Len Lefebve's feat of riding a hat-trick at Chelmsford remembered

Len Lefebve's feat of riding a hat-trick at Chelmsford's old racecourse exactly 91 years ago is being commemorated with a race in his memory on Thursday.

The late jump jockey's son Will Lefebve is behind the Len Lefebve's Chelmsford HatTrick 91st Anniversary Median Maiden Auction Stakes after he spotted the Essex track had a fixture on the very same day.

"Chelmsford's old racecourse was at Galleywood about eight miles from the new course. It closed in 1935, and on March 26, 1924 my dad went to Chelmsford and had a 703-1 hat-trick and on his last ride was beaten on an odds-chance," said Lefebve.

"When I knew Chelmsford was going to reopen, I studied the fixture list and saw they were having a race meeting on exactly the same day as my dad had his treble.

"I am indebted to the generosity of totepool and Betfred for giving me this opportunity to recall something my dad did all those years ago. He would be chuffed to bits."

Lefebve would be delighted if John Gosden saddled the winner as the Newmarket trainer's father, Towser, was a friend of his father's.

The Newmarket trainer has Entertainment among 15 entries for the one-mile contest.

"The significant thing was that John Gosden's father Towser was a weighing-room colleague of my dad's. And I'd be over the moon if he won dad's race," he said.