Robert McQuillan

Robert John McQuillan, the son of a Coventry car factory worker, was apprenticed to George Todd at Manton. Aged 16, he rode his first winner on King’s Secret, the 9-4 favourite, making all the running to land the Wheeler’s Little Oyster Apprentice Handicap at Salisbury on August 15, 1963. It was only his second ride in public and his sole success that season.

In 1964 he rode two winners from ten rides, both of them on Todd’s popular 12-year-old veteran Caught Out. The first of those cane in the corresponding Wheeler’s Little Oyster Apprentice Handicap at Salisbury on August 13.

Horse and rider followed up by winning the Apprentices’ Handicap Stakes at Lewes on August 31. Starting a fraction of odds-on, Caught Out came through smoothly to take the lead inside the final furlong and drew clear to score by five lengths.

Sadly, those three victories proved to be the only ones of Robert’s career. His apprenticeship at an end, he took out a full jockey’s licence for the 1971 season but had very few rides and no winners.