A brief look at the Ledbury Hunt’s
Hayes Golden Button Challenge

by Carl Evans

Racing across the Ledbury Hunt’s fabulous Friday vale country is not for the faint-hearted, but it is memorable. Brave riders get an opportunity to test their competitive skills across this grass landscape in the Hayes-sponsored Golden Button Challenge, a three-mile steeplechase held on New Year’s Eve and based on the ideas of early racing pioneers. They raced hunters from one point to another, sometimes using church steeples as landmarks to start and finish the contest, which eventually led to modern day point-to-pointing (for amateurs) and steeplechasing (for professionals).

As these branches of racing have become more specialised – requiring well-bred, valuable young thoroughbreds ridden by full-time and invariably highly-skilled professional riders – so a yearning has grown for old-style, turn-up-and-ride races. They have become known as hunt scurries or hunt rides – and anyone can take part on any type of horse.

The Hayes Golden Button Challenge, the brainchild of Ledbury Hunt joint-master David Redvers, was first run on December 31, 2006, when a line was created between Town Street Farm, Tirley – the home of the Warner family – and Forthampton.

Seven gold buttons were put up as prizes – in addition to bottles of champagne – for the following categories: overall winner, first Ledbury Hunt subscriber, first woman, first veteran, first heavyweight, first non-thoroughbred, first rider under 21.

History was made by the inaugural overall winner, the Yvonne Goss-ridden Perry, a horse on which she enjoyed top-level team chasing success. One year later victory went to World Wide Web, curiously ridden by a top Flat-race jockey, Eddie Ahern, who is passionate about trail hunting and often follows the Ledbury hounds. World Wide Web was owned and trained near the Hayes Golden Button course by Mick and Heather Ridley.

The organisers decided on a course change for the 2008 running, holding the race in reverse with a line from Forthampton to Tirley, where easier road access for the finish was deemed more suitable. Heavy frost made the ground unraceable on December 31, but the contest was held a few weeks later on January 17, 2009, when the winner was Treble Trouble, a Leicestershire raider partnered by his owner, Patrick Millington. World Wide Web, ridden by the Ridleys’ son, James, unseated when well clear at the penultimate fence, but the pair were soon reunited and finished runners-up.

In the second year of the event an additional contest was organised – the JCB Diggers-sponsored inter-hunt challenge for teams of four riders, the first three to count. This event takes place after the feature race, although the 2008 postponement and change in running plans meant both contests were held at the same time on the rescheduled date. Hounds met at noon after the races, and many competitors stayed on for a cracking piece of trail hunting.

The Hayes Golden Button Challenge is a fund-raiser for the organising hunt, but also creates money for charities – those to have benefited in recent years include the Gloucestershire Air Ambulance, the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Fund and Newent’s Dolphin Centre.

For more details of the Hayes Golden Button Challenge and JCB Diggers Inter-Hunt Challenge, which are due to take place next New Year’s Eve, visit www.goldenbutton.co.uk.