Tommy Bartlam

Tommy Bartlam

Article by Chris Pitt

Thomas Donald Bartlam, always known as Tommy, was born in the pottery town of Hanley in Staffordshire on May 31, 1909. His father was not a racing man but his grandfather was connected with the sport and it may have been from him that he inherited the ambition to become a jockey. His chance came when Mrs Phillips, then Member of Parliament for the Morpeth division of Northumberland, introduced him to the great trainer Dick Dawson. And so in 1924, Tommy became an apprentice at Dawson’s Whatcombe stable, a few miles from Lambourn.

On March 29, 1927, he had his first ride in public, on Balta  in an apprentices’ race at Warwick, finishing sixth. Later that year, on October 27, the three-year-old filly Eurydice – a half-sister to the top-class Cos, winner of Royal Ascot’s Queen Mary Stakes on her debut in 1922 and runner-up in the 1923 One Thousand Guineas – gave him his first winning ride in the Coventry Apprentice Plate at Worcester.

Tommy had a long association with Whatcombe, where he helped to break and train many of the good horses stabled there. They included the 1930 Derby winner Blenheim and Rustom Pasha (which was out of Cos), winner of the Eclipse Stakes and Champion Stakes in 1930, while he rode Trigo in nearly all of his work after the Derby winner of 1929 joined Dawson’s string as a two-year-old. He enjoyed a big race victory of his own on Madagascar the 1933 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot.

He suffered relatively few injuries during his career but his unlucky course was undoubtedly Chester. In 1934 he was riding Lord Carnarvon’s Sibell in the Chester Cup when he was brought down on the turn into the straight and dislocated his shoulder. He did not ride at Chester again until 1937, when his mount, a three-year-old named Geller, slipped up and threw him at the same spot, putting his shoulder out again.

Tommy served with the 5th Surrey Regiment during the war and it was during this time that he won the Ascot Cesarewitch on Cadet in 1944. The best horse he rode in public though was Mazarin, on whom he won three races in a row in 1941 and finished fourth to Sun Castle in that year’s wartime St Leger, run at Manchester.

It was only when Dick Dawson retired at the end of 1945 that Tommy left Whatcombe – and then he merely moved across the Berkshire Downs to Derrick Candy’s stable.

Noted as an excellent judge of pace, with a good pair of hands and able to hold his own with the best in a tight finish, Tommy continued riding until 1950, his final year in the saddle yielding five winners: Radella at Birmingham on May 29, Mid View at Redcar on July 3, Pepperbox Hill at Kempton on July 20, Mid View again at Worcester on July 25, and finally another success on Pepperbox Hill this time at Brighton on Thursday, August 10. Both Mid View and Pepperbox Hill were trained by Derrick Candy. His final mount in public was the Harold Wallington-trained Top Drawer at Lingfield on November 10, 1950.

He set up as a trainer in 1951 at Cleeve Stables, Blewbury, with a string of around 20 horses, and achieved a big race success almost immediately when Fleeting Moment won that year’s Cambridgeshire in the hands of Scobie Breasley. That, however, proved to be the highlight of his training career. He saddled several minor winners, the best being Penny Orange who won the Great Central Handicap at Haydock in July 1953, but the venture wasn’t a great success and he relinquished his licence at the end of 1954.

Tommy Bartlam, who listed his recreational interests as gardening and philately, died on September 9, 1974, aged 65. He left £15,609.