Charles Bullen

Charles Bullen

Article by Alan Trout

Charles William Bullen rode for three seasons in the first decade of the 20th century without managing to ride a winner. The trainer to whom he was apprenticed, W. A. Bowles, was equally unsuccessful during this period which probably did not help Charles’s progress.

It was at Newcastle on June 29, 1905, that the young jockey made his debut on a three-year-old chestnut filly called Nene in the Park Apprentice Plate. They finished unplaced behind the 7-2 second favourite John Shark, ridden by Joseph Keeley, who was registering his only victory.

Charles rode Nene in both her other starts that season, on successive days at Leicester in October. After finishing unplaced in the six-furlong Camp Handicap on the first day of the meeting, Nene was upped in trip to a mile and a half the following day for the Apprentices’ Plate, in which she was the 20-1 outsider of four and trailed in last.

Although Charles continued to have rides, usually on horses trained by Bowles, his fortunes did not improve. He had what proved to be his final mount at Newmarket on October 1, 1907. Although towards the end of the campaign, it was Charles’s first ride of the season. He rode a still unnamed four-year-old colt by a sire called Ugly out of Charybdis in the Visitors’ Apprentice Handicap and finished in the rear of the 14-runner contest, won by Frederick Sherratt on 7-2 joint-favourite Corriemore.

Mr Bowles did not continue for much longer, just one more year, and did not take out a licence for the 1909 season.