Alec Jack

1911 - 1988

Alec Jack was a northern National Hunt jockey whose career was interrupted by the war just as he was becoming established.

A tough and flamboyant character, Archie Harry Jack (known as Alec Jack) was born in Croydon, Surrey, on 16 January, 1911, and was apprenticed to Robert Colling at Newmarket. He first rode in a race in 1933.

Before moving north, he rode for Fred Gurney’s Letcombe Regus stable and rode one of his earliest jumping winners on Santiose at Pershore on October 15, 1938. Later that season, on May 1, 1939, he rode the winner of the last race ever run at Pershore, The Top, trained by Fred Gurney, in the Croome Handicap Hurdle. Shortly after war was declared, Pershore racecourse was taken over by the army and was later used as an RAF training school. It never reopened and became the site of Pinvin Trading Estate.

During the war, Alec managed the occasional ride and a couple of winners before National Hunt racing was suspended, such as Prince Disturber at Nottingham for George

Todd in March 1941, and Sylphide at Wetherby for Walter Easterby in March 1942. When the sport resumed after the war, Alec was based in the north and he was soon back among the winners. In fact, his first three winners after the resumption were all on Sylphide, the horse that had given him his last victory before the suspension, at Catterick and Wetherby in February 1945 and at Catterick again the following month. All that had changed was that Sylphide was now trained by Albert Cooper.

A Catterick double on March 24, 1945, was followed by another at Wetherby seven days later, comprising Clifford Nicholson’s decent chaser Limestone Edward and the Yorkshire Champion Chase on Priority Call. He won again on Priority Call at Southwell later that season.

He enjoyed plenty of success around the northern circuit during the later 1940s, a

highlight being winning Manchester’s Victory Hurdle on January 2, 1947 on Bobby Renton’s grey Caviar. For good measure, he won again on Caviar (left) at Haydock the very next day.

He completed the course on both of his first two Grand National rides, finishing fifth on Neville Crump’s Platypus in 1948 and eighth on Sidney Banks’ Lucky Purchase in 1949. His only other ride in the world’s most famous steeplechase was on Dynovi, who fell at the 21st fence in 1950, that being synonymous of an injury-plagued season in which he rode just two winners.

He began training later that year and rode and trained his first winner when Peggy’s Boy won the Newark Juvenile Hurdle at Southwell on October 9, 1950. His last winner, which he also trained, was Jackie-Royal in the Park Handicap Hurdle at Market Rasen on May 12, 1951.

The closest he came to riding another winner was when finishing second on another of his horses, Brienz II, in a Manchester selling chase in February 1952. He later quit the saddle following an injury.

The training enterprise wasn’t a great success and he eventually left racing altogether and became a publican, managing pubs at Thornton-le-Beans and Newcastle. For a while he moved south and lived at Erdington, Birmingham.

Alec Jack died in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 3 January, 1988, aged 76. His ashes were scattered on Hexham Racecourse.