Clive Chapman

When Clive Ira Chapman tumbled from the back of Probation at Huntingdon on Boxing Day, 1969, the head injuries he received drew a curtain on his career.

Not that he knew it at the time. It wasn't until Monday September 14 the following year that he conceded that he could no longer carry on - he announced his retirement that day at Folkestone.

It had not been his first serious injury.

He had broken his neck in another December fall (1966) at Wincanton and was obliged for the next six months to wear a plaster cast which ran from his head down to his waist.

He rode his last winner on Another Surge at Folkestone, his home course, on 2 October, 1969.

Londoner Clive was born in Balham on June 21, 1934. His father, Ira, (from whom Clive got his second Christian name) was killed in the war. The family then moved down to Folkestone where his mother ran a guest house.

Clive, as a young man, was a useful boxer (eventually winning two stable lads' boxing titles) but it was racing that dominated his thoughts and, in 1949 aged 15, he signed on as an apprentice with Captain Boyd-Rochfort.

Somehow he became disenchanted with the sport and, leaving Boyd-Rochfort after three years, he signed up for the Army. Three years later he was back on civvy street, and his passion for horse racing returned.

Back at Folkestone he found work at Doug Marks's Lanslade yard before joining rookie trainer Chris Nesfield at Sandhurst, Kent.

It was for Chris that Clive rode his first winner: sporting the colours of Mr T. G. Barton, Clive booted 11/2 shot Mushtara home by six lengths at Plumpton on 19 November, 1956.

Chris's stable jockey, Frenchman Rene Emery, was unable to do the weight on Mushtara, thus opening the way for Clive.

By the early sixties, Clive was up and running: he'd won the 1960 Rhymney Breweries Chase at Chepstow on Reprieved and the 1961 Imperial Cup at Sandown On Fidus Achates.

Then came the big freeze of 62/63.

For every jockey, it was a financial disaster. Clive, having just turned freelance, was losing somewhere in the region of £100 a week - a lot of money in those days.

When racing returned to normal, Clive rode out regularly for royal trainer Peter Cazalet whose stables - Fairlawne - were situated in nearby Tonbridge. 

Cazalet found rides for Clive and the jockey rode a winner for the Queen Mother when getting Super Fox home at Plumpton's 1963 Easter meeting.

Clive was still a young man when he had been forced out of the saddle: wanting to stay in racing in some capacity, he became a horse transporter, taking six horses at a time to places like Australia, a month's journey.

During the summer he would work as a steward on the Folkestone-Bologne Channel steamers.

It was Clement Freud who found Clive work on the television: the retired jockey made an advert for Hamlet cigars which proved so popular that Clive then made others for Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Jacob's Club biscuits.

He suddenly found himself appearing alongside Cannon & Ball, Little & Large and Dave Allen.

Then he accepted parts in the films Love Story and Cleopatra.

By then Clive had got himself an agent who found Clive work doubling for Ronnie Corbett.

Then, bizarrely, the racing bug returned, and, in the mid-eighties, he began riding again, this time in Arab races.

He recorded his first win in 16 years when, at Newton Abbot, he was awarded a race on Magic Lord after Sun Chariot had been demoted from first place.

He was again hit by serious injury some five years later when he broke six ribs in a fall at Towcester.

He immediately retired for a final time.

Aged 71, Clive Chapman suffered a major heart attack in May 2006 and died a few days later.

Biggest wins: 

1960:  Rhymney Breweries Chase - Reprieved

1961:  Imperial Cup - Fidus Achates

1963:  Gloucestershire Hurdle - Deetease