Tony Moule

Tony Moule, a 27-year-old amateur rider, died on the night of Wednesday, November 2, 1960, in hospital at Stoke-on-Trent, where he had been lying unconscious for 30 weeks, after a fall at Uttoxeter on Easter Monday. He left a widow and two daughters.

His mount, Brave Reynard, crashed through a wing of a fence in the Ipstones Novices’ Chase. Tony was thrown heavily and suffered a fractured skull and brain injuries.

Anthony David Moule, who lived at Crocketts Farm, Abberley, Worcestershire, was one of the country’s most experienced amateur riders, having partnered 21 winners under National Hunt rules and finished seventh in the 1960 Grand National on Arles.

He rode his first winner on a selling hurdler named Ballyvite, a 33/1 outsider, at Woore on March 18, 1954. His second win came on novice chaser Episil at Uttoxeter on May 22. Episil was trained at Himbleton, Worcestershire by Major Harold Rushton and owned by his daughter Pat Rushton who, under her married name of Pat Tollit, was to become one of the very best point-to-point riders at a time when women were restricted to riding in ladies’ open races.

Tony landed a double at Hereford on Whit Monday 1957 on handicap chaser Principal Boy and novice hurdler Dante’s Magic, they being his only winners that season. His only success the next season came on Dantes Magic in a Cheltenham selling hurdle on October 17, 1957.


He rode five winners in the 1958/59 campaign, four of them courtesy of owner-trainer Harold Poole’s hurdler Longreign, who won at Hereford in September, Uttoxeter in October, Worcester in March and Uttoxeter again over Easter. Tony’s other victory that term came at Towcester’s Whitsun fixture on Arles, owned and trained by Henry Jones, of Stourport-on-Severn.

He doubled his winning tally to ten in the 1959/60 season. They included four wins on Arles, most notably the Christmas Dinner Handicap Chase over Liverpool’s Mildmay fences on December 3, 1959. Returning to Liverpool in March 1960, Arles completed the course under his amateur rider to finish seventh behind Merryman II in the Grand National.


Tony won three selling chases that season on Scarlet Raider, the last of them on the Saturday of Towcester’s 1960 Easter meeting. Two days later, April 18, he rode at Uttoxeter’s Easter Monday fixture, finishing fourth on both his rides, before suffering the fall from Brave Reynard in the last race that led to his death 198 days later.