Apprentice jockey Gordon Logie was born in Glasgow, where his father worked in engineering. He gained experience of riding horses at an early age and joined Ayr-based trainer Harry Whiteman on leaving school in 1965.
He made the perfect start to his racing career, aged 16, winning on his first ride in public on the four-year-old filly Jean Armour, owned and trained by Whiteman, in the one-mile three-furlong Enterkine Handicap at Ayr on April 1, 1967. Despite carrying 7lb overweight at 7st 4lb, Jean Armour took the lead with two and a half furlongs left to run and comfortably held the 9/4 favourite Mowden Magic, the mount of Peter Hetherington, by two lengths.
Gordon rode Jeran Armour next time out, at Lanark on April 29, but this time they finished last of ten in the Symington Handicap. Tellingly, Gordon was obliged to put up 8lb overweight at 7st 8lb, having seemingly put on 4lb in the four weeks since winning at Ayr.
It was probably for that reason that those two rides on Jean Armour were the only ones Gordon had all that season. Indeed, rapidly rising weight issues appear to have curtailed his career after just those two mounts.
Jean Armour was named after the wife of Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns. Known as the “Belle of Mauchline”, she inspired many of his poems and bore him nine children, three of whom survived into adulthood.
The equine Jean Armour won again that year, giving another of Wightman’s apprentices, 18-year-old Alfie McManus, his first winner in the Netherton Handicap at Hamilton on May 20. McManus hailed from Monckton, near Ayr, and had had several rides in the previous two seasons without success. Earlier in the day he had finished second on Saronis in the Lowland Apprentice Handicap.
Unlike Gordon Logie, it appeared that Alfie McManus had no such weight issues, at least at the time. He rode his second winner in 1969 and later rode over hurdles.