Falcon Collings

Article by Chris Pitt

National Hunt jockey Conrad Falcon Hood Collings was born on September 19, 1946 and began his racing career as an amateur rider. He rode his first winner on Frank Cundell’s High Havens in the Dick McCreery Amateur Riders’ Handicap Chase, a race for past and present members of the armed forces,

on the Friday of Sandown Park’s Grand Military meeting, March 13, 1970. He then won the following day’s Past and Present Amateur Riders’ Hurdle on the Michael Pope-trained Tantalum which immediately got him noticed as an above-average military rider.

He had three more winners that term, including a Whit Monday Fontwell Park double on Pindon in the Merrick Good Hurdle and Slave Driver in the Lavington Challenge Cup Chase. He turned professional at the start of the 1970/71 campaign, during which he rode nine winners and looked to be on his way to forging a successful career. He rode seven more the following season, including a Boxing Day victory on Richard Head’s novice hurdler King’s Flame at Newton Abbot, an Easter Monday success on Frank Cundell’s hurdler Tan at Wincanton, and victory on Edward Champney’s chaser The Edwardian at Hereford on March 4, 1972.

Sadly, he was unlucky with injuries, which restricted him to three winners for the 1972/73 season, two of which were gained on course specialist The Edwardian at Hereford’s Easter Monday and Whit Monday fixtures. He found opportunities hard to come by thereafter, ending up riding mostly bad horses that nobody else wanted to ride and consequently suffering more than his share of injuries which blighted his career.

There were just two winners to show for the 1973/74 season, although one of them did at least come in a decent race, on the Alan Jarvis-trained Traite De Paix in the Greenall Whitley Handicap Hurdle at

Haydock on the first day of March. The other – what would be the final victory of his career – came on another Jarvis-trained horse, novice chaser Carpette at Southwell on March 11, 1974.

He continued riding for two more seasons but had few mounts, mostly no-hopers at minor meetings on bank holidays, or on backward or inexperienced horses that required educating. An example of the latter category was six-year-old hurdler Gipsy Cobbler at Cheltenham on October 23, 1974. The form book comment reads ‘jumped slowly 1st, refused 2nd’, the reluctant debutant decanting his rider over the hurdle in front of the stands.

Although he looked unpromising at the time, Gipsy Cobbler actually went on to win a race later that season, though not with the assistance of Falcon Collings.