Paul Hulatt

Article by Chris Pitt

Paul Reginald Hulatt was born in Bedford in 1949 and was having only his second mount in public when riding his first winner, on Blazing Flight in the Rookwood Apprentice Handicap at Goodwood on September 13, 1965.

By then, 16-year-old Paul had been apprenticed to Towser Gosden at Lewes for 12 months. He wasn’t exactly short on experience when he arrived there, for he had been riding since the age of six.

That year was Towser Gosden’s last as a trainer, for ill health necessitated his retirement. The stable was taken over by Gordon Smyth and it was for him that Paul steered Blazing Flight to victory at Kempton on Easter Monday 1966 to register his first winner of the new season

Among Gosden’s two-year-olds that Smyth had the good fortune to inherit was Charlottown, who was to win him a Derby in his first season as a trainer. Whether Paul rode Charlottown at home on the gallops is not known, but undoubtedly the best horse he rode on the racecourse was a popular handicapper named Damredub. In his prime when trained by Gosden, Damredub had finished second in the 1961 Manchester November Handicap, won it in 1962 and then finished second again in 1963, beaten a neck, in its final running on the last day of racing at Manchester’s Castle Irwell course.

By 1966, despite being nine years old, Damredub still retained plenty of ability and supplied Paul with four of his seven successes that season, starting with victory in the British Wool Cloth Apprentice Stakes at York’s May meeting. In August they combined to win the Herbert and Gwen Blagrave Handicap at Salisbury, following which they finished fourth in the Ayrshire Handicap at Ayr’s Western Meeting, then beat Beauatire at Kempton on October 12 and beat that same rival again eight days later when winning the Ormonde Stakes at Newbury.

Paul rode Damredub in three of his four starts in 1967 but the nearest they came to winning was a short-head defeat in Goodwood’s Plantation Stakes in September. Their final outing together was the equivalent race in which Damredub had performed so well in his youth, the Manchester Handicap, now run at Doncaster’s end of season fixture, but the ten-year-old’s best days were behind him by then and they finished towards the rear.

Having enjoyed seven winners from 51 mounts in 1966, Paul’s score fell to just one from 35 in 1967, that being achieved on Gordon Smyth’s grey gelding Le Garcon in the sponsored Sprite Caravan Apprentice Handicap at Newmarket in June. Again, there was only one winner from 21 rides to show for 1968, what was to be Paul’s final success coming on Lady Rosebery’s colt Whistling Coon, trained by John Dunlop, in a three-year-old maiden at Warwick on June 15, 1968.

After finishing his apprenticeship at the end of 1968, Paul rode as a freelance in 1969 and then for Arthur Thomas in 1970 but had no more winners before his name disappeared from the list of licensed jockeys.

Paul Hulatt’s winners were, in chronological order:

1. Blazing Flight, Goodwood, September 13, 1965

2. Blazing Flight, Kempton, April 11, 1966

3. Damredub, York, May 10, 1966

4. Turks Choice, Windsor, May 23, 1966

5. Wroth Silver, Brighton, August 4, 1966

6. Damredub, Salisbury, August 10, 1966

7. Damredub, Kempton, October 12, 1966

8. Damredub, Newbury, October 20, 1966

9. Le Garcon, Newmarket, June 17, 1967

10. Whistling Coon, Warwick, June 15, 1968