Carry Me BACK A Grand National Recollection

Carry Me BACK

A Grand National Recollection By Jimmy Hatcher

By Jimmy Hatcher

I’m gonna’ carry you back to the 1949 Berryville Horse Show at the fairgrounds. (Yes, I was 14.)

Betty Beryl Schenk and I were at the Culpeper bicentennial celebration and we persuaded Betty’s mother to drive us to the show. When we arrived, Dot Smithwick approached me about catch riding for a neighbor of hers—Mrs. John Hopewell nee Mrs. Crompton Smith. If that has a ring to it, she was the mother of Crompton Tommy Smith Jr., the winner of the 1965 Grand National in England as well as a bunch of Maryland Hunt Cups.

I was champion in the small hunter class that year at Berryville on a little mare named Bonte owned by Mrs. Hopewell. Bonte later became the dam of one of Olympic gold medalist Joe Fargis‘s first Grand Prix horses, Bonte II.

Anyway, the next year (1950), I came back to Berryville and Mrs. Hopewell was there with her 13-year-old son, Tommy. He was showing in the big jumper division on his 13.2 pony, Golden Jane. As I remember, he was second to Cappy Smith in the knockdown-and-out class.

Well, the years went by and I moved to Middleburg from Richmond and became close friends with Tommy‘s big sister, Kitty Smith.

In a tragic riding accident, Tommy became a paraplegic, which sadly led to his early death. When Tommy was chosen to be honored by the Virginia Steeplechase Association, Kitty asked me to go with her to accept the award. She gave the following as part of her acceptance speech.

“After winning the Grand National in 1965,” she began, “Tommy and his new wife, Frances, were heading home through Heathrow Airport when an American couple passed them. The husband stopped Tommy and said ‘aren’t you the American who won the Grand National?’ To which Tommy said ‘yes I am.’

“As the couple walked on, Tommy and Frances heard the American’s wife say, ‘That’s ridiculous. You know Elizabeth Taylor won the Grand National.’“

You can read about Tommy Smith’s Grand National triumph in the late Jane McIlvaine‘s (McLary) very fine book, “The Will to Win.” If the library is all out, you can borrow my copy!