National Hunt jockey Derek Campbell began his career in the south before moving north, enjoying a banner season in 1962/63 when he rode a dozen winners.
He started out with Epsom trainer Dermot ‘Boggy’ Whelan and rode his first winner for him on Kerry Lad in a selling hurdle at Wye on March 21, 1960. The following month he notched an Easter Monday double at Plumpton aboard Kerry Lad and fellow Epsom trainer David Dick’s hurdler Speaker. Speaker was also his next winner, albeit eighteen months later.
Looking to further his career, Derek moved north in 1962 to Hawick, to ride for Roxburghshire trainer Harry Bell. It proved a wise decision for he went on to ride twelve winners during the 1962/63 campaign, beginning with selling hurdler Best Intentions at Perth in September. But it was the chasers on whom he enjoyed the most success, winning three times on Away For Slates, twice on The Welch Admiral, and scoring his biggest success on Union Pacific in Haydock’s Tom Coulthwaite Chase.
He also won three backend novice chases on Union Jackson. Both Union Pacific and Union Jackson were sons of Union Jack, winner of the 1938 Northumberland Plate and sire of most of the jumpers in Cumberland. He rode The Welch Admiral in the 1963 Topham Trophy over Liverpool’s Grand National fences, only to fall at the second.
Surprisingly, Derek failed to ride a winner the following season – he may have been injured – and thereafter rode just two more in the 1964/65 campaign. The second of those was Union Jackson, by then owned and trained by Wigton farmer John Dixon, at Hexham on Whit Monday, June 7, 1963. An hour later, he rode Waver Lad, the outsider of two in the day’s three-mile chase. Waver Lad refused, leaving sole rival Saxine to come home alone. That was to be Derek’s final ride, as he did not renew his licence the following season.
Derek is the grandfather of 2013 Champion Apprentice Jason Hart.
Derek Campbell’s winners were, in chronological order:
1. Kerry Lad, Wye, March 21, 1960
2. Kerry Lad, Plumpton, April 18, 1960
3. Speaker, Plumpton, April 18, 1960
4. Speaker, Sandown, November 18, 1961
5. Best Intentions, Perth, September 26, 1962
6. The Welch Admiral, Kelso, October 20, 1962
7. Union Pacific, Kelso, October 27, 1962
8. Hy-Gocean Wetherby, November 10, 1962
9. The Welch Admiral, Doncaster, November 23, 1962
10. Sport, Manchester, November 30, 1962
11. Away For Slates Ayr, March 16, 1963
12. Union Pacific, Haydock Park, April 3, 1963
13. Away For Slates, Perth, April 25, 1963
14. Union Jackson, Kelso, May 1, 1963
15. Union Jackson, Hexham, May 4, 1963
16. Away For Slates, Ayr, May 21, 1963
17. En Bee, Catterick Bridge, January 16, 1965
18. Union Jackson Hexham, June 7, 1965
