In the late 1970s Doncaster had no jumps meetings between the end of the flat and January. A new fixture was created on Friday and Saturday 18-19 December 1980. Races that weren’t sponsored were named after horses with a Yorkshire connection. One of them was the Lottery Handicap Chase, which was run at that pre-Christmas meeting until 1994.
Lottery won the 1839 Grand National, widely though not accurately regarded as the first running of one of the world’s most famous races. Aintree historian John Pinfold established that the same course had been used for the three preceding years. Originally named Chance, he was born in 1829, the son of another Lottery (b.1820). He was bred by Peter Jackson of Riston Grange, in the East Riding between Beverley and the coast, hence the association with Yorkshire. He also won his first race in God’s Own County.
He ran twice under that name on the flat at the age of four, winning at the little Holderness Hunt meeting nearby. By that time Peter Jackson had died and his son John sent Chance to Horncastle Horse Fair to be sold. His new owner, the canny John Elmore of Harrow, saw his potential for jumping and started winning steeplechases under his new name, Lottery, in the southeast. In the year after his Aintree victory he scored at Cheltenham, Stratford, Maidstone and Dunchurch, becoming the first well-known steeplechaser.
He fell at a stone wall in the 1840 National and despite passing his peak continued to be clobbered by the handicapper, carrying 13 stone 4 the year after (his jockey considerately pulled him up when all chance had gone). At Horncastle the organisers of a race, fearful of making it a non-event if all his opponents were frightened off, made the race “open to all horses except Lottery”.
Sources (in addition to the normal ones) include:
British History Online (Riston Grange)
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/east/vol7/pp340-349#p13
John Pinfold’s book “Aintree”
Vian Smith’s book “The Grand National”
Tbheritage (HB Family 14, ie Parthenia (dam))
https://www.tbheritage.com/HistoricDams/HBMares/HB14.html