Percy Avery
1881-1945
Article by Alan Trout
Percy Avery rode for a dozen years on the Flat before the First World War but only managed one win, and that was in his first season.
Born in 1881, Percival John Avery was apprenticed to C.M. Russell, who trained at Stockbridge, Hampshire. He had his first ride at Salisbury on May 29, 1902, finishing third on England’s Queen in the City Bowl for apprentice jockeys.
Percy’s only winner came in dramatic fashion at Worcester on July 3, 1902. There were only four runners for the last race of the afternoon, the Apprentices Plate. The odds-on favourite was an unnamed three-year-old gelding ridden by Bernad Dillon, while Percy was on the joint-second favourite Guinea Fowl.
Before the starter could get the field under way, the horses fouled the webbing of the starting gate and, with one exception, completed the 11-furlong course. The exception was Guinea Fowl, who fell soon after the (false) start.
The starter informed the clerk of the course what had happened, and the race was run again. Dillon’s horse won easily by four lengths with Guinea Fowl second. At that point, Mr Humby, the owner of the runner-up, objected to the winner on the grounds that Dillon had ridden a winner previously. (The race was for apprentices who had not yet ridden a winner.) The objection was sustained, and so Percy became one of those unfortunate jockeys who have ridden a winner but never passed the winning post in front.
Nothing in the rest of his career could match that. When his apprenticeship ended, he took out a professional jockey’s licence in 1905 and continued to ride until 1914 but without ever managing another winner. He had his final mount at Gatwick on October 21 of that year, when he finished a well-beaten third on Haki in the Surrey Plate. That race resulted in a close finish in which Chapel Brampton, ridden by the apprentice Joseph Prout, beat Mariota, the mount of multiple champion jockey Steve Donoghue, by a neck.
Percy Avery died in 1945.
