James Blake

Brown Jack’s victories in the Champion Hurdle, Goodwood Cup, Doncaster Cup, Ebor Handicap, Ascot Stakes and, most famously, six consecutive renewals of the Queen Alexandra Stakes at Royal Ascot, made him, along with Golden Miller, the most popular racehorse of the inter-war period.

R. C. Lyle’s 1931 biography of Brown Jack contains the following paragraph regarding the horse’s early years. Considered too backward to run at two, he was being prepared by his trainer Charlie Rogers for his racecourse debut as a three-year-old.

“Brown Jack made progress in his training in his own lazy fashion, and in May (1927) he was given his first experience of racing. On May 23rd he was taken to Proudstown Park, Navan, to run in a six-furlong race. He was still fat, and obviously far from being in good racing condition, and it was not surprising that in the betting on the race he was among the ’50-1 others’: he was ridden by J. Blake, and no one was surprised when he finished last.”

The ’J. Blake’ referred to was James Alphonsus Blake, who was born in 1906 at Rathdown, County Dublin, close to Leopardstown Racecourse. He served his apprenticeship with Charlie Rogers, who was training Brown Jack at the time, prior to the horse being sent to race in England.

James had to put up 2lb overweight at 8st 9lb that day when riding Brown Jack on the horse’s racecourse debut in the Meath Plate at Navan. It was therefore clear from an early stage that he would struggle to make it on the Flat and that National Hunt racing would be where his future lay.

He crossed the Irish Sea either in 1929 or early in 1930 and joined G. H. Boswall-Preston, who trained at Portslade, Sussex. On 8 September 1930 he won a Folkestone novice chase on Dilly and finished third on juvenile hurdler Radio Ray later on the card. The following month he rode Maid Of Earley in a hurdle race at Fontwell Park. Sadly, she was pulled up and never ran again.

James was back in the winner’s enclosure on 5 February 1931 after landing a Gatwick selling chase on Slieve Brack. He rode Slieve Brack in two more selling chases, at Newbury later that month and at Sandown in March, but fell on both occasions.

In 1934 he finished unplaced on four-year-old hurdler Dislike at Lingfield in February and Hawthorn Hill in March. The closest he came to winning a race that year was when placed fourth on Feud in a Gatwick selling hurdle on 3 March.

He did, though, manage a third winner. That came at Hawthorn Hill on 2 March 1936, when he rode Windy to land the Maidenhead Selling Chase by a distance. He only had three rivals, two of whom fell. Windy went on to win twice more, partnered on both occasions by Alf Mullins.

James retired from race-riding soon after. In the 1939 Register he is listed as working as a stableman in Farningham, Kent.

James A. Blake died in 1983, aged 76, at Sutton-on-Hone in Kent. He was buried along with his racing silks. Though largely forgotten in the world of racing, he does have a small niche in the sport’s history, as the man who rode the legendary Brown Jack in his first ever race.