John (Kipper) Lynch was born in Bexhill on November 2, 1939 and brought up in the Old Kent Road. He served a seven-year apprenticeship with Sam Armstrong, allegedly acquiring his nickname because of the fishlike way he walked.

He won on his first ride in public, Torque, in the Apprentices’ Handicap at Brighton on June 11, 1956. Fellow Armstrong apprentice Josh Gifford finished last of the eight runners

Lynch rode 22 winners from 341 rides the following season, including Epsom’s Great Metropolitan Handicap on 100-8 chance Gay Ballad. (Gifford was runner-up, beaten five lengths, on second favourite Curry).

His apprenticeship at an end, he rode in the professional ranks from 1958. Although he had 30 winners that year he struggled thereafter as a lightweight jockey and failed to register more than a dozen wins in any season during the 1960s. His career perked up in the early 1970s, recording a score of 46 in 1976. 

He achieved Classic success when riding the maiden Olwyn to a start-to-finish surprise victory in the 1977 Irish Guinness Oaks. Lynch had walked the full mile and a half course before the race. Olwyn, a daughter of 1963 Derby winner Relko, was owned in partnership by Mr Souren Vanian, an African, and American Mr P. J. Stokes. She was trained at Newmarket by Ron Boss who, prior to the race, had never set foot in Ireland.

The following year Lynch took the Grosser Hansa-Preis on Roscoe Blake for Bruce Hobbs, and that trainer then put him on Tromos, who, with a scintillating all-the way victory in the Dewhurst, became the only champion of his career and his only Group winner in Britain.

He was retained by Hobbs in 1979 but Tromos failed to train on, though his winners for the stable included Vielle and Tyrnavos, enjoying his best season numerically with 65 victories.

In 1980 Lynch was Clive Brittain’s first jockey and his winners included Captain Marcos Lemos’s good colt Foveros. But on Tuesday, June 10 that year he was involved in a three-car crash 13 miles from Newmarket. 

He was in intensive care with head and leg injuries and, attending Headley Court Hospital, he made such good, steady progress that he entertained hopes of riding again. However, nine months after the crash, he was told to retire by his doctors.

Lynch said at the time; “Although I made a superb recovery, you have to be 100% fit to think of race-riding. As I have lost some field of vision, I will never attain physical fitness to that standard.”

Prior to his road accident, he had had more than his fair share of injuries for a Flat jockey including a broken leg and a fractured skull. A fall at Nottingham in 1971 left him deaf in his left ear.

He had married Carol Frances Parsons on March 17, 1962. They had two sons: Vincent Paul and Martin John, the latter following in his father’s footsteps by becoming a jockey. As a 7lb claimer in 1985 he won three races in a row on the Paul Cole-trained Si Signor, culminating in the 1985 William Hill Trophy at York.

John “Kipper” Lynch died on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, aged 86.