Len Carrod

National Hunt jockey and trainer Leonard Norman Leslie Carrod was born on May 16, 1931. He served as head lad to Oswestry trainer Lowther Barratt prior to taking out both a jockey’s licence and a trainer’s licence for the 1963/64 season, based at the eponymous Carrod Stables, Amberleigh Court, Monmouth.  

He began with a string of 13 horses, some of which he rode himself. He had his first ride on Dumbfound in a novices’ hurdle at Chepstow on October 26, 1963, finishing unplaced. He also rode the horse next time out in a similar race at Birmingham on November 12, coming home ninth of the ten finishers.

Another of his horses was handicap hurdler Judge D’Or. Len only rode him once, at Hereford on March 4, 1964, again finishing unplaced. 

One of his first rides in the 1964/65 season, Jasper’s Delight, fell three out in a four-year-old hurdle race at Worcester in November. But worse was to come. He dislocated a hip when falling on Fepina in the Scilly Isles Beginners’ Chase at Sandown on February 13, 1965. That fall marked the end of Len’s brief riding career. He only had around a dozen mounts all told during his two seasons as a jockey, all on horses he trained himself.

Later in 1965 he moved yards to Druids Heath Stables at Aldridge, in Staffordshire, with a string of a dozen. He trained there for three years before moving again in 1968, this time to Granville Stables in Skipton, North Yorkshire. 

The 1970 edition of ‘Horses in Training’ reveals that by 1970 the number of horses in his yard had reduced from twelve in 1969 to just six.

His name next appears in the 1974 edition, by which time he was based in Lincolnshire with a string of 18 horses at Bede House Stables in the hamlet of Kingthorpe, near Wragby. They included one of the best to come his way, Duc d’Orleans, whom he trained to win a four-year-old hurdle at Market Rasen’s 1974 Christmas meeting and a Panama Cigar Hurdle Qualifier at Catterick on January 18, 1975.

Len’s next move was a westward one to The Sweeney Stud and Racing Stables, located at Morda, near Oswestry. That, however, proved to be another short-term location. After a two-year hiatus, his name appears for a final time in the 1980 edition of ‘Horses in Training’, this time-based at Woodlands Racing Stable, Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, with a dozen horses under his care. There seems to be no further record of him holding a trainer’s licence.

Len Carrod died July 2019.