Richard Freestone

National Hunt jockey Richard Freestone held a licence between the 1958/59 and 1969/70 seasons but rode just two winners during that time.

He achieved his first success on what may well have been his first ride in public – it was certainly one of his first – when steering Mahogany, trained by William Newton at Sandbeck, near Wetherby, to an easy 15-length victory in a Newcastle novices’ hurdle on October 15, 1958.

However, that bright start was not a foretaste of things to come, for it was six long years before he again visited the winner’s enclosure. He twice came close at Market Rasen in the 1962/63 season on the Vic Speck-trained hurdler Deux Foix, finishing third on Easter Monday and second on the Saturday of the Whitsun Bank Holiday weekend, but victory continued to elude him. Furthermore, the campaign ended with a bump when falling from selling hurdler Magical Mary at Stratford on the last day of the season.

He finally achieved a second winning ride courtesy of George Vergette’s novice hurdler Temple Hill, formerly named Interpreter, on a misty afternoon at Leicester on November 9, 1964. They were reunited at Doncaster eleven days later but parted company, having been well-placed at halfway.

Richard Freestone never had more than a handful of rides each season, and most of them were outsiders. Those on Temple Hill were two of just 11 mounts he had during that 1964/65 campaign. He epitomised those jockeys who were around for a few years but whose names would usually appear in the papers alongside that of a long-priced horse for a little-known trainer at a minor bank holiday meeting.

His name last appears in the form book for the 1969/70 season, when he was listed as riding Alan Jarvis, who then trained at Rutland. He retired from riding in races with just those two winners to his name.

Richard Freestone’s winners were: