William Christophers

c1865-1935

South-west based National Hunt jockey William Christophers rode 40 winners during a career that spanned the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries.

He was unlucky not to ride his first winner on the opening day of Torquay’s two-day Easter meeting in 1890. He finished alone on Queen Of The Moor in the two-mile Licensed Victuallers’ Chase, only for the race to be declared void by the stewards. However, William only had to wait 24 hours to put that disappointment behind him, for on the second day of that Torquay fixture, April 8, 1890, he and Queen Of The Moor made amends by winning the three-mile Western Counties’ Hunters’ Chase ‘easily’ (according to the form book) by ten lengths. 

The following year, 1891, he enjoyed his most successful campaign with a dozen wins. They included one on each day of the corresponding Torquay Easter meeting, landing the West of England Open Handicap Chase on Queen Of The Moor on Easter Monday and the Western Counties’ Hunters’ Chase aboard Jack Frost on the Tuesday. 

Also that year, on April 22, he registered a treble at the short-lived Paignton meeting (it only lasted one more year), riding Jack Frost to victory in both the Blagdon Open Hunters’ Chase and the Collaton Hunters’ Banking Race (over the banks course) and completing the day by winning the Consolation Chase on Palmerston, on whom he subsequently won again at Buckfastleigh on Whit Monday. 

William was a prominent jockey on the south-west circuit for a number of years, amassing twelve wins at Newton Abbot, nine at Torquay and seven at South Brent. 

It was at South Brent that he rode his last winner, Heroine, in the Stewards’ Selling Chase on May 25, 1910. He rode for the final time at Buckfastleigh on Whit Monday on May 27, 1912 when his mount, Graceful Lady, sadly broke down and failed to finish.