George Burry

1913 - 1985

Edward George Burry, always known his second Christian name, rode 42 winners under National Hunt rules during a 20-year career, its best years being lost to World War Two. 

He started out as an amateur and rode for the first time at Newbury on December 30, 1931, finishing unplaced on Projectile in the Juvenile Three-Year-Old Hurdle. He had to wait almost four years before his first visit to the winner’s enclosure, that coming on Sundowner who defied his rider’s 3lb overweight to win the Ashdown Juvenile Three-Year-Old Hurdle at Lingfield Park on November 23, 1935.

He rode as an amateur initially and had five winners in the 1936/37 campaign. They included a pair of juvenile hurdles at Sandown and Hurst Park on Punch, trained by Victor Tabor. Punch was arguably the best horse he rode during his career and those two wins were the only occasions on which he rode him. 

George turned professional in November 1937. He finished that season with a score of six wins, which included two on handicap hurdler Mr Tickler, at Hurst Park in February and Sandown’s Grand Military meeting in March. He increased his seasonal tally to seven in the 1938/39 campaign. 

He never rode a big winner, the nearest he came being when finishing third, beaten six lengths and half a length, on 20-1 outsider Blunderbuss in the 1939 Imperial Cup.

By that time he was living in the hamlet of Henbury, near Wimborne, in Dorset. Having succeeded in sufficiently reducing his weight, he rode occasionally on the Flat and under Pony Turf Club rules. 

The war years restricted George’s opportunities. He rode only one winner in both 1939/40 and 1940/41. During the war he served in the R.A.F., having already been a flying member of the R.A.F. reserve prior to the war’s outbreak.

Resuming after hostilities had ended, he had another sole success is the abbreviated 1944/45 campaign and two in 1945/46. He equalled his best score of seven wins in the 1946/47 season but again recorded just one win apiece in the 1947/48 and 1948/49 seasons, though his fortunes did subsequently improve with a score of six for the 1950/51 campaign. 

George rode his last winner on La Belle Anita, the 4-1 joint favourite, in the South Devon Selling Handicap Hurdle at Buckfastleigh on May 12, 1951. He had his final ride on Warning Glow in the Topsham Selling Handicap Chase at Devon & Exeter on September 12, 1951. Whether that fall caused him to retire through injury is not known, though he would have been in his late thirties by then. 

George Burry died on March 5, 1985.