Steve Boddy

Steve Boddy

National Hunt jockey Stephen Francis Boddy had a relatively short career from the mid- to late-1950s and amassed a total of 36 winners during that time, including one at the Cheltenham Festival.

Prior to embarking on a career over jumps, Steve had finished first in two races on the Flat, although he lost one of them in the stewards’ room. This was at Lingfield Park on August 8, 1947, when eight-year-old Royal Glory beat Eastern Lyric in the Hever Handicap. Ken Gethin, rider of the runner-up, objected to the winner on grounds of bumping and crossing. The objection was sustained and young Steve, who had put up 3lb overweight to ride at 6st 12lb, was deprived of his first winner.

It was not until Windsor on June 1, 1950 that he had his sole success on the Flat. It came in the Apprentice Handicap Stakes when the three-year-old Tancred, trained by Ken Cundell, led throughout to score by four lengths. Tancred had won a race at Kempton the previous month when partnered by 14-year-old Lester Piggott. Steve never rode Tancred again and had only half a dozen mounts that seasons, although he was placed on three of them.

He rode over jumps for John Waugh’s Chilton stable and had his first winner on Keeper in the Three-years-old Hurdle at Fontwell on November 3, 1954. He won on Keeper again at Wincanton two weeks later and yet again at Wolverhampton in November. He rode a total of seven winners that season, all bar one of them for Waugh, including a maiden hurdle victory on Postman’s Path at Newbury on New Year’s Day 1955, in which he rode a particularly well-judged race to beat Bob Turnell’s mount Arctic Slave by two lengths. 

Despite not opening his account until Boxing Day, Steve increased his tally to 11 in the 1955/56 season. It included four back-to-back wins on John Waugh’s handicap hurdler Pommel. The sequence began at Hurst Park on January 11, continued at Newbury on March 2, then reached its height when winning the County Hurdle at the 1956 National Hunt meeting (March 8), and concluded in the Lime Handicap Hurdle at Sandown’s Grand Military fixture on March 17. 

He rode ten winners during the 1956/57 campaign and it looked as though he had a bright future ahead, but the number of winners slumped to four in 1957/58 and four again the following season. 

Steve Boddy rode his last winner on Trebizond, trained by Jack Bissill, in a maiden hurdle at Southwell on April 27, 1959.