Ray Durant was a dual purpose jockey who rode only 18 winners in Britain but enjoyed far greater success in Scandinavia, both as a jockey and a trainer.
Raymond Osborne Durant served his apprenticeship with Willie Stephenson at Royston and rode his
first winner on the strangely named Mizzenbuss, (right) trained by Alfred Smyth at Whitsbury, in a one-mile Kempton Park apprentices’ handicap on July 25, 1951. He rode five winners that year, four of them in apprentice races.
He was quickly off the mark in 1954, landing a six-furlong handicap at Nottingham on Willie Stephenson’s filly Dens Jenny on April 8, again going on to register a tally of five for the season. He then drew a blank for two years before riding three winners in 1955, his final year as an apprentice.
He rode a few winners abroad before taking out a National Hunt jockey’s licence in 1960, achieving his first winner over jumps on Flickity Lass in a Huntingdon handicap hurdle on October 22, 1960. He won on her again at Towcester seven days later and then rode a horse named Tommy Dart to victory at Sandown on November 19, but those were his only successes of the campaign.
Ray was retained by Guilsborough trainer Ron Mason between 1961 and 1963 but rode just one winner for him – Solid Fuel at Hereford on November 2, 1961. He combined riding on the Flat
and over jumps during the early 1960s but without much success. He rode his last winner on British soil on Willie Stephenson’s juvenile selling hurdler Cheerio (right) at Folkestone on November 23, 1964.
He rode for one more season over jumps before heading for Norway, where he won on his very first ride in the country. That proved to be the catalyst for a highly successful career in Scandinavia.
Having retired from the saddle and taken up training, he enjoyed even greater success. In 1997 he won Norway’s most valuable race, the Group 3 Marit Sveaas Minnelap, worth 800,000 Norwegian Kroner to the winning owner, with Stato One.
His daughter, Yvonne Durant, was also a successful jockey in Scandinavia, her biggest successes including the 2000 Taby Open Sprint Championship on Options Open, the 2004 Polar Cup on Musadif and the 2006 Oslo Cup on Mick Jerome. In 2000 she both trained and rode Stato One to dead-heat for the Pramms Memorial at Jagersro in Sweden and to win outright the Stockholms Stora Preis. She also rode and trained Fujisan to win the 2008 running of the Group 3 Zawawi Cup at Jagersro.