Crowhurst, John

Flat jockey John Maurice Crowhurst served his apprenticeship with Towser Gosden, father of John Gosden, at Lewes, in Sussex, and rode his first winner on Gosden’s Rub-a-Dub in an apprentices’ race at Redcar on Whit Monday, May 26, 1953. He won a similar contest on Rub-a-Dub at Newmarket’s July Meeting.He rode one more winner as an apprentice, Trentham Boy at Haydock, before coming out of his time in 1955. Trentham Boy gave John his first winner as a fully fledged jockey when winning a mile-and-a-half handicap at Doncaster in October 1955. They followed up by winning the Farewell Handicap at Manchester’s end of season meeting in November.

Gosden’s handicapper Greenbatt proved a good friend to John, providing

him with two of his three winners in 1956 and the first of his three in 1958, having drawn a blank in 1957. But John’s biggest winner in terms of monetary value was Dual Role (right) in the £2,064 3s Daily Mirror Maiden for 3-year-olds at Sandown richly-sponsored Variety Club meeting in August 1960. He rode three winners in 1961, beginning with Gosden’s popular handicapper Damredub in Windsor’s Round Tower Handicap in April. His second came on a Gosden two-year-old named Barn Dance at Bogside. His final winner – the last of his career – was achieved on another Gosden-trained juvenile, Scandalize, in the Theale Maiden Plate at Newbury on October 19, 1961.

John remained with his Towser Gosden throughout his career as a jockey. All 16 of his winners were on horses trained by Gosden. He relinquished his licence at the end of 1965, coinciding with Gosden’s own retirement due to ill health, but resumed for one more season in 1967 before retiring from race riding altogether, although he continued to play an important role for Gosden’s successor Gordon Smyth as an experienced work rider.

John Crowhurst’s winners were in chronological order: