Roy E. Carter 

Roy Carter 

Article by Chris Pitt

Roy Edward Carter was a northern-based National Hunt jockey from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. He was associated with Neville Crump’s Middleham stable during most of his career and rode 29 winners. He also rode in two Grand Nationals.

First apprenticed to Vic Smyth at Epsom, he later joined George Lambton in Newmarket. After the war, however, rising weight turned Roy’s attentions towards the jumps, initially with Alec Kilpatrick at Collingbourne Ducis in Wiltshire, before joining Neville Crump’s yard. 

Roy rode his first winner on his first ride for Crump, aboard Memmerkirk in the Cark Maiden Chase at Cartmel’s annual Whit Monday fixture on May 17, 1948. He rode four winners the following season, beginning with Crump’s useful chaser Astra at Market Rasen’s Christmas meeting. 

Easily his best season was in 1950/51, during which he rode a dozen winners, including seven in a golden four-week period between mid-October and mid-November. Another victory came in an eventful five-runner novices’ chase at Wetherby on Easter Monday 1951, when he finished alone after remounting Nature’s Gift, his four rivals having all fallen at various stages. 

Twelve days after that Wetherby fiasco, Roy rode 100/1 outsider Queen of the Dandies in the 1951 Grand National. They managed to avoid the first fence pile-up which saw twelve horses and riders end up on the floor, but their race ended at Valentine’s first time round.   

With Arthur Thompson ensconced as Neville Crump’s stable jockey, Roy was rarely in the front line but, even so, his career stalled dramatically following his 12-winner campaign after he was blamed for a horse being beaten at the 1952 Cheltenham Festival. No doubt he also had his share of bad falls but he managed just three winners over the course of the next six seasons. 

Roy joined forces with neighbouring Middleham trainer Sam Hall and ended a winnerless spell of almost three years when winning a Catterick novices’ chase on Newby in January 1958. The following month, again at Catterick, he notched the only double of his career when winning on Newby and novice hurdler Arctic’s Ration, both trained by Hall.  

Neville Crump’s Champery and Sam Hall’s Jules Verne were Roy’s only winners of the 1958/59 campaign, and there was to be just one more the following season, that coming on the Jack Fawcus-trained Dandy Tim in the Stayers’ Novices’ Chase at Manchester on February 26, 1960. 

Jumbo Wilkinson became Dandy Tim’s regular jockey but Roy was reunited with him when Jumbo was injured early in 1962 and retained the ride in that year’s Grand National. They were prominent throughout the first circuit and disputing the lead when falling at the water jump. 

Roy also rode Dandy Tim in that year’s Scottish Grand National, held on April 14, 1962, but once again ended up on the deck. That looks to have been his final ride and it appears that he was injured in the fall because he did not ride again for the remainder of that season and did not renew his licence the following season.

He subsequently moved from Middleham to London and took a job with Securicor for the next 20 years. However, soon after his widowed mother died he became isolated and depressed in an area which had become increasingly dangerous. 

He mentioned his plight to former weighing room colleague Johnny East, an old pal from his days with Neville Crump, who worked as head man for Newmarket trainer Mark Tompkins. Johnny contacted another former jockey, Fred Cheshire, who alerted one of the Injured Jockeys Fund’s almoners, Liz Carroll. She went to visit Roy, offering him a flat beside the gallops on Newmarket’s Warren Hill. Roy took no persuading to move, having been thrown a lifeline by the IJF after years of struggle. That flat became his retirement home. 

Roy Carter’s winners were:

1. Memmerkirk, Cartmel, May 17, 1948

2. Astra, Market Rasen, December 27, 1948

3. Prince Walvis, Sedgefield, February 26, 1949

4. Memmerkirk, Market Rasen, May 14, 1949

5. Dark Wonder, Hexham, June 4, 1949

6. Colleen Oge, Wolverhampton, November 15, 1949

7. Seashanty, Market Rasen, December 26, 1949

8. Blackpool, Bogside, April 22, 1950

9. Golden Spaniard, Catterick Bridge, October 19, 1950

10. Solkora, United Border Hunt (Kelso), October 20, 1950

11. Colleen Oge, United Border Hunt (Kelso), October 21, 1950

12. Gallant Wolf, Nottingham, October 24, 1950

13. Skyreholme, Hexham, October 30, 1950

14. Golden Spaniard, Catterick Bridge, November 4, 1950

15. Golden Spaniard, Wolverhampton, November 14, 1950

16. City Centre, Haydock Park, February 7, 1951

17. City Centre, Haydock Park, February 23, 1951

18. Nature’s Gift, Doncaster, March 20, 1951

19. Nature’s Gift, Wetherby, March 26, 1951

20. Tel El Kabir, United Border Hunt (Kelso), May 2, 1951

21. Red Brae, Catterick Bridge, March 1, 1952

22. Grinshill, Haydock Park, November 28, 1952

23. Finnegan’s Wake, Market Rasen, April 11, 1955

24. Newby, Catterick Bridge, January 11, 1958

25. Newby, Catterick Bridge, February 21, 1958

26. Arctic’s Ration, Catterick Bridge, February 21, 1958

27. Champery, Wetherby, December 27, 1958

28. Jules Verne, Ayr, April 4, 1959

29. Dandy Tim, Manchester, February 26, 1960