Ken Boulton

Article by Chris Pitt

Ken Boulton was born on November 24, 1931, the son of a Derbyshire farmer. He began his racing career as an amateur and rode his first winner on Love-Lorn at Market Rasen on Boxing Day 1949. He rode two more winners that season and four the next season.

On April 10, 1951, Ken married Mary Anita Beer.

Having ridden seven wins as an amateur, Ken turned professional at the start of the 1951/52 season and rode five winners during that campaign, but the next five years were lean ones, yielding a total of just four winners.

Things finally began to look up when he linked up with Eric Cousins, who was then training near Burton-on-Trent but eventually moved to Tarporley, Cheshire. Ken rode eleven winners during the 1957/58 campaign and also managed two victories on the Flat in 1958 courtesy of Cousins’ six-year-old Faint Hope, who won a six furlong seller at Bogside on April 18 and followed up in a similar race at Edinburgh three days later.

Ken achieved his best score the following season, 1958/59, with 16 winners, including three on Mill Flame, three on King’s Nephew and four on the grey hurdler Laird o’ Montrose, all trained by Cousins.

He won on King’s Nephew again at Hurst Park in December 1959 but lost the ride soon after when the horse was transferred to Frank Cundell’s yard. King’s Nephew, who Ken rated the best he ever rode, was to go on to far better things, his victories including the 1964 Great Yorkshire Chase carrying 11st 10lb.

By the start of the 1960s Ken was living at Fife Cottage, Oakmere, near Northwich. Away from the racecourse, his main interest was farming.

He kicked off the new decade by achieving his biggest success, aboard Irish Jurist in Manchester’s Victory Chase on New Year’s Day 1960. He finished third on Laird o’ Montrose in the following day’s Victory Hurdle. Ken and Laird o’ Montrose followed that effort with two more thirds, in Birmingham’s Champion Trial Hurdle and Doncaster’s Princess Royal Hurdle, before finishing a highly creditable fourth behind Another Flash, Albergo and Saffron Tartan in the 1960 Champion Hurdle.

Although Ken never rode in the Grand National itself, he did compete in five races over those fearsome Aintree fences, completing the course twice, as follows:

1957 Grand Sefton: pulled up on Jamison. 

1958 Grand Sefton: fell 1st on Golter. 

1962 Molyneux Chase: 6th on Ivanhoe Court. 

1962 Grand Sefton: 7th on Woodbrown.

1965 Topham Trophy: fell on Soldanora.

Never a fashionable rider, Ken continued to ply his trade around the Midlands tracks for the next five years. What was to be the last of his 90 winners (88 over jumps, two on the Flat) came on Ardlui for Stourbridge trainer Luther Bridge in a Bangor selling hurdle in April 1965.

The following month, on Saturday, May 22, 1965, Ken made the short journey to Uttoxeter for three rides. After pulling up the first and finishing unplaced on the next two, he came in for a ‘spare’ for trainer Stan Underhill on Blue Joy, a 20-1 outsider, in the last race of the day, a three-mile handicap chase. Blue Joy fell and Ken received severe head injuries.

He was rushed to Burton-on-Trent Hospital but failed to regain consciousness and died four days later, Wednesday, May 26, aged 33. He left a widow, Mary, and two daughters, Jacqueline Mary and Lynn Vannessa.

The Ken Boulton Handicap Hurdle was run at Uttoxeter in memory of the jockey for many years. Although the race has acquired various sponsors’ names in recent years, the Ken Boulton Memorial Trophy is still presented to the winning owner.

In 2015 the race was run as The Ken Boulton 50th Anniversary Handicap hurdle to mark the occasion of his tragic death half a century earlier.