Article by Chris Pitt
Flat jockey George Alan Bodman was born in Keynsham on February 27, 1945 and joined Sir Gordon Richards’ stable on leaving school. He rode just one winner – on only his fourth ride in public – a four-year-old named Paper Boy, owned and trained by Sir Gordon, in the Corporation Maiden Apprentice Plate at Worcester on Saturday, July 11, 1964.
On March 19, 1966, George married Jennifer Oughton, who was to provide him with a son, Mark Anthony, and a daughter Tracey Jane.
Having served his apprenticeship, George operated as a fully fledged jockey between 1968 and 1978, living in the village of Damerham, near Fordingbridge, and riding for Bill Marshall, but he failed to ride another winner.
Understandably, he rated Paper Boy as the best horse he had ridden.
In a way he was unlucky that his sole victory hadn’t come one year earlier because Paper Boy, unraced at two, had been named and leased by the News of the World for his three-year-old career in 1963. There was always plenty of coverage in the paper whenever he ran, ridden by either Scobie Breasley or Doug Smith, but he was unable to finish better than third, so the News of the World pinned its hopes on another horse, Tamerella, at the end of that year. Had George managed to win on Paper Boy in 1963 instead of 1964 he would probably have been front page news in the country’s then top-selling Sunday paper.
