Fred Lee

Article by Chris Pitt

It must be some kind of record to go nearly nine years without a winner, ride two in half an hour and then never have another, but that’s what happened to National Hunt jockey Fred Lee. 

Frederick Lee was born on May 5, 1930, and began his racing career as an apprentice with George Todd at Manton soon after the Second World War, but rising weight determined that his future lay over jumps. He rode his first winner on Miss Finny in a Chepstow novice riders’ selling chase on Saturday, March 21, 1953, for Saltash, Cornwall trainer Fred Barrett. That was his only success from six rides that season.

The following season he joined Fred Rimell’s Kinnersley stable. Although way down the pecking order, he had a few rides for Rimell including one winner, Carnellian at Worcester in September. Fred Barrett supplied him with his only other winner that term, on Isle of Purbeck at Newton Abbot on Easter Monday 1954.

Barrett provided him with another winner, novice chaser Lord Irish, on the opening day of the 1954/55 campaign. Fred rode Lord Irish again at Buckfastleigh the following week (pulled up) and at Newton Abbot the week after that (fell). Disappointingly, having made such a bright start with a winner on the first day of the season, that turned out to be not just his sole success from 22 mounts that term, but his last for almost nine years. He relinquished his licence in 1955 (possibly for National Service reasons) but renewed it for the 1957/58 season. 

Easter Monday, April 15, 1963, was a red-letter day in Fred’s career because, having gone the better part of nine years without a winner, he rode two within the space of 30 minutes when landing a double in the last two races on Hereford’s Bank Holiday card. It was initiated by the 6-1 chance novice chaser Khiva and completed by 10-1 shot novice hurdler Irish Chief.

Khiva was owned and trained by permit holder Frank Jeynes at Bank Farm, Kempsey, near Worcester. The following season saw Fred with a trainer’s licence, taking over the training of Jeynes’ two-horse string, plus three or four others, based at neighbouring Napleton House in Kempsey, while continuing to hold a jockey’s licence.

Sadly, the training operation was not a success. There were no winners and the sole placed effort was juvenile hurdler Indemnity, making his racecourse debut in an eventful contest at Cheltenham on October 14, 1964, when, with five of the eight runners failing to get beyond the second flight, Fred remounted Indemnity after falling two out to finish a remote second. 

Fred’s hopes of emulating his 1963 Hereford Easter Monday double in 1965 were dashed when, riding in the corresponding two races he’d won two years earlier, he pulled up Tuffun in the novices’ hurdle and fell on Blue Duchess in the novices’ chase. 

Blue Duchess was also Fred’s final ride when unseating him at Hereford on Whit Monday, June 7, 1965. He continued to train until the end of the 1965/66 season before relinquishing his licence. 

He left racing and became a typesetter with the Worcester Evening News. However, he was later employed on a casual basis as a member of the race day staff at Worcester and at Warwick where his duties included handing out the saddlecloths.

Fred Lee’s winners were, in chronological order:

1. Miss Finny, Chepstow, March 21, 1953

2. Carnellian, Worcester, November 9, 1953

3. Isle of Purbeck, Newton Abbot, April 19, 1954

4. Lord Irish, Newton abbot, July 31, 1954

5. Khiva, Hereford, April 15, 1963

6. Irish Chief, Hereford, April 15, 1963