Article by Chris Pitt
Stephen Morris Coathup was born on November 26, 1949, and began his apprenticeship with Colin Crossley at Neston, Cheshire. Rising weight determined that his future lay over jumps and he rode his first winner on Crossley’s grey gelding Jamoe in the Punch Bowl Handicap Hurdle at Ayr on October 12, 1970. He had four more winners that season, including a dead-heat at Sedgefield on Chadwick for Lancashire trainer Ron Barnes.
Easily the best horse Steve rode was the hurdler Past Master, trained by Roddy Bower at Heswall, Cheshire, who accounted for three-quarters of his total of eight wins in the 1971/72 campaign. Steve rode Past Master 15 times that season, winning six and being placed on five other occasions. Their winning partnership began in a Sedgefield novices’ hurdle in early January and finished in handicap company at Cartmel at the end of May.
The following season, Steve won the ITV-televised B.B. Oils One Thousand Guineas Trophy Handicap Hurdle at Warwick on Past Master and they followed up with a comfortable six-length success at Ayr the following week. However, next time out they could finish only fourth in a valuable Ladbrokes-sponsored hurdle at Stratford, after which Steve was replaced by a combination of senior jockeys such as Bill Smith, Bob Davies and Reg Crank, along with 7lb claimers Roy Davies and John Suthern. Steve never rode Past Master in public again. In fact, he rode only one other winner that term and did not renew his licence the following season.
In subsequent seasons, Past Master developed a tendency for planting himself at the start and refusing to race, resulting in him being labelled as ‘ungenuine’, a ‘rogue’, or one of racing’s equine ‘characters’, depending on people’s point of view, but he’d showed no such wayward tendencies when partnered by Steve Coathup, for whom he always ran straight and true.
Steve Coathup’s eight wins on Past Master were:
January 6, 1972, Sedgefield, Haswell Novices’ Hurdle (Division 2)
January 14, 1972, Southwell, Karena Novices’ Hurdle (Division 3)
February 4, 1972, Ayr, Barr Novices’ Hurdle (Division 2)
March 4, 1972, Hereford, Harry Isaacs Handicap Hurdle
May 6, 1972, Warwick, Leamington Handicap Hurdle
May 27, 1972, Cartmel, Bigland Handicap Hurdle
January 27, 1973, Warwick, B.B. Oils One Thousand Guineas Trophy Handicap Hurdle
February 3, 1973, Ayr, Orchardton Handicap Hurdle
