Frank Brookes

1893 -1918

Article by Alan Trout

It could not have been easy for Frank Trevor Brookes as he started his career on the Flat in the summer of 1908, for two reasons. First, because, as always, there were many other young men with similar ambitions, and second, there was already an F. Brookes riding on the Flat. This was Frederick John Brookes who had ridden a few times, starting in 1906.

Born at Ross-on-Wye in 1893, Frank Brookes did have one advantage: he was apprenticed to former champion jockey Sam Loates, and it was on Mrs Loates’s Gale Water that Frank made his racecourse debut, finishing unplaced in the Friday All-Aged Selling Plate at Newmarket on July 3, 1908. Mrs Loates was again the owner and Sam the trainer when, two months later, Frank scored his first victory on Claudian in the Visitors Plate, an apprentices’ handicap, at Newmarket on September 29. Claudian went on to win twice more that season with Frank aboard, at Haydock on October 9 and four days later at Newmarket. 

Over the next three years Frank rode 22 winners, including one dead-heat, with a best score of eight in both 1909 and 1911. A promising start to his 1911 campaign was halted somewhat when, after finishing third on Will Return in the Bedale Three-Year-Old Handicap at Catterick Bridge on April 21, he was disqualified for ‘foul riding’ and banned by the stewards of the Jockey Club until May 9. 

His last win was on Maydale, owned and trained by Sam Loates, in the Eglinton Selling Nursery Handicap at Manchester on September 23, 1911, with two leading jockeys of that period, Fred Rickaby and Frank Wootton, behind him. 

He had a few rides in 1912, his first year without a claim, his career ending on a low when being left at the start on Topsand, again owned by Sam Loates, in the Two-Year-Old Plate at Newmarket on May 2.

Having joined the Army with the onset of World War One, Sergeant Frank Trevor Brookes, of the Royal Sussex Regiment, sadly died in a military hospital on Salisbury Plain on October 23, 1918 and is buried in a war grave at Durrington, in Wiltshire.

Frank Brookes’s wins were, in chronological order:

1. Claudian, Newmarket, September 29, 1908

2. Claudian, Haydock Park, October 9, 1908

3. Claudian, Newmarket, October 13, 1908

4. ch. c. by Sundridge-Full Ripe, Lincoln, March 24, 1909

5. Gals Water, Warwick, March 30, 1909

6. Lucio, York, May 18, 1909

7. Cyclops Too, Alexandra Park, July 3, 1909

8. Mansvelt, Hull, September 11, 1909

9. Witch Finder, Nottingham, October 4, 1909

10. Gip’s Boy, Nottingham, October 5, 1909

11. Witch Finder, Lincoln, November 8, 1909

12. Fort. Kempton Park, June 4, 1910

13. Levanter, Leicester, July 18, 1910

14. ch. g. by Hamburg-Jinks, Liverpool, July 21, 1910

15. Miss Edgar, Birmingham, August 1, 1910

16. Hammer, Birmingham, October 31, 1910

17. Metford, Derby, November 17, 1910

18. ch. f. by Galashiels-Our Sarah, Derby, March 31, 1911

19. Metford, Newbury, April 8, 1911

20. Loot, Birmingham, April 17, 1911

21. Hackler’s Girl, Catterick Bridge, April 20, 1911

22. Esmeralda, Folkestone, July 10, 1911 (dead-heat)

23. Casy, Leicester, July 17, 1911

24, Maydale, Derby, September 9, 1911

25. Maydale, Manchester, September 23, 1911

As for Fred Brookes, he did not win a race on the Flat, but went on to become a successful National Hunt jockey, with nearly 200 wins including two Scottish Grand Nationals.