Stan Hayhurst, RIP

Stan Hayhurst, jockey who won the 1958 Gold Cup and fell in the 1967 Grand National chaos

In 1967 he was one of the first to fall in the apocalyptic pile-up, when Foinavon slipped through to win the Grand National at 100-1


Stan Hayhurst, who has died aged 91, was the oldest living jockey to have won the Gold Cup at Cheltenham.

In 1958, after battling with George Slack on Polar Flight over the final two fences, Hayhurst finished half a length ahead on Kerstin, one of only four mares ever to win the Gold Cup.

The eight-year-old Kerstin, owned by Henry Moore and trained in Northumberland by Major Verly Bewicke, was, said Hayhurst, “a real cow of a mare at home and a nightmare to school.” But Cheltenham suited her: in the previous year’s Gold Cup, she had finished second by a length to Linwell. Returning with Hayhurst in 1958, she outclassed not just Linwell but two other Gold Cup winners, Gay Donald and Limber Hill, as well as a future one, Mandarin. The prize money was then £5,700; in a period when the north-south divide was still marked, the 24-year-old Hayhurst, fresh from his National Service, was proud to lift the Gold Cup “for the North”.

That autumn Hayhurst thought he had sealed a double with Kerstin in the Hennessy Gold Cup – then held at Cheltenham, before its move to Newbury – despite the late surge of John Lawrence (later Lord Oaksey), who had brought Taxidermist from a seemingly impossible position to pass the winner’s post with Kerstin in what seemed to the naked eye a dead heat. Even Lawrence was convinced Kerstin had just won it – but after a tense wait for a photograph, the judge ruled in favour of Taxidermist.

Kerstin and Hayhurst claimed the Hennessy in 1959, but were unlucky in that year’s Grand National when Kerstin, carrying the top weight of 12 stone but travelling well, was knocked over by Mainstown in a mid-air collision at Becher’s Brook on the second lap, just six lengths behind the eventual winner, Oxo. Hayhurst considered it the great “what if?” of his career – “the one thing we always knew was that [Kerstin] would stay” – and had to wait eight more years for another chance, on Castle Falls, in the sensational Grand National of 1967.

That was the year Foinavon went from last place to win at 100-1, after an apocalyptic pile-up at the 23rd fence. Castle Falls was leading the field until he was knocked by the loose horse Popham Down, landed on top of the fence, then was pushed over by another flying horse. Hayhurst, finding himself on hands and knees “like a sprinter”, scuttled to safety, thinking: “Christ, 40 horses are coming.”

Castle Falls was underneath the fence “with his feet in the air” as the race descended into chaos. When Hayhurst realised that only one horse, Foinavon, had got through unscathed, he scrambled back onto Castle Falls and barged through the ruined fence to finish 14th.

Stanley Hayhurst was born in Carrville, Co Durham, on September 4, 1933, and was apprenticed for four years to Major Bewicke, riding his first winner, Carpact, at Hexham in October 1950. He then did his National Service in Kenya with the Royal Army Veterinary Corps at the time of the Mau-Mau uprising. While in Kenya he rode in one hurdle race and followed on the radio Devon Loch’s fall on the final straight in the 1956 Grand National, throwing Dick Francis 40 yards from the winning post; Bewicke’s runner, Gental Moya, finished second.

Demobbed, Hayhurst returned to share Bewicke’s rides with George Milburn. After his triumphant 1958 Gold Cup he had his first Grand National ride on the underpowered Wise Child.

Hayhurst retired in 1973, having ridden 301 winners, the majority for Bewicke before the trainer moved south in 1967. Having started his career in an era when jockeys wore cork hats without chin straps, Hayhurst was perhaps lucky to escape with only minor injuries, breaking his collarbone on six occasions, as well as his jaw and his wrist, and displacing his Adam’s apple (after which he could eat only chocolate for a week).

He ran a livery yard, a newsagent’s in Consett, and was a racecourse judge from 1974 to 1982.

Stan Hayhurst had two daughters with his wife Patricia.

Stan Hayhurst, born September 4 1933, death announced July 3 2025

Also ran a newsagent in Durham Rd Sunderland in late 60s early 70s , was just opposite where I grew up, used to pop in to get me Beano and Victor .
RIP Stan .