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Jackie Willett
Article by Chris Pitt
Percy John ‘Jackie’ Willett was born at Newmarket on January 19, 1935. He was apprenticed
to Ernie Davey at Malton and rode his first winner on Portland Bill (right) in the Calder Water Selling Handicap at Hamilton Park on September 29, 1952, for Wetherby-based trainer Ted Duffy.He was a highly successful apprentice jockey, riding 66 winners before coming out of his time, but struggled after losing his claim. He rode five winners in 1959 but then left to ride in India.
He spent the next five years in America, based in Rhode Island, New England, riding at the
Rhode Island tracks of Narragansett and Lincoln Downs, New Hampshire’s Rockingham Park, Massachusetts’ Suffolk Downs, plus the various half-mile round Massachusetts Agricultural Fair ‘bull ring’ tracks such as Berkshire Downs, Brockton, Great Barrington, Marshfield, Northampton and Weymouth, where runners went past the post twice in a five furlong sprint.Jackie (left) returned to Britain at the end of 1966 and resumed his riding career. He made a bright start to 1967 with three winners from his first six rides, the first being on Tommy Robson’s Red Swan in the Liverpool Spring Cup on April 7. Robson’s Defender was his next winner, in the Irvine Town Handicap at Ayr on April 22, followed by Ernie Davey’s Golden Samantha in the Braidwood Stakes at Lanark on May 1.
Ernie Davey also provided Jackie’s next winner, Palmas, in the Portland Maiden Stakes for three-year-olds at Ayr on June 2. Palmas and Jackie finished second, beaten seven lengths, when attempting to follow up at Hamilton eight days later, yet despite that defeat an ambitious plan was hatched to run Palmas in the Irish Sweeps Derby. Jackie and Palmas duly took their place as 150-1 outsiders in the line-up at the Curragh on July 1 but, not surprisingly, proved no match for the likes of Ribocco, Sucaryl and Dart Board, finishing in the rear, not in the first 18 of the 23-runner field.
Jackie finished the year with a respectable seven winners from 113 rides and looked to have
made his mark on the northern racing circuit, however, 1968 proved far less fruitful, achieving just one winner – on Rufus Beasley’s Arab Chieftain (right) in the Townmuir Handicap at Hamilton on Monday, May 27, 1968 – from only 39 rides all season. He rode no more winners and relinquished his jockey’s licence at the end of 1970. Jackie Willett, who was the brother-in-law of fellow jockeys Jimmy Etherington and Lionel Brown, died in 1998, aged 63.
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