view raw text
NOTED STEEPLECHASE RIDER DIES The news of the death of Edmund Walter Dris-coll, the well-known steeplechase jockey, which occurred August 4, will be regretted by all followers of racing. Driscoll was taken ill with neuritis in the leg, and after being in Wantage Hospital for a week, lie succumbed to septic poisoning. The son of It. Driscoll, one time private trainer to Mr. C. W. AValler, at Royston, Kdmund was born at Hertford on September 0, 1S75, and his active connection with racing covers the best part of some twenty-four years. His first mount in public was on March 12, 1S95, though it was not until May of the same year that he rode his first winner. Driscoll, however, soon crept into a leading position among the steeplechase riders of the dily, but he was not blessed with the best of luck. He had a. series of accidents, which began in 1S99, when he was badly hurt through the falling of Cornbury, a mishap which kept him out of the saddle for four months. Driscoll met with many other mishaps in his day, but probably the most extraordinary one happened to him at Hurst in 1914. He was riding- Joinville in the Novices. Steeplechase, and the stirrup iron of OConnor, who was on Wild Thyme, caught Driseolls leg just above the ankle witli such force that the leg was broken. Hut Driscoll was not short of pluck, and when ho ceased to ride for Mr. C. W. Waller, he piloted Gores horses, which included some of the late Sir C. Asshoton-Smiths cracks. He never rode a "National" winner at Aintree, but during the war period, when the "War National" was run at Gatwick, he piloted Bnllyinaead when Sir George Bulloughs old horse won in 1917 from Chang and Ally Sloper. He finished second in 1910 to Jen-kinstown on Jerry M., and the same year won the Grand Steeplechase do Paris on Sir Charles Assheton-Smiths great horse. Manchester Sporting Chronicle.
