Gee Armytage
Gaye Armytage, more popularly known as Gee, was born on September 10, 1965, the daughter of successful National Hunt trainer Roddy Armytage. She is the sister of Grand National-winning amateur rider and journalist Marcus Armytage.
Gee started out as a junior show-jumper before turning her attention to racing. She rode her first winner on Applante, trained by her father, in an amateur riders’ hurdle at Southwell on August 30, 1982.
She enjoyed her most successful season in 1986/87, thanks largely to her association with owner Geoff Hubbard, for whom Ferdy Murphy was then private trainer. Gee rode Hubbard’s Gee-A to victory in the Macer Gifford Handicap Chase at Huntingdon in November 1986 and went on to enjoy a far more high-profile success on him in the 1987 Mildmay of Flete at Cheltenham’s National Hunt Meeting. She bagged a second Cheltenham winner that year when winning the Kim Muir Challenge Cup on Nigel Tinkler’s The Ellier.
The following month, Gee rode Gee-A to another big race triumph, winning the Chester's Handicap Chase at Aintree’s Grand National meeting. She also rode Gee-A in the 1988 Grand National and briefly looked like breaking new ground for women jockeys, leading over the 19th fence before tiring and eventually pulling up five from home. Some people mistakenly assumed that the horse Gee-A was named after Gee Armytage, but in fact it was the initials of the owner, G. A. Hubbard.
The best horse Gee rode for her father was Merry Master, on whom she won the 1992 Edinburgh Woollen Mill Novices’ Chase at Ayr. They then won three successive three-mile Wetherby handicap chases between October and December 1992. Returning to Ayr in April 1993, they came within a neck of winning the Scottish Grand National, going down to Martin Pipe’s Run For Free following a last fence mistake that almost certainly cost them the race.
Among the other races Gee won on Merry Master were a race named after her father, the Roddy Armytage Handicap Chase at Wetherby on May 30, 1994, and, later that same year, the £10,000 Technic Group PLC Handicap Chase at Uttoxeter.
Gee partnered over 100 winners during her career. It ended after she broke four vertebrae in her back when her mount Highland Flame fell in a Huntingdon handicap chase on March 31, 1995. She had steel rods inserted and battled hard to try to regain full fitness but the Jockey Club’s chief medical consultant Dr Michael Turner could not pass her fit to race ride again. Aged 31, she reluctantly announced her retirement.
She then worked for fledgling trainer Hughie Morrison in Lambourn as well as Oliver Sherwood, and later became the long-serving personal assistant to multiple champion jockey AP McCoy.
Her best wins included:
1987 Mildmay of Flete Chase: Gee-A
1987 Kim Muir Chase: The Ellier
1987 Lanzarote Hurdle: Stray Shot
