Jockeypedia - ex-jockey Charlie Guest dies

Charlie Guest dies February 2021 aged 92

Born on November 12, 1928, Charles Guest, was the elder brother of jockeys Joseph and Nelson Guest. He served a five-year apprenticeship with Captain Rupert Laye, who sent out horses from Bonita, his Marlborough stables.
Charlie was light enough to ride under both sets of rules during the 1950s and 60s but never had a winner on the Flat in Britain, unlike his brother Nelson, who also rode under both codes but was more successful on the level.

He rode his first winner on Moderation for Broad Hinton, Wiltshire trainer Edward Champneys in the Axbridge Handicap Hurdle at Wincanton on Easter Monday, April 14, 1952. However, he had to wait more than three and a half years for his second, the Bob Turnell-trained Seringapatam at Worcester on December 3, 1955, the first of six winners he rode that season.

Charlie rode as a freelance and enjoyed his best season was in 1956/57 with eight winners, including Kempton’s Rendlesham Long Distance Hurdle on Belsay Castle, a win which he subsequently nominated as the highlight of his career.

He was leading jockey for half an hour after winning the first race of the 1960/61 season at Newton Abbot on Zakopane, but that, unfortunately, turned out to be his sole success of the campaign.

He rode two winners the following term, both of them on a handicap chaser named Trim Ruina at Wincanton and Chepstow in October 1961. He had his final winner on Bigamist for Cirencester owner-trainer Jim Bowie at Newton Abbot on August 29, 1962. He continued riding until 1968 before finally hanging up his boots.

Being a freelance meant that Charlie came in for many dangerous mounts and he took some crashing falls over the years. The most frightening was at Folkestone, when he was thrown into the open ditch, broke a leg, couldn’t get out, and was still there when the field crashed through the fence above him second time round.

He also took a nasty first fence fall from a novice chaser named Jim’s Place (left) at Plumpton on the last day of October 1962. The photo appeared in the following day’s Daily Mirror with the caption ‘Departing Guest’!
He had married Joyce Edwards on December 6, 1949; she gave him three daughters, Rita, Jane and Joanne, and two sons, Rae and Richard. Richard won the 2001 Grand National on Red Marauder and is now a successful trainer, as is Rae, who enjoyed an equally successful riding career in Scandinavia before setting up as a trainer at Newmarket. Jane married Sir Henry Cecil and trained for a couple of seasons after that
great trainer’s death, notably sending out Frankel’s brother Noble Mission to win the Champion Stakes at Ascot in 2014.

A race marking his 80th birthday, was run at Newmarket in 2008.