Charlie Mallon

Charlie Mallon

1901-1978

Born in 1901, Charlie Mallon is best remembered as the official trainer of 1958 Cheltenham Gold Cup hero Linwell, although in reality he was merely the head lad and licence holder for the journalist Ivor Herbert. Long before that, however, Charlie was a National Hunt jockey in a career spanning almost a decade and rode 23 winners in England alone. 

Prior to crossing the Irish Sea, Charlie had been associated with Senator J. J. Parkinson’s highly successful stable and had ridden enough winners in his native Ireland to lose his right to claim an allowance, hence he took on Britain’s best jump jockeys on level terms from the outset. 

Two of his earliest wins were at Dundalk in mile and a half hurdle races (which were still widespread practice in Ireland as late as the 1960s) aboard Templelyon on July 17 and Away on September 10, 1924. In May 1925 he won another mile and a half hurdle, this time at the Curragh (which still staged the occasional hurdle race in those days), and the following month gained a more important success aboard Too Richy in the two-mile Directors’ Handicap Chase at Naas, which offered a winner’s prize of £166, a relatively valuable contest in comparison to most Irish races of the time, many of which were worth less than £50 to the winner.

He had his first ride in Britain on Royal Battle, who finished unplaced in the Wimbledon Maiden Hurdle for three-year-olds at Kempton Park on November 27, 1926. He got off the mark at Folkestone on February 10, 1927, when his mount, the five-year-old Eros, won the Lydd Selling Handicap Chase, beating Spruce II, ridden by Patrick L’Estrange, by a length. 

Charlie added two more winners that season, four in each of the next two, then a career-best tally of five in the 1932/33 campaign. One of his career highlights came at Fontwell Park on June 6, 1927, when guiding Sans Peche to victory by six lengths in the South Coast Handicap Chase, a three-runner contest in which the other two runners were ridden by Ted Leader and Dick Rees, two of the finest jockeys of the inter-war years.  

Charlie won four races on Sans Peche. He won twice on Rebel Girl and rode her in the 1929 Welsh Grand National, in which she was unplaced. That was the only big race in which he took part.

Easily the best horse he rode was the fast and popular mare West Indies. Charlie partnered her to her maiden victory in the Richmond Hurdle at Hurst Park on January 11, 1930. He finished third on her at Sandown later that month and second at Newbury on February 15, before Dick Rees took over next time out and won Gatwick’s International Hurdle and then the Sandown Open Hurdle on her. 

Put over fences the next season, West Indies put up a scintillating performance when recording a six-length victory in the two-mile Sefton Chase at Newbury, carrying 12st 12lb. Amateur rider Captain Reginald Sassoon bought her in 1931 and rode her to win that year’s Valentine Chase over Liverpool’s Grand National fences by ten lengths. Sadly, in January 1932 West Indies fell and broke her neck at Newbury, to the racing public’s great sorrow.  

Charlie had his final win at Catterick Bridge on March 15, 1935, when Dark Lady won the Cowton Selling Chase by three lengths. He rode for the last time in 1936. 

After the war, Charlie became head lad for Hector Christie and was in that role when Christie trained Fortina to land the 1947 Cheltenham Gold Cup. He subsequently joined Ivor Herberts’s Chequers Manor Farm stable at Cadmore End, Buckinghamshire. 

Herbert combined training racehorses alongside his job as a racing journalist for the London Evening News, a profession which racing’s rulers, the Jockey Club, insisted precluded him from holding a trainer’s licence. Hence, the licence was granted to Charlie Mallon, and it is he who is officially named as Linwell’s trainer. 

Herbert did have two other Cheltenham Festival successes, both in 1959, with Flame Gun in the Cotswold (now Arkle) Chase, and Gallery Goddess in the Cathcart Chase, both ridden by Fred Winter. Again, Charlie is listed as their trainer. 

Charlie Mallon died in 1978. Although he was trainer in name only, it is his name and not that of Ivor Herbert that appears Linwell’s name on the Gold Cup’s winners’ roster. 

His British winners were, in chronological order:

1. Eros, Folkestone, February 10, 1927 

2. Sans Peche, Fontwell Park, May 11, 1927 

3. Sans Peche, Fontwell Park, June 6, 1927 

4. Eros, Gatwick, February 1, 1928

5. Voltova, Plumpton, February 27, 1928

6. Sans Peche, Lingfield Park, March 9, 1928

7. Sans Peche, Sandown Park, March 22, 1928

8. Rebel Girl, Plumpton, December 10, 1929

9. West Indies, Hurst Park, January 11, 1930

10. Rebel Girl, Lingfield Park, January 15, 1930

11. Royal Rowland, Huntingdon, June 9, 1930

12. Vert, Lingfield Park, December 9, 1932

13. Dryburgh, Windsor, December 15, 1932

14. Artillery Brand, Chelmsford, April 3, 1933

15. Artillery Brand, Wetherby, April 17, 1933

16. Artillery Brand, Folkestone, May 4, 1933

17. Pride Of Avon, Lingfield Park, November 24, 1933

18. Pride Of Avon, Birmingham, January 16, 1934

19. Sonny, Hexham, April 26, 1934

20, Sonny, Southwell, May 19, 1934

21. Patriot, Stratford-on-Avon, October 6, 1934

22. Lord Archie, Manchester, January 1, 1935

23. Dark Lady, Catterick Bridge, March 15, 1935