – Newcastle and Hexham. Sedgefield, over in County Durham, and North Yorkshire’s Redcar might sometimes make the grade but the latter, which is 34 miles from Newcastle, might be pushing things a little too far. Either way, the North East hosts events like the Northumberland Plate Festival, ensuring it’s an occasional trap for fans.
Aside from racecourses, one part of the North East’s racing heritage that continues to crop up is an iconic horse – Hambletonian.
A National Favourite
The North East’s love for horse racing is a part of a national pastime that extends beyond the turf. This can be in seen in the sports betting industry, where TV broadcasts of races have helped continue the growth of the industry. On course horse racing betting experienced turnover of £238m between April 2022 and March 2023, the largest figure since 2015-16 (£240m). Racing has inevitably influenced other aspects of betting, too, such as slot games. Games like Big Racing slot at Betfair, as well as Racing Wilds and Lightening Horseman, show the dominance racing holds across the whole industry.
Regular bettors might be familiar with Hambletonian, a thoroughbred horse. On January 20, the Northern Echo newspaper went in search of what it described as one of the “most famous horses” in the North East. The paper’s journey began in Ireland, beneath a George Stubbs painting of the animal at Mount Stewart. Yet, Hambletonian is buried at Wynyard near Stockton, County Durham – and has been for a long time. He died in 1818.
The horse is not to be confused with the namesake of the Hambletonian Stakes, an American race in New Jersey. The British Hambletonian was named for a training area near Thirsk, but made his name all over the country. His career began, appropriately, at Hambleton, where he won a Sweepstake for 60 guineas in 1794. He would race 16 more times during a six-year campaign on the turf, only losing once at York in the 1796 Ladies Plate.
Legacy
Much of the mythology surrounding Hambletonian comes from a single race. On March 25, 1799, the year before his retirement, Hambletonian raced Diamond at Newmarket. The event was pitched as a duel between north and south and took place over four miles and two furlongs. The northern horse, Hambletonian, won by half-a-neck, seemingly cementing northern Britain as the kings and queens of the sport at the beginning of the 19th century.
Hambletonian gained a renown similar to that of Frankel in the 2010s. Frankel continues to earn owners Juddmonte £350,000 in stud fees despite retiring over a decade again in 2012. Hambletonian, destined for a similar fate a century ago, nevertheless failed to produce the kind of progeny as Frankel. The Thoroughbred Heritage website lists Whitelock (1803), Blacklock (1814), St. Simon (1881), and the 1806 Doncaster Cup winner Camillus among his descendants.
Hambletonian is survived today by a 12ft by 7ft “lifesize” painting by George Stubbs, as mentioned earlier. It was commissioned following his famous race against Diamond. There’s also a pub bearing the horse’s name in Stockton. For a horse that lived the same time as Queen Victoria, the print of Hambletonian’s hoof on history is remarkably long-lived.