Dennis Leah

Article by Chris Pitt

The highlight of apprentice jockey Dennis Leah’s career came when winning the 1963 Victoria Cup at Ascot on Tudor Treasure, one of just seven winners he rode in total. Born on September 6, 1942, he was apprenticed to handicap ‘specialist’ Eric Cousins at Tarporley, Cheshire.

Cousins, who had landed his first major triumph with 50/1 outsider Hill Royal in the 1962 Lincolnshire Handicap, would supply Dennis with all seven of his winners. The first of those was pretty much the ultimate ‘steering job’, aboard 10/1 on favourite Grey Chantry in a two-horse apprentice handicap at Liverpool on July 5, 1962, easily beating his sole rival, Jimmy McKeown’s mount Sister King. He rode two more winners that year: ten-year-old sprint handicapper Faint Hope at Redcar in August, and Blandford Lad in a one-mile Haydock apprentice handicap in September.

At the start of the 1963 campaign, Cousins gave Dennis the leg up on Tudor Treasure in the Lincolnshire. He was unable to repeat the victory of Hill Royal 12 months earlier but finished a respectable eighth in a field of 40. Dennis kept the ride next time out, winning the Galloway Cup at Ayr as the 4/1 favourite. Their next race together was the Victoria Cup, run at Ascot for the first time, having been transferred from Hurst Park following that course’s closure the previous year. Starting the 100/7 joint second favourite in a wide open 25-runner contest over the straight seven furlongs, Dennis brought Tudor Treasure through to take the lead approaching the final furlong, running on strongly to beat Jimmy Lindley’s mount Miletus by a length and a half.

Dennis’s next winner was Blandford Lad at Carlisle in August. Later that month he came within half a length of landing another important handicap, this time in the Great Yorkshire Handicap at York on 100/6 chance Water Skier, just being denied by the Harry Carr-ridden 4/1 favourite Songedor. He was also unlucky not to win on 20/1 outsider Ballykess at Wolverhampton in September, taking the lead one furlong from home but being collared on the line by Doug Smith on Reg Hollinshead’s Gambling Debt.

Dennis rode what was to be his last winner on Commander-in-Chief in the Knottingley Stakes at Pontefract on September 26, 1963. Three weeks later, Commander-in-Chief won the Cambridgeshire to give his trainer yet another big handicap victory, but it was Frank Durr who was in the saddle on that occasion.

He rode Commander-in-Chief three times in 1964, finishing third at Pontefract, fourth in the Lanark Silver Bell, and eighth in York’s Magnet Cup, but Frank Durr was back on board when winning the Kempton Park Great Jubilee Handicap and when coming within three-quarters of a length of repeating his 1963 Cambridgeshire victory, this time finishing second to the Jock Wilson-ridden Hasty Cloud.

Having finished his apprenticeship at the end of 1965, Dennis had one season with a full jockey’s licence in 1966 but rode no winners. He trained for a short time, based at Park Farm, Little Budworth, near Tarporley, but gave up when the lease on the stable finished in 1973.

He then became assistant trainer to Ron Barnes at Norley, Cheshire, and remained in that post until Barnes’ sudden death early in 1975.

Dennis Leah’s winners were, in chronological order:

Grey Chantry, Liverpool, July 5, 1962.

Faint Hope, Redcar, August 10, 1962.

Blanford Lad, Haydock Park, September 22, 1962.

Tudor Treasure, Ayr, April 6, 1963.

Tudor Treasure, Ascot, May 4, 1963.

Blandford Lad, Carlisle, August 29, 1963.

Commander-in-Chief, Pontefract, September 26, 1963