Ricky Pusey

Article by Chris Pitt

Ricky Pusey is best remembered for winning the 1985 Waterford Crystal Stayers’ Hurdle while still a claimer on Rose Ravine, trained by Fulke Walwyn, with whom Ricky spent almost his entire riding career.

Ricky Donald Pusey was born in Hackney on July 11, 1959. He was initially apprenticed to Bill Payne before joining Fulke Walwyn’s stable. He rode his first winner on Walwyn’s former good chaser Ghost Writer, who was by then 14 years old, in a three-mile conditional jockeys’ hurdle at Newbury on January 2, 1981.

He won the Ladbroke Handicap Hurdle at Warwick on Pat Taylor’s Only Gorgeous on March 6, 1984. More importantly, he won four races that season on Fulke Walwyn’s good mare Rose Ravine. The first of those, appropriately, was division two of the Fulke Walwyn Durability Novices’ Hurdle at Warwick on December 1, 1983. The next was at Fontwell on January 16, 1984. Returning to Warwick on January 22, they won the Lower Swell Novices’ Trial Hurdle, following up in the Hoechst Resumate Novices’ Handicap Hurdle Final at Newbury on March 4.

Rose Ravine turned out to be the best horse Ricky rode during his career. The following season she won the Bishops Cleeve Hurdle at

Cheltenham (below) on January 26, and Ascot’s Fernbank Hurdle (right) on February 6. The following month, Rose Ravine gave Ricky his biggest success in the Waterford Crystal Stayers’ Hurdle (below) at Cheltenham on March 12, 1985.

It was a victory not without controversy, because Rose Ravine edged badly right approaching the last flight and again on the run-in, seriously hampering the runner-up Crimson Embers, ridden by Stuart Shilston, passing the winning post just a neck in front. Most people at Cheltenham that day felt certain that the places would be reversed, but they were proved wrong. In reality, the outcome of the result made little difference to the winning owner, Mrs S.W. Smart, because she also owned the second, Crimson Embers, who, like Rose Ravine, was trained by Fulke Walwyn. With both horses in the same ownership and with the same trainer, there were plenty of conspiracy theorists who claimed that the runner-up’s jockey had been dissuaded from making an objection by the winning connections.

On April 6, 1985, in the slightly less glamorous surroundings of Towcester, Ricky won the Schilizzi Challenge Bowl Handicap Chase on Chasm, the pair following up in a novice chase over the same course and distance later that month.

Rose Ravine ran only three times the following season, ridden each time by Ricky, her best effort being when third in Ascot’s Long Walk Hurdle.

Ricky also rode winners for the Queen Mother but he quit the saddle in 1987. After 17 years with Fulke Walwyn in Lambourn, he had various jobs as an assistant trainer, including with Peter Beaumont and Karen George. Then, along with his partner Sue Dixon, he bought, set up and ran a successful 40-box livery yard in the Chilterns, just off the M40.

Eventually he found himself in a job identifying fresh employment for redundant racehorses who would otherwise face a questionable future. He was encouraged by the increasing number of horse show organisers who in recent years had added classes for former racehorses to their programme.

Ricky told the Racing Post in 2007: “That opened another important avenue for unwanted horses, and encourages owner-riders, both young and old, to become involved with them.

“It’s a challenge taking on the horses, retraining, then fitting them suitably to owners and riders. We have horses who for various reasons can be more than hacks around the local lanes and tracks, but their riders are delighted to come down from London on a Saturday morning to do just that.”