The son of an amateur jockey, Thomas Joseph Calder (popularly known as Joe) was born at Broughton Hackett, Worcester on September 23, 1867, and was first apprenticed to Edwin Weever at Bourton-on-the-Hill.
He rode his first winner - Hettie, at Worcester - in 1885 and began to make a name for himself the following season when riding 23 winners from 147 mounts. He bettered that score the next year with 27, his principal victory being achieved on the 15-1 outsider Silence in the Ebor Handicap.
He rode Veracity to win the 1888 Cambridgeshire (right). He rode the same horse to victory in both the Liverpool Summer Cup and the Goodwood Chesterfield Cup in 1889 (below, right). In this year he rode 45 winners from 307 rides: the following season he kicked home 64.
His best season came in 1894 in which he rode 81 winners from 388 rides. On September 26 that year, he rode all five winners of the races open to professionals.
This was also the year in which got married.
Riding for the Prince of Wales, he won the 1895 Manchester Cup on Florizel. His 66 winning rides that year also included the Prince's Handicap at Gatwick and, at Doncaster, both the Sandringham Gold Cup and the Park Hill Stakes.
In the autumn of 1896 he was engaged to ride as first jockey to Sir J. Blundell Maple and consequently went to live at Newmarket. He won the 1897 March Stakes there on Knight of the Thistle and had several good wins on Maple's good two-year-old fillies Nun Nicer and Royal Footstep.
Aged 30, he went to the Newmarket Steeplechase Meeting on March 18, 1898, and was taken ill with pleurisy the following day.
It was an illness which, on March 28th, claimed his life.
He left a widow and two young children, plus £5,466.
His career was full of promise for the future and, but for his untimely death, he would have made a far greater mark in his profession than time had allowed.
Joe's big race wins included:
1877: Silence - Ebor handicap
1888: Veracity - Cambridgeshire
1890: Tyrant - Doncaster Cup
1894: Avington - Great Jubilee
1894: Paddy - Great Metropolitan
1895: Florizel ll - Manchester Cup
