Arthur Piper

Arthur Piper

1895-1970

Article by Alan Trout

Although the exploits of Arthur Ernest Piper on the Flat were completely overshadowed by those of his Derby-winning elder brother Edwin, he did have some success under National Hunt rules with a dozen winners between 1919 and 1929. 

Born in 1895, he was apprenticed to Pat Hartigan and had his first ride in the closing days of peacetime when Primitif was unplaced in the Duchess of York Plate at Hurst Park on July 25, 1914, a race won by Frank Bullock on Anglesey.

He rode on the Flat for a couple more seasons before having his first ride over jumps at Lingfield Park on January 18, 1917, when Ronaldo finished down the field in the Holtye Handicap Hurdle. 

With racing having been conducted on a restricted basis during the war, almost three years elapsed before he finally rode a winner. It came at the Isle of Wight meeting on December 5, 1919, when the six-year-old Camp Kettle landed the Shanklin Handicap Hurdle. 

Although he rode only one more winner in the next five years, it appeared for a while in 1925 that his fortunes were about to improve. He won a pair of hurdle races on the five-year-old Golden Brick in  January and had two more wins in March, all on horses trained by Walter Nightingall. He also had his first win on the Flat when Golden Brick landed the Reigate Mid-weight Handicap Plate at Gatwick on May 15, beating Kyra, the mount of Fred Fox, by six lengths. Top jockeys including Steve Donoghue, Charlie Smirke and Michael Beary were left trailing.

He added four more wins in the 1926/27 National Hunt season, then rode his second winner on the Flat when Penny Rock was victorious in the Fillies’ Nursery Handicap Plate at Folkestone on September 3, 1927. Micheal Beary, rider of the runner-up Auston, objected to the winner on grounds of “interfering all the way and crossing”. Having interviewed various jockeys, the stewards allowed the result to stand and fined Beary for making a frivolous objection. 

More than two years elapsed between that Folkestone success and his next, and final, winner, when Faithful Garry, trained by Bill Larkin at Bruce Lodge, Epsom, narrowly landed the Witham Handicap Hurdle at Chelmsford on November 11, 1929, beating Lashaway by a head. He continued to hold a National Hunt jockey’s licence and had his final ride over jumps in the winter of 1931. He also held a Flat licence in 1932 but had no further wins.

Arthur Piper died in 1970.