Vergette, George

George Michael Vergette was born on April 9, 1920, the son of a horseman who ran a riding school on his 300-acre Towngate House Farm at Market Deeping in Lincolnshire.George was apprenticed to Victor Gilpin for two years and to Captain Tom Hogg for three years. He rode his first winner, aged 15, on only his second mount in public, aboard the Gilpin-trained Fartuch in an apprentice race at Newmarket on April 30, 1935.

He suffered a bad fall at Pontefract on June 5, 1937 when his mount, Hurry de Savoie, stumbled and unseated him after going a few strides in a mile-and-a-half maiden. However, he went on to accumulate 39 winners as an apprentice. Interestingly, when he first began to make a name for himself he was frequently and mistakenly referred to in the press as being a French jockey.

He had hunted with the Cottesmore Hounds from an early age so when he got too heavy for the Flat, jumping came quite naturally to him. He went out to Calcutta in 1939 as a steeplechase jockey and was leading rider there that season. He also rode winners in Denmark and Sweden.

He was out of racing for most of World War II but, despite having taken over his father’s farm, he started riding over jumps when the National Hunt racing resumed in Britain in 1945. He took out a trainer’s licence the following year and combined that with riding and running the farm. He had his younger brother, the successful jumps jockey Robert Vergette, to help him, both at home and riding the horses, but tragically, Robert was killed in a fall on the gallops in 1952.

George rode a total of 67 winners over jumps, the final two being on Limonzo, whom he also trained, at Wetherby on October 11, 1958, and Nigger at Huntingdon on October 25, 1958. He hung up his riding boots soon afterwards but continued to train until the early 1990s, sending out 42 Flat winners and 298 over jumps.

His best horses were King of Diamonds, with whom he landed Doncaster’s Great Yorkshire Chase in 1965, and Purple Silk, who he saddled to finish runner-up to Team Spirit in the 1964 Grand National.

George Vergette died on February 28, 2008, aged 87, following a long illness. The funeral took place at St Guthrie’s Church, Market Deeping, on March 11. He left a widow, Winkie, and daughters Sue, wife of Newmarket trainer Paul D’Arcy, and Julia ‘Tik’ Saunders, and sons William and George.