Summers, Jim

Article by Chris Pitt

James Victor Summers rode as a professional National Hunt jockey in the 1963/64 and 64/65 seasons and rode a total of two winners from limited opportunities.

Those opportunities were limited by his weight and, to be frank, he was probably unfortunate in having to ride as a professional. It was a situation that was forced upon him.

He had got off to a bad start because he’d ridden as an amateur when he wasn’t one. In March 1961 he was fined £25 by the National Hunt Stewards who informed him that he was not an amateur, nor had he been since his employment by a licensed trainer in 1958. If he wanted to continue riding he would have to do so as a professional.

He next turned up at Huntingdon on Whit Monday 1964 to ride a selling chaser named Dix-Huit, who had at one time been owned by the celebrated Australian three-day event rider Lawrie Morgan, who rode him to win two hunter chases in 1961. Burdened by a hefty 17lb overweight at 11st 6lb, Dix-Huit was unsurprisingly pulled up.

Jim Summers was by now working for permit holder A. Clarke, who trained both Dix-Huit and a chaser named Cabin Fever from his base at Rothley, Leicestershire.

On Saturday, August 1, the opening day of the 1964/65 season, Dix-Huit, carrying only 3lb overweight at 11st 6lb finished fourth in a Newton Abbot novices’ hurdle. Four days’ later, with 9lb over, Jim Summers and Dix-Huit finished third in a similar contest at Devon & Exeter.

The following day, unencumbered by overweight, Dix-Huit finished second in another Devon & Exeter hurdle race under a slimmed-down Jim Summers carrying 11st 3lb. Fourth, third, second – they were getting closer. Finally, on August 12, Dix-Huit provided Jim with his first winner, landing a novice riders’ selling hurdle at Newton Abbot.

Jim had no trouble making the weight on Cabin Fever, who was one of four horses carrying a welter burden on 12st 8lb in a novice riders’ chase at Stratford on September 10, in which he finished last of the three finishers. However, at Fakenham nine days later, Jim had to put up a stone overweight at 11st 4lb when Cabin Fever lined up against sole rival King Riff in the three-mile Downham Handicap Chase. Luckily for Jim, the amateur-ridden King Riff, who was sent off the 5-2 on favourite, ran out, leaving Cabin Fever in splendid isolation, coming home a distance clear of the favourite (whose rider had returned to the point where his mount had run out and completed the course) to give Jim his second winner.

Relieved of any overweight, Cabin Fever and Jim performed creditably on their next two outings, finishing a close second (11st 11lb) at Stratford and third (11st 7lb) behind the Josh Gifford-ridden Honey End at Cheltenham in October.

By November, however, Jim’s weight had risen to 11st 9lb, and the 10lb overweight he put up on Dix-Huit at Market Rasen that month may have made the difference between defeat and victory when finishing runner-up to Arayaman, trained and ridden by veteran jockey Tommy Shone.

Jim – let’s call him Slim Jim this time – had boiled himself down to a minimum of 11st 2lb, yet still put up an anchoring 23lb overweight (scheduled weight 9st 7lb) when beaten just two lengths by Cheerer, the mount of Allen Davis, at Southwell on the Saturday of Easter 1965.

Two days’ later, at Fakenham’s Easter Monday fixture, Jim put up 25lb overweight at 11st 4lb