Jackie Armstrong

Jackie Armstrong

Article by Chris Pitt

Northern apprentice Jackie Armstrong was a Geordie lad, born at Scotswood, Newcastle, on November 2, 1940. He started working life as a grocer’s boy, but at 17 the lure of stable life was too hard to resist and he signed on as an apprentice with the trainer nearest his home, Ronnie Robson at Park Farm Stables, High Gosforth Park, adjacent to Newcastle racecourse.

Christened John Edward Armstrong but always known as ‘Jackie’, he was described as a “well-manned lad” who was able to go to scale at 7st 4lb when setting out on his career. He rode his first winner on Charlie Proper in a mile and a half selling handicap at Redcar on July 30, 1959. His only other winner that year was on Heckley, trained by Jack Ormston, at Jackie’s home track, Newcastle, in October.

He rode 10 winners in 1960, all gained against senior jockeys. Four of them were on Charlie Proper and two on Ronald Robson’s ten-year-old gelding King-Eider.

In 1961 his tally rose to 16, beginning with winners on both days of Catterick’s April fixture, on three-year-old maiden Aurildus and the now eleven-year-old King-Eider. He then won Ripon’s

R.W. Armstrong Memorial Handicap on King-Eider on April 22. On May 20 he rode a Hamilton Park double on Charlie Proper and Aurildus. Two days later he won again on King-Eider, at Redcar this time.

The winners continued to flow throughout the summer, including two on Jack Ormston’s selling plater St John, two on Ronnie Robson’s handicapper Lower Boy, and one for Jack Yeomans on Fairanam at Hamilton Park. Come the autumn, he won a couple of late September nurseries on Tom Cat, while Charlie Proper gave him another winning ride at Hamilton.

The next season did not deliver to the same extent, just five winners, highlighted by the victory of Sam Hall’s Touch Wood in the £2,000 Cheviot Handicap Stakes at Newcastle on

August 6, 1962. The following year was worse, only three, including a 33/1 shock on Ronnie Robson’s Saucy Susan in a two-year-old fillies’ maiden at Redcar in April.

Jackie completed his apprenticeship at the end of that year and began 1964 as a fully-fledged jockey, continuing his association with Ronnie Robson. No winners came his way, but he was back in business in 1965 with a score of six. They were all minor races but included a Hamilton three-year-old maiden on a horse called The Spaniard, who, when eventually put over fences, would go on to win the 1970 Scottish Grand National for trainer Ken Oliver and jockey Barry Brogan.

Jackie’s two wins in 1966 were gained within the space of 48 hours in Scotland, both for Ronnie Robson in three-year-old sellers, Gatten Lodge at Ayr’s Western Meeting (September 17) and Grey Sport at Edinburgh (September 19).

The following year produced just two similarly low-key winners but it was dramatically cut short as he received head injuries when his mount, the two-year-old filly Fair Jest, fell with him at halfway during a race at Newcastle on June 12, 1967. He was up and about again within a month but the nature of his injury meant that it was some time before he fully recovered.

Appropriately, Fair Jest, the filly who had given him that bad fall, was also his comeback winner when landing an Edinburgh seller on September 16, 1968, Jackie’s sole success that season.

Likewise, he rode just one winner in each of the next two seasons, both on three-year-old sellers trained by Ronnie Robson, namely Pogle at Catterick on August 14, 1969, and Benwell Hill at Edinburgh on September 21, 1970. He relinquished his licence at the end of that year.

Jackie made a couple of comeback attempts, in 1977 and ’78 and again in 1980, but had no further success, leaving him with a career score of 49 British winners.