Flat jockey Joe Blanks died on July 15, 1981, aged 24, from injuries sustained in a fall at Brighton seven days earlier. He was unmarried and lived in Worthing.
John Lewis Blanks – always known as Joe - was born on August 25, 1956. He started his apprenticeship with Tommy Gosling at Epsom, moved on to Vic Mitchell, then to Arthur Pitt, for whom he rode his first winner on Chanter Belle at Folkestone on May 12, 1977.
He subsequently joined Ryan Price’s Findon stable. Price put him in charge of a horse named Mirror Boy, who had never been an easy horse to ride but red-haired Joe and the big chestnut colt struck up a real friendship. They grew to understand each other.
The horse was owned by the Daily Mirror Punters Club, headed by its president Noel Whitcomb. Joe rode Mirror Boy in a Crown Plus Two apprentice race at Bath on Saturday, June 14, 1980, getting up close home to win by a neck. Afterwards, Joe told connections that he thought Mirror Boy could win the Andy Capp Handicap the following Saturday if given the chance. This, of course, was manna from heaven in terms of publicity, for Andy Capp was a long-standing cartoon strip in the Daily Mirror, who sponsored the race. Seven days later, June 21, Joe and Mirror Boy lined up at Redcar for the £10,000 Andy Capp Handicap. Despite carrying 1lb overweight at 7st 7lb, they duly won the race, coming from well behind to take the lead inside the final furlong and win by a length and a half.
Just over a year later, in the Rock Garden Maiden Stakes at Brighton on July 8, 1981, Joe sustained serious head and chest injuries when his mount Sleigh Queen clipped the heels of another runner just before the three-furlong pole and fell. An ambulance was quickly on the scene. The doctor found that Joe had stopped breathing, but he got the jockey’s respiration going again. He was rushed to hospital and placed in intensive care, where a spokesman described his condition as “serious”.
He never regained consciousness and died at the Royal Sussex Hospital, Brighton, on the morning of July 15, 1981. He was the first Flat jockey to lose his life in a fall since Derick Stansfield in 1969.
Paying tribute, Ryan Price said: “It is a great tragedy to happen to one so young just embarking on what would have been a successful career as a competent lightweight jockey. He was a very happy, most likeable lad, who will be sorely missed by the stable.”
In five seasons’ riding, Joe rode 29 winners from 428 mounts, with that victory in the Andy Capp being the undoubted highlight. Joe's funeral took place at Lewisham Crematorium, Verdant Lane, London, at 10.30 a.m. Friday, 24 July, 1981.
