WELLINGBOROUGH.- Two items in this BUDDS sale show just how dangerous a sport horse racing can be. Lester Piggott narrowly escaped death during a horrific starting stalls accident at Epsom Racecourse aboard a horse named Winsor Boy. Winsor Boy panicked inside the starting stalls and forcefully ducked down and lunged forward, dragging Piggott through a narrow gap at the bottom framework of the gate. The saddle Lester used that day is for sale. Green paint from the stalls is still on the underside, and Piggott later signed it. (Lot 60; �2,000–�3,000).

A second near miss took place at the start of the 1993 Grand National when the starting tapes struck Richard Dunwoody's undershirt and tore at the collar where the starting tape caught round his neck. The shirt is in the sale as (Lot 119; �1,000–�1,500). After two false starts, 30 of the 39 runners set off anyway, and the race was declared void.

BUDDS and Weatherbys bring 591 lots of racing history to the National Horse Racing Museum on 18 November, from a book printed in 1695 to presentations marking this spring's Cheltenham Gold Cup and Grand National.

Lester Piggott's 1971 Champion Jockey trophy (�6,000–�8,000) and the saddle Danny Maher rode to win three Epsom Derbys (�5,000–�8,000) lead ‘The Inside Track’, a horse racing memorabilia auction presented by BUDDS in partnership with Weatherbys. The sale takes place in the John Lambton Room at the National Horse Racing Museum, Newmarket, at 10.30am on Wednesday 18 November 2026.

The 591 lots carry combined estimates of approximately �240,000–�330,000. Much of the sale comes from inside racing: head lads, stud grooms, a Newmarket saddler, and the families of jockeys and trainers.

They run from a copy of The Complete Jockey, published in London in 1695, to framed presentations signed by Willie Mullins and Paul Townend after Gaelic Warrior's Cheltenham Gold Cup and I Am Maximus's Grand National this spring. More than 200 lots have a lower estimate under �200.

PIGGOTT AND MAHER

Piggott's trophy is a hallmarked silver goblet by Wakely & Wheeler, inscribed as the Wilfred Sherman Jockey Championship Trophy (Lot 67). He won it in 1971 with 162 winners, the ninth of his eleven championships. It was last sold at Sotheby's in November 1998, as part of the Lester Piggott Collection.

A second Piggott lot comes from a retired Newmarket saddler. It is the saddle Piggott was riding on Winsor Boy at Epsom on 22 April 1981, the day of his accident in the starting stalls. Green paint from the stalls is still on the underside, and Piggott later signed it "To Tony, best wishes" (Lot 60; �2,000–�3,000).

Danny Maher, an American jockey, used his saddle to win the Derby on Rock Sand in 1903, Cicero in 1905 and Spearmint in 1906 (Lot 52). Maher gave it to his friend Joe Longton, who sent it from America to Aubrey Robinson in Canowindra, New South Wales. The Robinson family has kept it ever since. It comes with the original American Railway Express baggage labels and a 1925 Sydney Mail article showing Robinson holding the saddle.

McCOY, DESERT ORCHID AND THE RACE THAT NEVER WAS

The boots A.P. McCoy wore for his 4,000th winner, on Mountain Tunes at Towcester on 7 November 2013, are signed and inscribed "4000" (Lot 121; �3,000–�4,000). They come with a signed letter from McCoy confirming he wore them that day.

Desert Orchid's winner's sheet from the 1989 Cheltenham Gold Cup, which he won in heavy ground, comes in a glass-fronted display case nearly two metres long (Lot 258; �3,000–�4,000). It is sold with a signed letter from his owner, Richard Burridge.

Richard Dunwoody's signed undershirt from the 1993 Grand National is torn at the collar where the starting tape caught round his neck (Lot 119; �1,000–�1,500). After two false starts, 30 of the 39 runners set off anyway, and the race was declared void.

FROM NEWMARKET'S YARDS AND STUDS

Frank Conlon, former head lad at Sir Henry Cecil's Warren Place stables, kept the colours and a shoe from Bosra Sham's 1996 1000 Guineas win. Among them are the colours Bosra Sham carried to win the 1996 1000 Guineas and one of the glue-on shoes she raced in that day. Her feet were too brittle to hold a conventional racing plate (Lot 267; �800–�1,000).

He also kept the racing plate Oath wore to win the 1999 Derby (Lot 278; �600–�800). Cecil's own pink and grey racing silks, made by Gibson of Newmarket, are framed with two photographs of him (Lot 139; �2,000–�2,500).

Gillon Aitken ran Sir John Astor's Warren Stud at Cheveley, where Troy, winner of the 200th Derby, was foaled. Astor gave him a bronze of a trotting thoroughbred by Isidore Jules Bonheur, which is now offered (Lot 198; �2,000–�3,000). Aitken is the stud groom in the 15ft bronze on the roundabout at the entrance to Newmarket.

From Sir Michael Stoute's stables come winner's sheets worn by Pilsudski, including from the 1997 Eclipse and Irish Champion Stakes (Lots 272–273; �500–�700 each), and work cloths used by Singspiel before the 1996 Japan Cup and Breeders' Cup Turf.

The Henry Candy Collection takes up 54 lots (143–196), from a silver tankard presented to his father, Derrick Candy, in 1947 to the trophy for this year's Abernant Stakes, won by Run To Freedom. The 13-lot Pat Eddery Collection includes his trophy for the 1985 Breeders' Cup Turf on Pebbles, the first British-trained winner of a Breeders' Cup race (Lot 98; �2,000–�3,000), and a plate worn by Detroit in the 1980 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (Lot 96; �500–�700).

FROM 1695 TO THIS SEASON

The oldest pieces are The Complete Jockey, published in 1695 (Lot 581; �400–�500), and a racecard for York races on the Knavesmire in August 1733 (Lot 534; �250–�350). From the Victorian era come four racing plates worn by Isinglass during his 1893 Triple Crown (Lot 207; �1,000–�1,500) and the first shoes Persimmon ever wore, as a foal, before he won the 1896 Derby and St Leger (Lot 210; �400–�600).
Also offered are the silver-gilt Asprey trophy for the 1970 Oaks, won by Lupe (Lot 335; �3,000–�5,000); a Philip Blacker bronze of two horses in a close finish (Lot 358; �6,000–�8,000); a Peter Deighan painting of Frankie Dettori's Magnificent Seven at Ascot, thirty years on (Lot 117; �500–�700); and the saddle cloth State Man wore when he fell at the last in the 2025 Champion Hurdle (Lot 330; �400–�600).