Article by Chris Pitt
Tony Boyle was a dual purpose jockey who, surprisingly, rode only one winner on the Flat despite holding a licence between 1961 and 1968. He was far more successful over hurdles, riding 26 winners in that discipline.
Anthony George (Tony) Boyle was born circa 1936. He first took out a National Hunt jockey’s licence for the 1953/54 season, which made him ineligible to claim an apprentice allowance on the Flat, although he could do so over jumps.
He rode three winners during that 1953/54 campaign, beginning with juvenile hurdler Clarius at Windsor on November 26, 1953. He won on Clarius again at Hurst Park on January 14, 1954, his other winner that season being another juvenile hurdler, Dinkie Dandy, at Sandown on February 13.
He did not hold a licence of any sort for the next two years but returned with a bang in 1956/57, notching ten winners, including three in a row on Fiddler Goodwill’s selling hurdler Jockey, at Wolverhampton and Hereford in March and at Huntingdon on Easter Monday.
After that, however, Tony never again rode more than three winners in a season; two in 1957/58, with a sole success on All Over at Plumpton’s Easter fixture to show for 58/59. He became the hurdles jockey for Epsom trainer Herbert Smyth and rode three winners for him in the 1959/60 campaign, two of them on Nakalanta, at Plumpton in November and Wye in April.
He made a perfect start to 1960/61, winning on Herbert Smyth’s novice hurdler Mosterton on the first day of the season at Newton Abbot, then won on him again at Devon & Exeter a fortnight later. However, his only other success that season came on juvenile hurdler Taffrail at Leicester on January 7, 1961.
Herbert Smyth also supplied both of Tony’s winners for 1961/62 – Taffrail at Fontwell in November and Barlee Bree at Lingfield in February – but he handed in his jump jockey’s licence at the end of that season to focus on the Flat.
He enjoyed a red-letter day on Saturday, May 11, 1963, when he rode his one and only winner on the Flat, Wayward Cous Cous, trained by John Sutcliffe, the 100/8 outsider of five in a two-year-old seller at Kempton Park.
Having failed to notch another winner on the level during the next two years, Tony renewed his National Hunt licence for the 1965/66
season and rode for another Epsom trainer, Cyril Mitchell. He rode just one winner that season but at least it was a smart one, Ulster Prince in the Boxing Day Handicap Hurdle at Kempton Park on Monday, December 27, 1965, beating Geordie Ramshaw on the 9/4 favourite Blarney Beacon by three lengths.
There was just one more winner to come, again on a decent sort, Cyril Mitchell’s dual-purpose performer The Swan Checker at Wye on March 20, 1967.
Tony rode for two more seasons on the Flat without success, eventually retiring from race riding at the end of 1968.
