Leonard Ambrose Cundell (1879

Liddington Liddington is a village and civil parish near Swindon in Wiltshire, England. The settlement lies southeast of Swindon town, close to junction 15 of the M4 motorway, which is approximately away via the B4192. History The parish has been an ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershir ...

- 15, December 1939 Blewburton Hall, Aston Tirrold,

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Be ...

(now Oxfordshire)) was a well known

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racehorse trainer in the 1930s.

Early years

Len was the second son of farmer and butcher, Matthew Henry Cundell, and his wife, Emma Willis, of Coley Park Farm, near

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, where he grew up.

Racehorse training

Len had stables at Chilton in Oxfordshire which were taken over, by compulsory purchase, by the British government about 1937 in order to build

RAF Harwell Royal Air Force Harwell or more simply RAF Harwell is a former Royal Air Force station, near the village of Harwell, located south east of Wantage, Oxfordshire and north west of Reading, Berkshire, England. The site is now the Harwell S ...

. A stone marking the end of the runway records that aircraft of No 38 Group RAF took off on the night of 5 June 1944 with troops of the

6th Airborne Division The 6th Airborne Division was an Airborne forces, airborne infantry Division (military), division of the British Army during the Second World War. Despite its name, the 6th was actually the second of two airborne divisions raised by the British ...

who were the first British soldiers to land in Normandy in the main assault for the liberation of Europe. After World War II RAF Harwell was taken over by the UK Atomic Energy Authority. Len Cundell moved from the Bungalow stables at Chilton to Blewburton Hall stables at Aston Tirrold. His best horse was Noble Star who, as a four-year-old, won the

Cesarewitch The Cesarewitch Handicap is a flat handicap horse race in Great Britain open to horses aged three years or older. It is run at Newmarket over a distance of 2 miles and 2 furlongs (3,621 metres ...

in 1931. The racehorses could not be kept following the outbreak of World War II. Some were given away to local farmers to ride while others had to be shot. Len died suddenly just before Christmas 1939.

Legacy

His cousins Ken Cundell and Frank Cundell, and his nephew Jack Waugh, the son of Len's sister Letitia, also became successful racehorse trainers and gained experience in his yard. Ken Cundell was one of the first to recognise Lester Piggot's outstanding talentsThe Times, 2008

References

*McKee Jane, ''Trainer, The Story of a Racehorse Training Dynasty'', Finial Publishing 2010, *Obituary of Ken Cundell, ''The Times'', 14 October 2008
Len Cundell
at the National Horseracing Museum website {{DEFAULTSORT:Cundell, Len British racehorse trainers 1879 births 1939 deaths People from the Borough of Swindon People from Reading, Berkshire People from Vale of White Horse (district) People from Aston Tirrold