5th time lucky after years of bad breaks
Published at 21:38, Wednesday, 28 July 2010
WITH his father and grandfather both Cornets, there was going to be no holding back Graeme Murray in his ambition to represent Langholm on Common Riding day.
Graeme, who was so committed that he stood five times to achieve his objective, has no greater role models than his father, John, who was Cornet in 1976, and his grandfather, also John, in 1946.
He grew up not only with the Common Riding traditions in the family home but also with a love of horses and riding.
Graeme, 28, a residential childcare worker, said: “Common Riding was very much in the home and dad always had a horse in the few weeks beforehand.
“I was always around horses when I was younger and the Common Riding meant a lot to me when I was a small boy. I was the boys’ Common Riding Cornet when I was 11 and first rode the common in 1994.”
Graeme learned to ride from the age of nine with Eric Mitchell at Thorniewhats riding school. Ian Earsman (the 2003 Cornet) and I used to spend a lot of time up there on Saturdays mucking out and cleaning tack and in the afternoon Eric gave us a couple of horses to take out. One day my dad had to come out looking for us when it got dark.”
In the first few years that he did all the ride-outs he rode a pony called Chess and he won best-turned-out pony at the Benty and Castle Craigs in 1995.
But then it all went a bit wrong when Graeme broke both arms at the Benty in 1997 and it was 2002 before he did another ride-out.
He said: “The saddle slipped and I fell off, breaking both arms, and I spent a few weeks in hospital. It put me off for a short time but then I started thinking about getting back on a horse.”
It was his friend James Ritchie, who went on to become the 2005 Cornet, who persuaded him to go for riding lessons with him at Whisgills. As a result, he started to keep a horse for the few weeks during the ride-outs in 2003 and won the Castle Craigs race in 2005 on B A Baracus.
Graeme is not only on the Castle Craigs committee but also on the Langholm Horse Racing Association Committee and is in the Raeburn Racing flapping syndicate, run by Ian and Laura Earsman. They have two horses, On The Run and Seamus.
Graeme’s own horse, Mambo, which won a race as Mambo Moon at Carlisle for Tim Easterby when he was three, will not be carrying him on Common Riding day. Instead, he has hired 16-year-old Storm, a 17.2hh hunter from Joe and Tracy Crawford of Denholm.
Despite being knocked back four times in the election, Graeme said: “I just had to keep going for it because it was a lifetime’s ambition and not many people get to realise it.
“It was very nerve-racking this year but it has been right from the very start, although this year there was maybe more expectation. I did have some sleepless nights.”
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