John Allen

Article by Chris Pitt

John Allen was a northern-based jump jockey who came within a neck of winning the 1980 Scottish Grand National on Silent Valley, the best horse he rode.

John served his apprenticeship with Jack Ormston at Richmond before joining fellow Richmond trainer Tony Kemp. He rode his first winner on Jo Charn in a conditional jockeys’ selling hurdle at Sedgefield on January 21, 1974.  

He spent most of his riding career with Ian Jordan, who trained at Westerhope, Tyne and Wear. The star of the yard was Silent Valley, on whom John won four consecutive races in a little over five weeks in the early part of 1979. Beginning with a pair of novice chases at Catterick and Ayr in March, John then rode Silent Valley to victory in the Kennedy Civil Engineering Handicap Chase at Aintree’s Grand National meeting on March 30, and followed up in the even more valuable Wetherby Handicap Chase on Easter Monday.

The following season, John rode Silent Valley to win the Vaux Breweries Great Teesside Handicap Chase at Stockton on February 23, 1980. Then came a frustrating run of three seconds, in the Arthur Challenge Cup at Ayr on March 8, the Dover Street Trophies Handicap Chase at Aintree on March 28 and, heartbreakingly, when beaten a neck by Selkeld in the 1980 Scottish Grand National on April 19.

John only rode Silent Valley once more, and he didn’t get far, being unseated at the second fence in the John Eustace Smith Trophy

Handicap Chase at Newcastle on October 29, 1980. He rode just one winner that season, Ian Jordan’s novice hurdler Doubtful Sun at Sedgefield on November 4, 1980. Not long afterwards he hung up his riding boots.

Having retired from the saddle in his early 30s, he narrowly missed out on a job as groundsman at Nottingham. Instead, he became a taxi driver with Slater’s taxis in Newcastle.