This weekend, the Tideway will play host to the iconic Head of the River Race, seeing hundreds of men’s eights racing along the reverse Championship Course, from Chiswick to Putney. HORR is the country’s biggest head race, and laying down a great performance here isn’t just a point of pride, but also an important milestone in preparations for summer racing.
The Vernon Trophy is awarded to the fastest crew from a Tideway-based club (situated between the mouth of the Thames and Teddington Lock). This year will be a particularly interesting battle for the trophy, with Thames RC‘s vice-like grip on club rowing seemingly beginning to falter. In this preview, I’ll go through the main competitors in the event and offer a top-three prediction.
Thames RC
Last year’s winners, Thames are coming off the back of a very strong 2023 season, and are always a formidable force on the Tideway. With a massive squad full of talent, Thames will be eager to retain the Vernon Trophy with a view towards their Henley campaigns. However, the 2024 season has suggested the days of outright Thames dominance may be over. At Quintin Head, the Thames first VIII pulled off an incredibly narrow win, less than a second over St Paul’s and London RC. The Boustead Cup, however, saw the Thames top eight fall to London RC for the first time in 11 years, which would have been a bitter pill to swallow. Thames will be eagerly eyeing this rematch with the London boys, and they may well regain the upper hand – but I highly doubt we’ll see two Thames eights ahead of London in this year’s HORR.
London RC
After a momentum-shifting Wyfolds win at Henley last year, London RC have been enjoying one of their strongest seasons in over a decade. Bolstered by an influx of talent, including U23 World Champion Isaac Workman, London are clearly moving very well, and that Boustead Cup win will have only served to fortify their resolve. Just recently the top London eight devastated the field at Hammersmith Head, putting over ten seconds into Molesey and UL. It will be interesting to see the London/Thames showdown this weekend – I think the London boys are very well placed to pull off a quite definitive victory here, and with Caversham athletes not racing, London have a chance to place higher than they’ve done in a very, very long time.
Vesta RC
Vesta have had a decent season thus far, with a second-placed finish in Senior VIIIs at Quintin, and sixth and seventh-placed finishes for apparently matched eights in Champ VIIIs at Hammersmith Head. They’ve got a good group of senior athletes, led by guys like old St Paul’s rower James King, but they’ll struggle to find the speed to get anywhere close to London and Thames.
Tideway Sculler’s School
Always a producer of fine technical crews, Tideway Scullers will be entering with a view towards beating some of their downstream rivals, but results from this season aren’t suggesting that there’s anything particularly earth-shattering happening at the Chiswick club. There hasn’t been a great deal of racing this season due to stream conditions, but results from Quintin and Hammersmith show the Tideway guys a way off the pace of what will make up the front of the Vernon Trophy field. That being said, Tideway should never be entirely discounted – they’ve got great pedigree and I’m sure they’ll put up a strong fight.
Lea RC
Although not technically a ‘Tideway’ club, I am still excited to see how this boat club fare at the weekend. Lea have enjoyed some decent results over the past couple of years, and have enjoyed some alumni success, with former Lea juniors Luca Ferraro and Rosa Millard both rowing for Cambridge in the Boat Race in 2023 (and Ferraro also having just been announced in this year’s Cambridge Blue Boat). Lea’s current senior squad has shown some speed that will probably put them ahead of Tideway Scullers, but they’re still a league behind the likes of London and Thames’s top eights.
Prediction
This will be, as usual, a Thames and London-dominated affair. This year, however, I think it is London RC ‘A’ that will take the top spot. I’m going to go with Thames RC ‘A’ in second, and Thames RC ‘B’ in third.
Best of luck to all crews.
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