Tommy Crabb

National Hunt jockey Alfred Thomas Crabb – he rode under his second Christian name – was born in 1917 and rode 38 winners during a seven-year career over jumps. 

He had his first ride in public at Colwall Park on October 10 1935, finishing unplaced on Fair Measure in the Welland Park Selling Handicap Hurdle. He rode his first winner on Antigua in the one-mile six-furlong Salop Juvenile (3yo) Hurdle at Ludlow on October 8, 1936. 

Tommy enjoyed his most successful season in 1937/38 with 16 wins when riding for Cheltenham trainer John Roberts, who supplied almost all of them. Three of those came on three-mile chaser Field Master, at Devon & Exeter in August, Totnes in September and Pershore in October. He won four two-mile selling chases on Rolling Pin, at Buckfastleigh in August, Newton Abbot in September, Chepstow in October and back at Newton Abbot in May. He also won a pair of selling hurdles on Rubis Topaze at Sandown and Newbury in December and a brace of similar contests on Chestnut at Newton Abbot in May and Cardiff in June; plus another hurdle race on Thorndown at Taunton in March.  

He rode a dozen winners in 1938/39, Rolling Pin and Rubis Topaze among them, along with a pair of selling chases in April on Bachelor’s Hall for fellow Cheltenham trainer Ralph Morel. 

On Saturday, March 21, 1942, Tommy ventured north to Wetherby for three rides. He won on the first of them, 10-1 shot Farsi in the opening race, the Rudgate Handicap Hurdle. He pulled up 33-1 outsider Flying Friend in the next race, a novices’ chase, then finished unplaced on 8-1 chance Fair Tor, on whom he had won over course and distance on their previous outing in January, in the Wike Handicap Hurdle. 

That Wetherby fixture, along with one at Cheltenham the same afternoon, was to be the last National Hunt meeting held in Britain until January 6th, 1945, with all jump racing cancelled for the duration of the war. In fact, with the war finally turning in the allies’ favour, two meetings had been scheduled for Boxing Day 1944 but both were abandoned, frost ruling out Wetherby and fog accounting for Windsor. 

Alas, like so many others, Tommy Crabb did not witness the end of the war. Having enlisted in the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, he died on February 4, 1945. He was 27.