Gordon Fleming

Gordon Fleming

Article by Alan Trout

Born on May 2, 1932, Gordon Fleming recorded his sole win over jumps at Cartmel on Whit Monday, May 21, 1956, when Fire-Float, trained at Hainton, Lincolnshire by David Machin, took the Windermere Handicap Hurdle by a length from Union Star, the mount of amateur rider Len Cockburn. 

The winner had been in action at the same course two days earlier when ridden by John Mulcahy, finishing second in a similar contest. Tim Molony, who had won two races on the six-year-old earlier in the season, and John Mulcahy were Fire-Float’s usual partners, but Gordon took his chance and duly rode his first – and only – winner. 

He was granted a trainer’s licence later in 1956, based at The Stables, Wellingore, in Lincolnshire. He kept his jockey’s licence for a few more seasons, although he never rode Fire-Float in a race again. 

On March 12, 1960, he married Gladys Margaret Willoughby.

Gordon had his final ride when finishing unplaced on Oyster Bed, putting up 9lb overweight at 11st 12lb, in the Walesby Novices’ Hurdle at Market Rasen on Boxing Day 1959.

The best horse he trained was Chappaqua, who, as a four-year-old on the Flat in 1960, came within a neck of winning a valuable £1,000 handicap at Haydock, and led everywhere bar the line when beaten half a length in the Neptune Stakes at Manchester.  

Gordon Fleming relinquished his trainer’s licence in 1964.