Gordon Appleby

Gordon Appleby was the son of a Doncaster miner and served his apprenticeship with Captain R. L. H. Laye at Ogbourne Maisey, near Marlborough. He made the perfect start to his riding career, winning on his first ride in public, Captain Laye’s colt Downupsi in a six-furlong apprentices’ race at Bath on August 3, 1950. He rode the horse in another apprentices’ race at Alexandra Park in October but finished unplaced.

Despite having made a perfect start to race riding, that was the only time Gordon visited the winner’s enclosure. He disappeared from the racing scene soon afterwards.

However, he reappeared 15 years later as a 7lb claiming National Hunt jockey, riding for two-horse permit trainer A. Pickard, based at Barton-on-Humber, in Lincolnshire. The two horses were named Copper Day and Wages Day. Neither ever won a race but Wages Day was marginally the better of the two.

Gordon held a licence for just two seasons, 1965/66 and 1966/67, and only rode those two horses. During the 1965/66 campaign, he partnered Copper Day eight times (seven unplaced, one fall) and Wages Day 11 times, finishing second once and fourth once. The nearest they got to winning a race was when Wages Day was a strong finishing runner-up, beaten five lengths, in a Catterick novices’ hurdle on New Year’s Day 1966.

Gordon rode in both divisions of the De Aston Maiden Hurdle at Market Rasen on Easter Monday 1966, finishing last on Copper Day and fifth on Wages Day.

The pair returned to Market Rasen on August 13, 1966. Wages Day came third in division one of the Skegness Maiden Hurdle, his first run of the season. Sadly, Copper Day broke down badly in the second division of that same race and had to be put down.

Gordon rode Wages Day just three more times, the last occasion being at Fakenham on Easter Monday, March 27, 1967, finishing seventh of nine runners in the Litcham Handicap Hurdle. That was his final ride in public.