Vic Percival

National Hunt jockey Victor Allen Percival was born in Blackpool on March 23, 1952. He rode more than 50 winners in a career that began in 1969 and ended in 1977.

He started out as an amateur and had his first ride on the Ginger McCain-trained Master Thomas at Uttoxeter on Easter Monday, April 7, 1969, finishing fourth of ten in division one of the Checkley Selling Handicap Hurdle. McCain was still very much a small-time trainer at that time and Red Rum had yet to enter his life. He’d trained his first winner, San Lorenzo, in a Liverpool selling chase in January 1965 and celebrated another early success with 20/1 shot Implicate at Market Rasen the same day as young Victor had had his first mount in public.

Vic achieved his first victory on long-distance hurdler Signet for Penrith permit holder Joseph Bowness at Wolverhampton on Boxing Day 1969. He rode two more winners that season, both on another staying hurdler named Tealing, owned and trained by John Cousins at Scotforth, near Lancaster, these being at Teesside Park in March 1970 and at Cartmel’s Whitsun meeting.

Tealing also gave Vic his first success of the 1970/71 campaign when scoring at Ayr on October 10. He rode two more that season including another Boxing Day winner for Joseph Bowness, this time on selling hurdler Sea Romance. Sea Romance was also Vic’s last winner as an amateur when winning on hard ground at Hereford on September 24, 1971, for he turned professional a few days later.

He then rode as stable jockey for George Wallace, who trained near Melton Mowbray. He won two ‘opportunity’ (novice riders) races on Wallace’s 13-year-old veteran Fine Arts in the spring on 1972: a selling chase at Sandown’s Royal Artillery meeting on March 29 and a selling hurdle at Devon & Exeter on Whit Monday. Back in his youth, Fine Arts had been owned by Paul Mellon and, in December 1964, had been 16-year-old Andy Turnell’s second winner over hurdles.

Vic made the best possible start to the 1972/73 campaign, becoming leading jockey for half an hour when winning the very first race of the season at Newton Abbot on July 29 on Wallace’s Regal Jump in the Rugantino Challenge Cup Opportunity Handicap Hurdle, although he had to survive an objection by the rider of the runner-up on grounds of crossing. He rode four more winners that season including Wallace’s chasers Johnsol and Prince O’ North in October and selling hurdler Wigan Park, trained by Vic’s permit holder father Allen, at Catterick in December.

The following season saw him riding as stable jockey for Richmond trainer Tony Kemp, a move that would prove pivotal to Vic’s career, the majority of his winners over the next three years being supplied by Kemp. The first two of those were on novice chaser Silver Wagtail, at Perth on September 26 and at Market Rasen on October 19, 1973. Two-mile chaser Baltizar won at Kelso in January and Haydock in March, while novice chasers Come To Bann and Glenland won at Wetherby and Hexham respectively in May.

Having ridden eight winners in 1973/74, Vic equalled that score in 74/75, all of those successes being for Tony Kemp. Three-mile chaser China Garden got off them off the mark for the season by winning at Warwick on September 21. Silver Wagtail obliged at Sedgefield six days later. Suspender won three times over fences, at Carlisle in October and then twice at Sedgefield in December and February, as did Baltizar, at Kelso and Sedgefield in January and Kelso again in February.

The following season, 1975/76, was a banner one for the Percival-Kemp combo, with Vic achieving a personal best with 15 winners. The main contributor was a trail-blazing two-mile chaser named Chosen Slave, whose ‘catch me if you can’ style of racing saw him win six races during the course of that campaign. Bought by Kemp in Ireland in the summer of 1975, the partnership had got off to an inauspicious start, firstly being withdrawn under starter’s orders at Sedgefield and then finishing a well-beaten fourth at Carlisle in September. But they then won five of their next six races, the only blemish being when parting company at the second fence at Perth in October. Those ‘made all’ victories came at Kelso and Sedgefield in October, followed by a Sedgefield hat-trick in November. Rested until the spring of 1976, Chosen Slave failed to repel Gordon Richards’ useful chaser Cromwell Road at Sedgefield on March 13 but returned to winning form at Wolverhampton later that month, being left clear when both of his rivals capsized at the tenth fence.

Vic won three more chases that season on Suspender, culminating in the Rent Roll Cup at Sedgefield on Boxing Day. He rode Silver Wagtail to win at Southwell and Sedgefield in September; wearing the Metcalfe family’s red and white hooped colours (more recently associated with dual Nunthorpe winner Mecca's Angel, owned by Vic’s good friend David Metcalfe). Little Swift obliged in an early season Perth novice chase; Glenland landed selling chases at Leicester in November and Catterick in December; and there was much to like about a horse named Father Delaney, who made a winning debut in a juvenile hurdle at Catterick in December.

Father Delaney won again on his seasonal debut at Sedgefield on September 28, 1976 but the rest of that term was a disappointment for the Percival-Kemp team. Novice chaser Bottler’s Neck won at Sedgefield on January 25 but there was little else to celebrate. Chosen Slave, having won six times the previous term, was perhaps a victim of his own success and being higher in the handicap rendered him unable to win a race. The same comment applied to Suspender, although he gave Vic a memorable ride when completing the course in the 1977 Topham Trophy over the Grand National fences. Tragically, Suspender was fatally injured when falling at Perth two months later.

Vic rode the 50th winner of his career on his father’s selling hurdler Mr Froncysyllte at Cartmel on Whit Monday, June 6, 1977. Tony Kemp gave up training at the end of that season and Father Delaney was transferred to Peter Easterby and subsequently to Denys Smith and went on to win 21 more races including the 1979 Massey-Furguson Gold Cup at Cheltenham.

Following Kemp’s retirement, Vic became assistant trainer to Bill Wright, who had just taken out a licence at his Blackpool stables. Vic rode Wright’s very first winner, Blakewin, in a selling hurdle at Carlisle on September 19, 1977.

Sadly, Vic’s career was ended at Carlisle’s very next meeting, on November 2, when Mr Froncysyllte, the horse that had given him his 50th winner, crashed through the wing of the eighth fence in a novice chase, shattering Vic’s shoulder joint. The Injured Jockeys Fund arranged for him to see a top specialist but the shoulder would not mend sufficiently and he was forced to announce his retirement.

But that wasn’t the end of his racing involvement. Between 2002 and 2005 Vic and his sister Mimie trained a small string of jumpers under the name of Allwin Stables in Aiken, South Carolina, the heart of American jumping country. Vic even rode a couple of them, including Bronco T Bill in a two-mile Flat race at Pine Mountains on November 1, 2003. The stable had two runners in the race and Vic chose the wrong one to ride, trailing in last of seven while their other representative, Unalienable Right, carried the Percival family colours to victory.

Their best horse was Run In The Park, who won the Stoneybrook Steeplechase at Stoneybrook, South Carolina on April 3, 2004.

Vic and his wife Maxine now live in the southern part of the Lake District and run a bed and breakfast business.