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Biography of Len Cundell - Racehorse Trainer

This story has a tenuous connection with Malvern

Leonard Ambrose Cundell (1879 - 1939) became a well known English Racehorse Trainer in the 1930s. He was the second son of farmer and butcher Matthew Henry Cundell and Emma Willis.

In 1918 he joined the Army Remount Service as a Lieutenant and served in the Egyptian Theatre.

His best horse was Noble Star.

He had stables at Chilton in Oxfordshire which were taken over by the government about 1937 in order to build RAF Harwell. After WWII the site was taken over by the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

Len moved his establishment from the Bungalow Stables at Chilton to the Blewburton Hall Estate at Aston Tirrold, where he continued to train until the outbreak of WWII.

His cousin Frank, Ken the son of his cousin businessman Albert Augustus Cundell, and Jack Waugh, the husband of Len's sister Letitia, also became Racehorse Trainers and gained experience in his yard.

Ken Cundell was one of the first to recognise Lester Piggott's outstanding talents.

Lester Piggott also came from a well known racing family. Older residents of Malvern remember Lester Piggot's uncle, Victor Thomas Cannon Piggott (born 11 May 1906, France - died 27 Mar 1992, Chichester). Victor was the younger brother of Ernest Keith Piggott, father of Lester. He rode his first winner on the Flat at Brighton in 1920, and his first winner over Jumps in 1923, at Manchester.   Having ridden over 300 winners, he retired in his early twenties after taking a bad fall and joined his father-in-law's bookmaking business. Victor had first married, in 1929, Lillian Amy Moore, and ran a Betting Shop in Malvern for many years. The 1962 telephone directory describes Victor as a Commission Agent and records him living at Hall Green Close, with his shop at 18 Church Street.

The story of Len Cundell and his family has at last been told in a new book written by his daughter Jane.

Trainer

The Story of a Racehorse Training Dynasty

Published by Finial, 2010

ISBN 978-1-900467-46-9

51 pages inc many photos

Price £9.99

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This article was first published on our old website 123-mcc.com