Tony Grisdale

Carlisle-born Tony Grisdale’s career as a promising jump jockey was ended by a bad fall at Market Rasen in 1977, the second serious injury of his fledgling career.

Tony served his time with Middleham trainer Harry Blackshaw but when he looked like becoming too heavy to ride on the Flat he had spells with Cumbria trainers Gordon Richards at Greystoke and David Macdonald at Cockermouth. He rode his first winner while with Macdonald, steering home Avon Bay in the Gretna Handicap Hurdle at Carlisle on Saturday, April 21st, 1973, his sole success that season.

Seeking further opportunities, he then moved to Alan Jarvis’s yard at Withybrook, near Coventry and rode one winner for him the following season, Traite De Paix in the Dorothy Portman Memorial Long Distance Hurdle at Market Rasen in April 1974.

He began to make a mark in the 1974/75 campaign, riding five winners during a three-month spell, all for Jarvis, and striking up a good partnership with the grey chaser Amigris, winning three times during the early part of the campaign. Things were going well until Tony took an outside mount on Gaycroft in a novices’ chase at Catterick on February 8, 1975. A horse called Supertip fell at the seventh fence and brought down four others, among them Gaycroft, with the result that Tony broke three ribs, his nose and damaged both lungs. He was in hospital for a month before signing himself out.

Although determined to get back in action as soon as possible, Alan Jarvis made him wait eight months before allowing him another ride. Tony finally took his chance by landing a gamble on Jarvis’ novice hurdler Ask For Roger at Wetherby on November 14, 1975. It was a fine piece of horsemanship because he lost an iron as his saddle slipped when jumping ahead at the third flight, but they made the rest of the running to beat Tommy Stack’s mount Nandu by five lengths. Three days later he won on another Jarvis-trained novice hurdler, Marshelstown, at Leicester, his ninth winner.

Tony spent a few more months with Jarvis but things didn’t work out as he’d hoped and when he left the yard he was thinking about calling time on his career, but he was determined to bow out with at least one more winner. Sadly, another bad fall, this time on novice chaser Normanton at the third fence at Market Rasen on September 25, 1976, denied him his wish. The fall left him with another broken rib and a ruptured spleen. He was laid up for another four months.

He left racing and worked in a pet food factory at Melton Mowbray. He also raised some cash by buying up and refurbishing an old terraced house then selling it a profit. He kept in touch with racing by riding out for local Wymondham trainer Tim Molony and eventually set up a livery yard on a smallholding near Leicester owned by his mother-in-law.

Tony Grisdale’s winners were, in chronological order:

1. Avon Bay, Carlisle, April 21, 1973

2. Traite De Paix, Market Rasen, April 27, 1974

3. Amigris, Southwell, August 10, 1974

4. Amigris, Hereford, September 10, 1974

5. Amigris, Ludlow, October 30, 1974

6. Caesarean, Stratford-on-Avon, November 14, 1974

7. Jane Again, Teesside Park, December 10, 1974

8. Ask For Roger, Wetherby, November 14, 1975

9. Marshelstown, Leicester, November 18, 1975