Brilliant piece, once again, Tambourine Man on Geoff Lewis.

Today’s Birthday:
   
James (Jock) Skilling.    Born 1937

Speaking in 2001, he said…
   
"I rode alongside men like Harry Carr, Scobie Breasley, Lester Piggott and Joe and Manny Mercer and they used their brains far more. Lester in particular was the best - he really was different class."

Skilling, married to wife Doreen for 40 years, still lives the Malton area where he used to run a restaurant and clothes shop in the market place until a new by-pass resulted in the visitors drying up. Prior to that he had tried his hand at training and ran a jockeys' agency.

"I trained for only about three years and I had around 20 winners," he said. "You can go skint quickly as it's so hard to make it pay."

It's as a jockey that most people will remember Skilling, who started as a stable lad with Ernie Davey in Coronation year.

He recalled: "I stayed with Ernie from 1953 until 1959 when I moved to John Clark, who had Clydesdale House on Ayr seafront. After that I went to Gerry Laurence at Cree Lodge and when he died I stayed on with Harry Whiteman.

"I got the chance to move to Mick Easterby down in the late 1960's and I was with him for 12 or 13 years. It was while at Sherrif Hutton that I sat on the best horse I ever rode, Lochnager.

"I also rode good horses like Bois Moss but I couldn't do the weight when he won the Cesarewitch as a three-year-old. Harry Bell gave me some good times too and Night Patrol was a decent horse of his in those days.

"Granville Greta was another good horse and I won three races on her. I also remember winning the William The Lion Handicap at Lanark twice but the nearest I got to the Silver Bell was the year Johnny Seagrave beat me a short head, but then he always did!"

Paul
I remember Bill Jesse riding for George Todd.....George loved to cane the bookies and Bill's mounts landed a few big gambles.
I found a couple of pieces on Bill...sadly one is the Nov. 2000 Notice of his death.

Billy Jesse, the former lightweight jockey, has died in Swindon's Princess Margaret Hospital after a short illness. He was 57.

Although apprenticed to George Todd at Manton, Jesse rode more winners for Lambourn trainer Doug Marks and Dave Hanley.

Marks said yesterday: "Billy was the most reliable of jockeys, and he landed several gambles for us.''

Jesse joined Todd as an apprentice in 1957, and eight years later moved on to Marks. For the last 27 years he had worked for Peter Walwyn, most recently grooming the former trainer's hunters.

Walwyn said: "Billy was a quiet man who was loyal and did a thoroughly pleasing job for us over many years."

Jesse rode his first winner in 1962 at Manchester and six years later had one of his best seasons with 16 winners.

I like this which I go from the Racing Forum....


racing,like everything else,has it's share of nice and not so nice people. i worked in stables for a while back in '69 and i used to live in lambourn in '66, so i met some jockeys,etc.
the three truly nice guys i met were fulke walwyn,he gave my brother and i a lift in his car while he was driving on the road next to his gallops. he was watching two of his horses doing a canter (i remember one of them was rode by the jockey terry sturrock, because i asked mr walwyn who the riders were). he was a real gent was fw. another one was brough scott. he used to ride out at tim forster's yard and i got talking to him one day. i told him about the time a year or so earlier when he got beat in a photo by john buckingham and i told him the name of the horse (i remembered it well because it let me down for a winning yankee!). he then described the race to me and exactly what happened! i asked him for a tip and his exact words were 'have a squeak each way on THE OTTER on saturday'. brough rode it and finished second at 8-1.i didn't back it as i was broke! what a brilliant fella, polite and so friendly. the third was a lightweight jockey for doug marks called billy jesse. he was more my brother's friend than mine but he was a smashing little guy. i remember he had a mini car with a record player inside! yeah, now at that time ('66) that was really something! i mentioned a horse that billy always rode called INJUN and i said i thought it was a good horse. 'a bit one paced' billy said. i had to ask him what 'one paced' meant and he told me. billy sadly died around ten years ago. graham thorner wasn't so bad, richard pitman was ok. the first day i went to lambourn i went to the local bookies and richard himself was in there with his jodphurs and polo neck sweater on! he was looking at the sporting chronicle that was pinned to the board on the wall.he was riding for fred winter at the time,apprenticed to him i think.
george spann was training in lambourn at that time and some of his stable lads had a reputation for being little hooligans!
i also remember a young lad having his very first ride on the flat (i can't remember his trainer but it was either f maxwell or g spann i think). the lad's name was stuart kirby and he was a yorkshire kid, leeds i think. he rode a horse called DAYSPRING. it was a real outsider and hadn't done very much at all in it's previous races. i went and listened to the race in the bookies and stuart led all the way until the last furlong and he was overtook by other horses. he still finished fourth and i was so chuffed for stuart.
i was also friends with a young apprentice called martin o'halloran,he worked for doug marks if my memory serves me well. some years later he became a jump jockey and rode a horse called BATCHELORS HALL to a win in a big race that was on tv. i liked martin but my brother didn't!
well these are a few memories and i hope one or two people find it a little interesting.
ttfn!

Here's a 60's Ally Pally card where Bill won the seller .





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Thanks TMan, a great read. I see that John Meacock had a 33-1 winner on the Ally Pally card with some unpronouncable name. Little did we know.

Paul
I remember .
being fascinated by Meacock's horses...I remember most of them ran nowhere but just occasionally he would have a 33/1 winner
like that one or Vakil ul Mulk
How is your holiday going? How is the life over there?

Tman, holiday going fine thanks, everything (particularly in Queensland) is geared to the outdoor lifestyle. I've never seen so many people up at the crack of dawn and out for a jog. It does help when the sun is permanently shining.
Anyway, back to the important stuff, John Meacock, as you say, his horses always seemed to win at big prices. Mind you his horses were invariably unfashionably bred, cheaply bought types and his strike rate was around 2%. Two I recall were Karkeh Rud and Assad Ul Mulk. When I think of Meacock, I always think of Peter Poston who was in a similar mould. Dire Straits was one his that I recall. Won at Hamilton once for me at some astronomical price. I think Richard Hutchinson rode it, 1969 or 70.

Julian Wilson wrote of Meacock: “He wore a battered trilby hat, smoked incessantly through a cigarette-holder, scattering ash indiscriminately, wrote unintelligible poetry and was quite the dottiest man that I had ever met!”

I can recall encountering John Meacock myself a couple of times at the races in the late sixties. On the first occasion I was a young 15 year old apprentice not long in racing, we were at Bath races where we had some runners that day. I went to the stable-lads canteen with another of the lads and as we sat having a drink this guy walked in who just looked totally out of place, he didn’t look like a stable lad, didn’t dress like a stable lad and he wasn’t the right size for a stable lad either. There was certainly something about him that transfixed me; I watched intently as he sat down… he wasn’t alone, as there were three or four young lads with him who were obviously racing lads, apprentices looking at their size and age. The stable lad who was with me gave me a nudge and a wink and said "you watch this kid"… I asked who the bloke was and he said “it’s that John Meacock, a complete Hat-stand he is”, I said who’s John Meacock and he replied he’s a trainer but he hardly ever has a winner, all his horses have foreign names, he’s more of an expert at training losers! Meacock sent one of the young kids up to the counter to get some cups of tea for them all, then a little while later he sidled up to  the counter himself and perused what was available and when he came away from the counter he had a whole cooked chicken on a plate. I thought he’s bought a chicken to share with the young lads, however when he seated himself back down it was reminiscent of something like a Victorian scene, say from a Dickens novel… he did no more than ate most of the chicken himself whilst the young apprentices sat all around him in silence looking as though they wanted a bite of it too… he left  the young apprentices with about as much between all of them them as he had for himself then with a “come on boys” he upped and left the canteen with the kids trailing behind him!

Timeform

The second time I encountered John Meacock was at Newbury races when one of our horses went head to head with one of his, the ground had dried out to very firm and by the day before the race it had cut up badly to a match, a no betting affair due to the wide gulf in class between the two competing horses.

Willipeg
Willipeg was a very useful sprinter with a fine turn of foot who had won many races whilst John Meacock’s runner Biyaban Shah was still a maiden and in fact up to that day had not managed to finish in the first three in any race. It was usual for Meacock to have Charlie Patton, Frank Morby, or a young apprentice riding his horses and on this day he had a 7lb claimer A. G. Hall from Arthur Budgetts stable on Biyaban Shah. The gulf between the two horses was illustrated by the ratings and comments for both horses in Timeform Racehorses of 1968. The young apprentice Hall entered the paddock and approached Meacock twirling his whip with expertise just like you might expect from a budding Lester Piggott. Meacock didn’t appear to be quite as impressed as Hall may have been hoping for, with his usual eccentricity he glared at the young apprentice and did no more than snatched the whip from him saying “give me that bloody thing you won’t be needing it to win this one son”… upon legging Hall up into the saddle he must have then had second thoughts and decided to return his whip.


Result
Willipeg was the sort of horse who was best left waiting till the last 150yards to use his excellent turn of foot to snatch the race in the dying strides however on this occasion he was going so well that he joined the lightly weighted Biyaban Shah two furlongs out and then pulled his way to the front hard held a furlong from home to win going away in a canter by four lengths. On his return to the unsaddling enclosure young Hall was greeted by an annoyed John Meacock who chastised Hall with a second helping of his eccentricity saying to the kid “ What the hell were you playing at… I told you in the paddock not to go haring off and make the running but to sit in behind him until just inside the final furlong and then pull him out and come with a late run and pip him on the post… You've cost me a bloody fortune today, I had a very big bet on the forecast you stupid little fool”.

John Meacock, who trained under both codes from 1960 to 1971, died in hospital in Southampton at the age of 85 in October 1999. He was a larger than life and very colourful owner-trainer who, after his wartime experiences in the Middle East, named his horses in relation to Shakespearian quotations translated into Persian.  He was also an enthusiastic yachtsman, ran an estate agency and even wrote a book of poems... Meacock was an innovator too in laying down and training on an artificial track at his stables near Alresford, Hampshire. – R.I.P John Meacock, even today you’re still making us smile at your eccentricity.
What a great era the sixties and seventies was for interesting people in racing…  David Ashforths book “Hitting The Turf” amusingly recalls one of the characters - Lieutenant-Colonel "Ricky" GRA Vallance, the trainer of Red Candle who won the 1972 Mackeson Gold Cup and the 1973 Hennessy. Apparently, Vallance "used to step out in his underpants and slippers at a frosty six o'clock in the morning and wash his hair in a tank of rainwater. Later, he might dip his nine Maltese terriers in a washing machine". His marital disputes with Mrs Vallance were the stuff of local legend one began with an oil-filled radiator flying out of a bedroom window! Ken Payne was another... a former Atty Persse apprentice turned window cleaner, then turned racehorse trainer who from small beginnings in the New Forest rose to a 120 horse stable in Middleham. However things changed rapidly when his licence was removed by the jockey club for doping followed by a downward spiral of despair with bankruptcy, the death of his son, and a suicide attempt which culminated with him fleeing to Los Angeles only to flee from there to Australia after allegedly being wanted on a police arrest warrant not to mention a mafia hitman being in hot pursuit of him! Characters like Vallance, Payne, and John Meacock were the life blood not just of horseracing but of life itself.



His stable in 1971


A summary of some of Meacock’s horses –

Kouli-Kuh – Bay Mare, 1956.
Bought in 1959 as a three yr old by John Meacock she won a five furlong handicap at Lewes carrying seven stone seven pounds at the age of 5 yrs. Winning at odds of 20-1 and paying 56-1 on the tote this was her only glimmer of form from 22 Starts winning just the one race and being unplaced in her other 21 starts. Kouli-Kuh was unraced at 2yrs or 3yrs while named Trixodix, the mare who was Meacock's first winner ever winner as an owner/trainer was a half-sister to the good stayer and decent hurdler Curry's Kin (1957) and their dam was a half-sister to the excellent stayer Curry (1951).

Vakil-Ul-Mulk – Grey Colt, 1960 (sold on in 1966 to R. Johnston).
Won two 16f handicaps on flat (Warwick & Birmingham) at 5yrs and two more at 6yrs (both at Warwick) for new owner; earlier, in January 1965, won 20f novice hurdle (Worcester) and won five Handicap hurdles (20f-21f75y 1966-68) for new owner. Probably owner-breeder-trainer-poet-Persia expert John Meacock's least untalented horse (35-2-3-1 flat; 9-1-1-1 hurdles); rank outsider & trailed at the back as a maiden in 1963 Epsom Derby.


Khoja Hafiz - Bay Colt, 1960.
In 38 flat races Khoja Hafiz managed to win just once, his only win came in a seven furlong handicap at Warwick at 3yrs old. Was placed at 2yrs, 4yrs and 5yrs. Tried over hurdles but was unplaced in 4 hurdle races. Full record read as 42 races, 1 win, and 5 places.


Kavar-Ul-Mulk - Bay Colt, 1960. (Sold on to the Peter Chesmore stable in 1966)
He managed to reach a place on just one occasion when finishing third in 21 races on the flat. However, Kavar-Ul-Mulk did manage to finish second on four occasions in 19 races over hurdles for John Meacock. Later on under his new stable Kavar-Ul-Mulk failed to gain a win but finished second four times and third five times. The overall record for Kavar-Ul-Mulk reads as 72 races, no wins, eight seconds, and six thirds… sad really that the horse managed to gain quite a few places yet was still a maiden after running 72 times.


Qebir Kuh – Bay Mare, 1960.
In 21 flat races Qebir Kuh, won just the once in a 2mile handicap at Warwick when 5 yrs old.  She was also placed 2nd at 3 years old and again at 5 yrs old. In 6 jump races she managed to win once in a 2mile selling hurdle at Plumpton when aged 4yrs and was also 3rd once. Qebir Kuh was the dam of hurdle race winner Mr. Stubbs.


Zardarkuh - Bay Mare, 1960.
In 22 flat races from 2yrs old to 5yrs old Zardarkuh managed to win just the once when aged 5yrs in a 1mile 5 furlong handicap at Alexandra Park. She was also tried over hurdles running 11 times and managing to gain a place on three occasions.


QARAZAN – Bay Mare, 1961
In 32 flat races Khoja Hafiz managed to win just once, she won a 6 furlong handicap at Warwick when aged 3yrs old. She managed to gain two other places finishing third at 3rd yrs and 3rd again at 4yrs old. Full record read as 32 races, 1 win and 2 places, she was exported to Argentina.


Karkeh Rud – Bay Mare, 1962.
The bay mare managed to win three races on the flat, a 2 mile handicap at Brighton as a 3 year old, a 1 mile handicap at Warwick as a 4 yr old, and a 1 mile and half a furlong handicap at Windsor also at 4 yrs old. Karkeh Rud was also placed 11 times on the flat and when tried over hurdles she made the frame once. From a total of 66 races flat and jumps her record stood at 3 wins, 12 places, and 51 unplaced runs.


Qasr I Zar – Chestnut Mare, 1962
The Mare proved to be of little account on the flat managing just one place from 22 races but she did manage to gain a win over hurdles.


QALIBASHI - Bay Mare, 1964 (sold on to BBC journalist Julian Wilson).
She won her only 2 races over a 3 day spell at Brighton in August 1968, a 7 furlong handicap in which she dead heated for 1st place and a 6 furlong handicap two days later. Qalibashi managed a total of two wins and four places in 32 starts before being sold. She was also placed four times in over hurdles after being sold on.
Asad-Ul-Mulk – Chestnut Gelding, 1964.
In 25 flat races from the age of 2 yrs to 5 yrs Asad-Ul-Mulk never managed to make the frame. However, he did fare a little better over hurdles but that wouldn’t have been very hard given his dismal record on the flat. Over hurdles Asad-Ul-Mulk although a little improved it still wasn’t exactly groundbreaking stuff… He managed to gain 2 wins but one of those was walkover in a lowly selling hurdle. He also managed 2nd place on one occasion and once finishing 3rd. His record overall was 53 races, his only 2 wins and 2 places coming from his 28 hurdle races.

Apprentice Jockey1 November 2011 11:14

Great thread lads. Slightly off the beaten track but maybe someone out there can help me. I recall when I was a nipper in 1969 my mum backing a horse in a race on the telly called Andrew John because of me and my friend. Seem to recall it was at Catterick in the summer holidays and it was a mnonster price (100/1?). It bolted up to the delight of mum with her 2 and 6 each way each way and seem to remember it following up the next week at rather prohibitive odds. Have it in my mind it was ridden by someone called Vickers. Has anyone out there got a form book from the said year to help confirm this?

hi paulbu,there was definetly some sort of loophole he exploited in those days where it was actually profitable to send no hopers a long distance,remember reading about it,i'm sure someone will have the details as it got quite a bit of publicity at the time hence my recollection.

Ribero, you are spot on about the travel allowance. It was abolished in 1979 which caused Mark Prescott to review his policy about sending 90% of his runners to race north of the Trent. Prescott was never slow to take advantage of a loophole in the racing system.

forgotmyusername...
The race was July 31 1969 at Redcar....Andrew John won the Appr. Handicap at 100/1 ridden by M.Vickers
Owned and Trained by A Brewster at Doncaster.
It ran again on August 6th at Ayr again ridden by Vickers...it won again at 10/1.Down the field in its last 4 runs.

Sprarrow
Great Meacock story.

Re P.Poston


Peter Poston and Harry Ballantine both achieved their biggest victories with Homefield, a remarkable staying handicapper who won the Tennent Trophy at Ayr in 1973.

Poston, a meat wholesaler who trained his own horses at Newmarket, was later a jockeys' agent, and died in 1991. He was well known for exploiting the Levy Board's travel allowance scheme, and for training Homefield.

Homefield was a maiden until winning five times in seven starts as a five-year-old in the summer of 1973. After a long losing spell, he again won five times in seven attempts in 1976.

Ballantine, a lightweight claimer, rode Homefield to three of his wins, including the Tennent Trophy, but failed to flourish once his apprenticeship ended.

misty halo was also ridden by elain mellor in amateur races,prescott used her quite a bit as she was easily the best lady rider of her time and maybe the best amateur including men,she is defintely worth a mention on this thread.as a young punter following her mounts was one of the easier ways of finding winners for me.

Here's a youtube video of Sea Pigeon winning it (1980) - shows most of the race:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvMaq8-j0ks&list=UUM_7Qso4dopWoV1Cip4XQWA&index=57&feature=plcp

Sea Pigeon (jonjo), Shaftesbury (Piggott), No Bombs. 5 in a line 2 out, with Sea Pigeon just behind, and still on the bridle just over a furlong out with everything else hard at work.

thanks ged,haven't watched it yet but remember it being fairly soft going that day.

*Farm Walk

apologies ribero and tambourine man, didn`t read further down before noticing your comments re. HOMEFIELD

TM, you wouldn`t have further details about HOMEFIELD would you? Was at Ayr the day he won TT.

..sorry..all I've done is repeated what TM posted earlier.

Thanks ged. Can you remember other jockeys who rode regularly for PP. ??

According to the Glasgow Herald for the day, S McDougall(7) was down to ride Homefield in the Tennents. Maybe he couldn't do 7-0. Homefield went into the race with figs of 422131, and was set to carry 7-7, less app allowance.

I was lookig at a Lanark card from '66 earlier. Poston ran 3 horses - 2 ridden by B Freeman(7) - the other ridden by J Platt(7). I guess he took the economic options! He had a winner from those 3 runners - Herring Sky.