About Gorcombe Racing
Gorcombe gets its name from being a ‘Gorsey Hollow’ in the distant past! We as a family have lived here now for four generations, three of them still calling it home. Frederick John and Violet Elizabeth Meaden originally moved here back in 1928, they had four sons and a daughter. The elder children all moved away leaving the youngest Randolph ‘Randy’ Meaden to stay on and run the place with his brother Bob. Born actually here at Gorcombe, Randy has never moved far, he married Penny then had two boys my brother Matt and myself Phill. We also both still live at the farm, Matt with his wife Lynda provided the fourth generation with Sam and Jake.
It was actually John Meaden, the second son of F.J and Violet, who started to get a passion for horse racing with his wife Sheila down in Yetminster, starting off successfully ‘Point to Pointing’ first, then on his retirement John decided to have a go at the real thing, both breeding and racing the horses. He had more than his fair share of success, breeding from his then favourite mare and successful pointer, See-O-Duf. He had great success in his new adventure, first with ‘See Enough’, then later on he bred his best horse ‘See You Sometime’. The ‘See’ was always Johns trademark used in the naming of all his horses. Uncle John, being the very loveable and persuasive person he was, appealed to my soft side to continue his passion as he became too old to breed, by selling me his last two brood mares ‘Seem of Gold’ & ‘Seemma’.
These two mares travelled back to Gorcombe to be the first horses on the farm in a very long time, none of us boys ever being that interested before. The plan started off to just breed a couple of foals maybe race one for some fun and sell the rest to hopefully help towards the bill! We first chose ‘Tobougg’ to be the stallion for ‘Seema’, producing us our first little colt ‘FindusatGorcombe’. He was not only to be the first racehorse with the new trademark of Gorcombe but also the start of a bit of a bug!
As he grew from a small foal to a two year old we decided to introduce him to the trainer Jimmy Frost, my mum Penny had worked there years ago when she was a young groom saying what a great family they were! Well they certainly hadn’t been changed by fame after Jimmy won the Grand National as a jockey! Findus was soon in their capable hands, with Nicky in charge of the pointers, Hayden helping to improve his jumping, Bryony on board as the jockey and of course Dan keeping everyone up to their tasks! Just like us it was a huge family affair!
As we moved forward, ‘Findus’ went from competing at Point to Point to actually winning one, then on to the track to win just his second ever handicap hurdle. It was here I really appreciated the amazing buzz I got from having followed this little horse from being a foal, through his various problems, getting to know this wonderful, honest hard working family to seeing the fruition of everybody’s hard work as we watched him get home in front of hundreds of people. This pure buzz of excitement and adrenaline as he crossed the line, made me want to share it with others, for people to enjoy something I had been so lucky to stumble across, this was the start of the idea of Gorcombe Racing!
Back home we talked it through as a family, my wife Natalie, not being very keen on being close to horses, but sharing my buzz for watching them race helped to cultivate the idea and tidy up the edges, Matt pointed out the pros and cons whilst mum and dad got in the racing channel! First thing we would need was more horses to be trained ready for members to follow, so ‘Gorcombe Rascal’, ‘Missyouat Gorcombe’ and ‘John of Gorcombe’ all started their journeys. We are now ready to go, all we need is to find the right people to share the experience with!