Victor Wild was an extremely popular horse in the 1890s. He won big handicaps at good odds, and his sporting owner was not reticent about recommending him.
As a two-year-old he won a seller at the little Portsmouth Park meeting in August 1892, backed from 4/1 to 7/4, and was promptly sold for £200 to a Captain Haikin. Job done, as far as his original owner was concerned, but he followed the horse’s future career with dismay. He was quickly passed on to Tom Worton, a North London publican, who later said he paid 330 guineas for the horse. It was still a good deal; he won over £12,000.
The horse did little at three, which helped him get into the Royal Hunt Cup of 1894 carrying 7 stone 7. He won it, and went on to take the next two runnings of the Great Jubilee Handicap at Kempton in 1895 and 1896, the first time at 20/1 with 8 stone 4 and next year at 5/1 when carrying the then huge burden of 9 stone 7. Worton’s customers drank the pub dry that night. Sometimes Worton was so confident he had a sign put up in his bars saying, “Victor Wild runs today and will win.” The back street bookies must have made themselves scarce.
The horse rewarded each way backers by also finishing second in the Hunt Cup twice and third in the Jubilee.
Worton’s winnings from prize money and bets were so great that he could afford to build the stables in Lambourn now known as Lethornes, where Michael Blanshard trained for 41 years until 2021.
He was so popular that as late as 1913 and 1914 the Sporting Life’s question-and-answer service was still responding to readers’ queries about the horse. In 1923 a new steam locomotive was named after him.
The Victor Wild Stakes at Kempton was first run on 12 May 1934. The King and Queen and Princess Royal were present to see their horse The Abbot run in the Jubilee. Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald was also there, paying his first visit to a race meeting. Some of the stands had burnt down in the autumn of 1932 and though racing resumed the following May not all of the new buildings were completed until 1934. The management thought it would be a nice touch to honour some noteworthy Jubilee winners. In addition to Victor Wild, Minting (qv) and Bendigo (qv) were new race names.
The Abbot was unplaced, but the King had better luck with his other runner Whitehead, who finished second in the Bendigo Handicap.
As a measure of the race’s importance, in 1954 it was won by The Queen’s Aureole, second to Pinza in the previous year’s Derby and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, prior to winning the Coronation Cup, Hardwicke and the King George. Sir Winston Churchill’s Colonist II won the race four years prior to that. However, by the time of its final running in 1983 it was just another handicap.