Colledge Leader

Colledge Leader 

1883-1938

Article by Alan Trout

Colledge Leader is best remembered as a dual Classic-winning trainer but before taking up training he rode 58 winners on the Flat plus 10 over jumps between 1896 and 1909. 

Born on May 2, 1883, the son of Derby-winning trainer Tom Leader, Colledge was apprenticed to his father and made the perfect start to his race-riding career by winning on his first mount, when Tinsley, owned and trained by his father, won the Apprentices Plate at Newmarket on October 1, 1886. 

Thereafter, he rode a few winners each year, achieving a best score of 10 in 1905. Among his most important successes was on Laughing Girl, owned and trained by the legendary John Osborne, in the Great Northern Handicap at York on May 25, 1897. He rode in four Classics, including on Dancewood in the 1902 Derby, without being placed. 

He rode the first of his 10 winners under National Hunt rules at Haydock Park on February 22, 1907, when Ulysses won the Club Hurdle. The pair went on to win their next two races, at Kempton Park four days later, then at Hooton Park in April. His last win over jumps was at Nottingham on October 27, 1908, when James beat four rivals to land the Gotham Maiden Hurdle by three-quarters of a length. His final ride in that sphere was on Lord Sefton’s four-year-old gelding Littledale, who finished unplaced in the Juvenile Handicap Hurdle at Manchester on April 13, 1909, a race won by Ernie Piggott on Master Tredennis.

Colledge Leader’s wins over jumps were, in chronological order:

1. Ulysses, Haydock Park, February 22, 1907

2. Ulysses, Kempton Park, February 26, 1907

3. Ulysses, Hooton Park, April 12, 1907

4. Phidippides, Nottingham, December 9, 1907

5. Pretty Dick, Nottingham, December 10, 1907

6. Candelabra, Wolverhampton, December 27, 1907

7. Highstep, Manchester, January 2, 1908

8. Lochlee, Gatwick, February 6, 1908

9. Phidippides, Sandown Park, February 7, 1908

10. James, Nottingham, Nottingham, October 27, 1908

His final win came at Alexandra Park on April 17, 1909, when the father-son combination won the Middlesex Plate with a horse named Peter Burges, beating the Frank Wootton-ridden Lady Brendea by two lengths. Peter Burges had won at Leicester just nine days earlier when ridden by another of Tom Leader’s son, Harvey, who would go on to launch his own training career which lasted more than 50 years and included Classic success with Caligula in the 1920 St Leger. 

Colledge finally quit the saddle after finishing unplaced on an unnamed colt, later to be known as Lord Ninian, in the City Plate at Manchester on June 4, 1909. He then began training, based at Machell Place, Newmarket, gaining his first notable victories in the 1913 Jockey Club Stakes and Cambridgeshire with Cantilever, whose delicate legs made him hard to train. He won the Cambridgeshire again with Re-echo in 1922.

He was appointed private trainer to Lord Derby at Stanley House in 1933. The first good horse he trained for him was the filly Quashed, winner of the 1935 Oaks. The following year she won a memorable race for the Ascot Gold Cup, beating the American horse Omaha by a short head. He won a second Classic for Lord Derby with Tideway in the 1936 1,000 Guineas.

Sadly, Colledge Leader developed a serious illness in the autumn of 1938 from which he died on December 9, aged 55. 

• Information on Colledge Leader’s training career obtained from the ‘Biographical Cyclopaedia of British Flat Racing’ by Roger Mortimer, Richard Onslow and Peter Willett.