I’m on a quest.
Back in the 1920s, a racehorse called Tishy hit the news for coming last in the Cesarewitch in two consecutive years, 1921 and 1922.
She was a success for sporting artist Tom Webster in the Daily Mail, though, because he began to do a series of cartoons based on Tishy and her alleged unusual action, which made him the highest paid cartoonist on Fleet Street for a while.
He also created an animated cartoon, said to be the first fully animated cartoon to be produced in Britain.
Here’s a clip of the 1921 race, with a possibly trotting Tishy at the back
https://www.britishpathe.com/video/a-sensational-cesarewitch/query/Suffolk
You can read more about Tom Webster here: https://www.cartoons.ac.uk/cartoonist-biographies/w-x/TomWebster.html
There are also lots of Tishy cartoons on the same site: https://archive.cartoons.ac.uk/GetMultimedia.ashx?db=Catalog&type=default&fname=TW3717.jpg
And this reel contains some Tishy animation, about 10 minutes 30 seconds in: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/flashbacks-reel-2-reel-2-is-old-reels-3-4-combined/query/TRAINING+RACE+HORSE
My quest is this: when I was growing up in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, my mother told me that there had been a cartoon called “Tishy Gallowa” in the newspapers in the north east. This isn’t surprising, since the term “Gallowa'” was (and still is) a general term for a horse in north east England, and it derives from the old Galloway breed/type of horse that were the running horses who formed a major part of the foundation stock of the Thoroughbred.
I assumed, therefore, that “Tishy Gallowa” had been a syndicated north eastern version of the famous cartoon.
However, although I’ve contacted many of the cartoon archives, I’ve drawn a complete blank. No syndication, apparently, and no-one else recalls Tishy Gallowa.
Anyone else recall their parents or grandparents in the north east talking about Tishy Gallowa?
My mother named her cat Tishy because of her habit of crossing her front legs
Tishy seems to have been quite a sensation at the time!
I have heard of Tishy, I remember my mum telling me how she would cross her legs if she didn’t want to run! But that’s as much as I know