Geoff Francis

1923 - 1993

By Chris Pitt

National Hunt jockey Geoffrey Thomas Francis held a licence between the 1950/51 and 1963/64 seasons and rode a total of 20 winners. Though his career spanned 14 seasons, he appears to have had only two employers, both of whom were permit holders with four of five horses apiece.

He rode his first winner on Bouboule, trained by Victor North at Wing, near Leighton Buzzard, dead-heating in a novices’ hurdle at Wye on April 21, 1953. It was his sole success from 13 mounts that season.

Bouboule was to prove a good friend to Geoff, accounting for three of his five wins (a career best) in the 1953/54 season when winning handicap hurdles at Wolverhampton, Taunton and Hereford, and again the following season, with victories at Cheltenham, Windsor and Fontwell Park. The season after that, they won a couple of early-season handicap hurdles at Newton Abbot and Buckfastleigh.

Having ridden twelve winners, nine of them on Bouboule, the following season, 1956/57, saw Geoff based with Exeter permit holder Norman Hughes, with whom he was to stay for the remainder of his career and who would provide him with the rest of his winners. He was presumably in a similar capacity whereby he was effectively running the stable while Hughes held the licence.

Although placed several times, it wasn’t until August 1959, four years since his last success, that Geoff was once again in the winner’s enclosure, courtesy of selling hurdler Chevalier Bayard at Devon & Exeter. Three more winners followed that season, two of them on novice hurdler Isotope, the first of which resulted in Geoff’s claim being reduced from 5lb to 3lb.

Geoff rode two winners in the 1960/61 campaign, novice chaser Tidy Shoes at Newbury in December, and Air Commando, on which he been placed over hurdles and fences. Air Commando finally came good on jumping’s biggest stage when winning the Ledbury Handicap Chase at Cheltenham in April, an eventful race that saw eight of the nineteen runners end up on the deck.

Following a blank campaign in 1961/62. Geoff returned to winning ways on novice hurdler Crackertar on the Saturday of Newton Abbot’s 1963 Easter meeting. Crackertar also gave him the final success of his career when scraping home by a head in a Taunton handicap hurdle on November 9, 1963. That proved to be Geoff’s last season with a licence.

Geoff Francis’s winners were, in chronological order:

1. Bouboule, Wye, April 21, 1953 (dead-heat)

2. Bouboule, Wolverhampton, December 28, 1953

3. Fair Measure, Wye, April 12, 1954

4. Slim, Towcester, April 17, 1954

5. Bouboule, Taunton, May 6, 1954

6. Bouboule, Hereford, June 7, 1954

7. Fair Measure, Fontwell Park, September 13, 1954

8. Bouboule, Cheltenham, December 30, 1954

9. Bouboule, Windsor, January 7, 1955

10. Bouboule, Fontwell Park, May 30, 1955

11. Bouboule, Newton Abbot, July 30, 1955

12. Bouboule, Buckfastleigh, August 6, 1955

13. Chevalier Bayard, Devon & Exeter, August 20, 1959

14. Tidy Shoes, Warwick, November 9, 1959

15. Isotope, Wincanton, December 17, 1959

16. Isotope, Warwick, February 27, 1960

17. Tidy Shoes, Newbury, December 30, 1960

18. Air Commando, Cheltenham, April 12, 1961

19. Crackertar, Newton Abbot, April 13, 1963

20. Crackertar, Taunton, November 9, 196