Standing well over six feet tall, Malcolm Batters simply wasn’t cut out to be a jockey. Despite that encumbrance, he enjoyed a brief but successful career as an amateur rider in the late 1970s and early 1980s which included three winners at Cheltenham, the home of jump racing.
Malcolm took over from the soon-to-retire John Mead as assistant/amateur rider for permit holder Mrs Mita Easton, who combined her training career with two others – an anaesthetist in a hospital and running a pub, The Sheaf of Arrows at Cranborne, Dorset. He had his first success for her when riding Martinstown to victory in the Pytchley Amateur Riders’ Novices’ Handicap Hurdle at Leicester on December 30, 1977.
He achieved the first of his Cheltenham successes on Pill Box in the Honeybourne Amateur Riders’ Novices’ Chase on November 10, 1979. Later that month he guided Martinstown to victory in a three-mile novices’ chase at Leicester, beating the then-conditional jockey Peter Scudamore on Mister Buck by a neck.
Mrs Easton’s best horse was Parkhouse, who won several races for her including the 1978 Stone’s Ginger Wine Chase at Sandown, partnered by Colin Tinkler. Malcolm won three times on Parkhouse within the space of six weeks during the 1979/80 season, namely the Silverton Handicap Chase at Devon & Exeter on December 14, the Lillo Lumb Challenge Cup Handicap Chase (below) at Wincanton on January 10, and the Royal Windsor Handicap Chase (below) on January 26.
The following season, Martinstown gave Malcolm his second Cheltenham victory when winning the B. J. Angell Amateur Riders’ Handicap Chase on October 22, 1980. His third was gained in highly unusual circumstances on New Year’s Day 1981.
He was originally due to ride the Martinstown in Cheltenham’s New Year’s Day feature, the four-mile Bass Handicap Chase. However, he was informed that he had been jocked off in favour of Colin Tinkler, as the horse only had 10st to carry (it would have been just 9st 7lb, taking into account Malcolm’s 7lb claim) and he couldn’t do the weight.
He consoled himself by going for a New Year’s Eve blow-out, knocking back a few pints and ending the night with a curry. Unfortunately, the trainer had declared Malcolm to ride the horse by mistake. The stewards were not for budging and insisted he rode Martinstown as he was the declared jockey.
Having borrowed some rather tight-fitting kit, Malcolm weighed out putting up no less than 24lb overweight at 11st 3lb. Given the extra burden, Martinstown’s odds of just 16-1 looked on the skinny side. Incredibly, all that overweight made no difference, for Martinstown took up the running at the 24th fence and held on to win by a head. The handicapper must have had a fit and saw to it that Martinstown never won again.
Malcolm rode Martinstown in the 1981 Grand National and came close to completing the course, the pair parting company at the 27th fence. Soon after, he relinquished his battle with the scales and gave up riding, being superseded by Alan Jones, who stepped into the role of head lad and soon found himself combining that job with pulling pints at Mrs Easton’s village pub.
