Tommy Carey 

Tommy Carey 

1905 - 1964

On the day that Gordon Richards rode his 2,750th winner, one more than the total ridden by the great Fred Archer in the 1880s, it was Thomas Henry Carey who stole the show. He rode five winners. Another mount came second.

The scene was Windsor racecourse: the date, 26 April 1943. A lightning strike by 300 bus workers had failed to stop a record crowd turning up to see Gordon Richards smash the 57-year-old record. 

Many critics had said that racing would not stand the bitter war years, yet, that afternoon, over 30,000 racegoers had walked, cycled, travelled by horse-drawn conveyances or rowed from the town to the course situated on an island in the River Thames.

Tommy Carey had been born in London on 7 September 1905. He was apprenticed to Walter Nightingall at Epsom. He rode over jumps initially but eventually switched to riding on the Flat.

He rode a total of 230 winners on the Flat. He also won four over hurdles, the first success in that sphere coming at Gatwick on February 4, 1925 when his mount Golden Brick, trained by Nightingall, won the Maiden Hurdle by 15 lengths. A second winner followed at Wolverhampton on 28 September that year when He Sings took the Juvenile Hurdle. 

It was not until 5 April 1926 that Tommy was able to add a third winner, when Fasthe Filly won a handicap hurdle on Huntingdon’s Easter Monday card. Although he concentrated on the Flat from thereon, he did have one more win over jumps when Chamois, owned and trained by George Todd, won the Woking Selling Handicap Hurdle at Sandown Park on January 31, 1934. 

He rode with great success under Pony Turf Club rules, becoming a leading jockey at its primary venue, Northolt Park, and at the former National Hunt course at Hawthorn Hill. 

In 1943, aged 37, Tommy won the wartime Derby on Dorothy Paget’s Straight Deal. (Straight Deal died in Ireland aged 28). That was his only Classic success but he won several other important races during that period including Coventry, Middle Park and Dewhurst Stakes, plus the Stewards Cup and Cambridgeshire twice each.

Tommy trained from Epsom after quitting the saddle and sent out Prince Charlemagne, ridden by Lester Piggott, to win the 1954 Triumph Hurdle at Hurst Park.

He was a big gambler and was remarkably successful for a while but then the tide turned.

Tommy Carey died in Epsom Hospital on 24 March 1964, aged 58, after taking a deliberate overdose of barbiturates.

Classic winner:

Derby: Straight Deal (1943)

Other big winners:

1941: Cambridgeshire Handicap – Rue de la Paix

1941: Dewhurst Stakes – Canyonero 

1942: Stewards Cup – Sugar Palm 

1943: Coventry Stakes – Orestes 

1943: Stewards Cup – Sugar Palm 

1943: Middle Park Stakes – Orestes

1943: Cambridgeshire Handicap – Quartier-Maitre 

He was not related to Thomas F. Carey, who rode over the jumps.