Remember Sleepy Steve?

Whilst going through my archive, searching for a particular race for someone, I found this little gem of a tale that made the front page of the dailies back in April 1986. Steve Smith-Eccles had had a few shandies and fell asleep in the back of his car, only for some chancer to nick it without realising he was asleep in the back!
Still not as scary as riding over the big fences though, as Steve did in the National on the Saturday, finishing third on 22/1 shot Classified behind West Tip.
Steve was always one of my favourite jockeys who never seemed to take life too seriously.

 

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BySteve

Steve Bradley is the man behind this project, an unashamedly nostalgic website dedicated to horse racing’s golden days of the past, featuring vintage racecards, clippings and news stories plucked from the newspapers of the day. A devotee of horse racing’s halcyon days from the 1960s to the 1990s, Steve caught the racing bug as a small boy living near Catterick racecourse, where he was lucky enough to see the great Red Rum in action in the 1970s. He has undertaken private research commissions for various figures within the racing industry. Away from racing he enjoys spending time with his retired greyhound, bar billiards, music, TV, films, reading and travel.

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