Raymond Cane

When a doper gets at a horse, his last consideration is for the rider; consequently, the lives of many a jockey have been ruined aboard such animals – some have even been killed.

One such unlucky rider was 31-year-old Raymond Cane. On Thursday 11 March, 1948, he was booked by Malton trainer Val Moore to ride Woolpack in the first race at Doncaster. The horse came crashing down at a hurdle and, at the inquest, it was revealed that the horse had tested positive to the stimulant Benzedrine. The trainer was warned off. 

Moore was lucky to escape a manslaughter charge. Raymond Cane died from his injuries the next day. 

Raymond Cane had started young. At thirteen he began his career at a racing stable in France, where he learned the principles of horsemanship. Three years later he signed on for five years as an apprentice with Sam Armstrong, who was then training at Middleham. In those eight years he saw, learned and digested the rigid routine of stable life. He rode his first winner on Soubrette, trained by Armstrong, in the Ironopolis Apprentice Plate at Stockton on Friday, April 26, 1935.

Switching to National Hunt, he had his first success in that sphere on The Black Knight, also trained by Armstrong, in the Coldstream Three-Year-Old Hurdle at Kelso on October 9, 1937. Twelve months later, October 8, 1938, he won another race at the corresponding Kelso fixture, this time on handicap hurdler Golden Crown.

By the time the war came he had begun to make a name for himself, having ridden a combined total of ten winners on the Flat and over jumps. Six years’ valuable experience at a critical stage in his life were lost when he swapped his riding kit for naval uniform, becoming a leading seaman aboard His Majesty’s submarines. 

Weighing nine stone, he returned to racing, his life following pretty much the same routine as before the war. He looked after two horses, ‘did his two’ and carried out the normal stable duties and chores when not away racing. He had his ‘comeback’ winner on Mikado in the Novices’ Chase at Manchester on New Year’s Day 1947.

He became second jockey to Jack Fawcus’s Middleham stable and enjoyed a successful season in 1947/48 with eight wins, including a Boxing Day treble at Market Rasen on Fawcus’s novice hurdler Ubique and handicap chasers Arigdeen and Manchurian. 

He began the new year by winning a Haydock novices’ hurdle on Billy Lindholme on January 9, 1948. On February 7 he won the Buggins Farm Handicap Hurdle at Haydock on Lord Joicey’s horse Rapier. It would turn out to be his last winner.

He had been booked to ride Tommy Traddles in that year’s Grand National and rode him in his final run before Aintree, finishing third behind First of the Dandies at Wolverhampton on March 9. The following day he rode at Doncaster, finishing second on Manchurian, emerging unscathed from a fall from Tabasco II in the novices’ chase, then finishing sixth on Last Loch in the last race on the card, a handicap hurdle. 

He was back at Doncaster the next day, only for it to end in tragic consequences resulting from Woolpack’s second flight fall in the Yorkshire Main Selling Handicap Hurdle. 

Ironically, just the previous month, Picture Post magazine had interviewed him for a feature on a typical day in the life of a National Hunt jockey. That feature duly appeared in the edition of March 20, 1948, just eight days after the jockey’s death. Instead of a story about a jump jockey’s life, it became his obituary. Four of the illustrations from that article are reproduced on this page.