National Hunt jockey James Ernest Beaton rode during the first half of the 1970s and amassed a total of 17 winners. He was initially based with Lincolnshire trainer Ashley Dent and rode his first winner for him on selling hurdler Take Heed at Market Rasen on October 30, 1971.
He rode three more winners that season, all of them for Dent, the last of them on Gold Lane in a novice rider’s hurdle at Southwell.
Early the following season, Gold Lane gave Jimmy a winner on the biggest stage of all when landing an opportunity handicap hurdle
at Cheltenham. Later that season he won a Market Rasen novices’ hurdle on Solid Silver then on Easter Monday he rode his first (and only) winner over fences, also at Market Rasen, on Another Round in the Legsby Novices’ Chase. Again, all three of those winners were trained by Ashley Dent.
Jimmy had just one victory to show for the 1973/74 campaign, that coming courtesy of another Lincolnshire trainer, Len Carrod, on Welshes in a Southwell selling hurdle, and it wasn’t until January 1975 that he opened his account for the next season, by which time he was based with Barnsley trainer Steve Norton. However, he then rode five winners within a month and finished the season with a score of seven, all of them trained by Norton.
He looked sure to progress from there, yet he rode just two more winners, Certainly John for Norton at Southwell and, finally, Paul Felgate’s Night Talk in the Stokesay Stayers’ Handicap Hurdle at Ludlow on March 4, 1976.
Jimmy Beaton’s winners were, in chronological order
1, Take Heed, Market Rasen, October 30, 1972.
2. Risky Tricks, Market Rasen, January 19, 1972
3. Romair, Doncaster, January 22, 1972
4. Gold Lane, Southwell, March 30, 1972
5. Gold Lane, Cheltenham, September 21, 1972
6. Solid Silver, Market Rasen, January 24, 1973
7. Another Round, Market Rasen, April 23, 1973
8. Welshes, Southwell, March 11, 1974
9. Red Song, Leicester, January 14, 1975
10. French Bridge, Sedgefield, January 20, 1975
11. Dardanella Lady, Huntingdon, January 23, 1975
12. French Bridge, Haydock Park, February 6, 1975
13. Dardanella Lady, Wolverhampton, February 10, 1975
14. Castle Pride, Nottingham, May 12, 1975
15. Castle Pride, Southwell, May 24, 1975
16. Certainly John, Southwell, February 19, 1976
17. Night Talk, Ludlow, March 4, 1976
