Phil Canty

Phil Canty

1918-1996

Phil Canty was born in 1918 into a famous Irish racing family. His father James, though overshadowed as a jockey by his brother Joe, trained successfully at Ruenbeg, the Curragh, sending out Mondragon to win the 1939 Irish Derby, ridden by Joe, and Serpent Star to win the same year’s Irish Oaks for her owner-breeder Sir Harold Gray.  

As the nephew of seven-time Irish champion jockey Joe Canty, Phil was always likely to want to emulate him. Like Joe, he rode successfully under both codes. He registered a double in the first two races on the Wednesday of Cheltenham’s 1946 National Hunt Meeting, winning High Class Selling Hurdle on Flying Monarch and the Gloucestershire Hurdle on Gremlin. 

He rode two Irish Classic winners: the 1950 Irish St Leger on Morning Madam and the 1955 Irish 1,000 Guineas on Sir Winston Churchill’s filly Dark Issue. He came closest to winning the Irish Derby when finishing third on Pink Larkspur in 1949, having led two furlongs from home. 

Phil was regularly among the leading jockeys in Ireland throughout the 1950s, recording a career best score of 26 in 1952. 

He rode six winners on the Flat in Britain, the first of which was on Irish raider On End in the four-runner Shipston Stakes at Birmingham on May 9, 1950, beating a pair of top National Hunt jockeys in Fred Winter and Martin Molony. 

His second British success came at Manchester on the penultimate day of the 1952 season, aboard Tao in the Broughton Maiden Plate for three-year-olds. He rode two winners at Liverpool’s 1956 Grand National Meeting: London Scottish in the Croxteth Two-Year-Old Plate and Shetlands in the Maghull Stakes, both trained in Ireland by Charlie Rogers. Liverpool was also the venue for Phil’s next winner, Smiley, trained by Martin Quirke, in the Mariner’s Stakes for three-year-olds on November 7, 1958.

Phil’s last British winner was on Mrs Anne Biddle’s three-year-old Islam in the Royal Caledonian Hunt Cup at Edinburgh on September 18, 1962.

When James Canty retired from training in the mid-1960s, Phil succeeded him at the Curragh and upheld the family tradition by becoming a successful trainer. His brother John became an equally successful trainer in California. 

Phil Canty died in December 1996, aged 78. His funeral took place in Kildare. 

Phil Canty’s British Flat winners were, in chronological order:

1. On End, Birmingham, May 9, 1950

2. Tao, Manchester, November 14, 1952

3. London Scottish, Liverpool, March 22, 1956

4. Shetlands, Liverpool, March 24, 1956 

5. Smiley, Liverpool, November 7, 1958

6. Islam, Edinburgh, September 18, 1962