Harry Reed

National Hunt jockey Harry Smethurst Reed rode a total of 44 winners, starting with Bright Daw in a novice hurdle at Stratford on 15 May 1948.


He then began a successful long-term association as stable jockey cum head lad to permit holder Sidney Banks, who trained at Sandy, in Bedfordshire. Harry rode nine winners in the 1951/52 campaign, all of them for Banks. They included three wins apiece on Man of Honour and Stipend and a double at Hereford in May 1952.

Harry went on to win another six races on Man of Honour over the next two seasons. He enjoyed his best season numerically in 1955/56, riding ten winners, including Huntingdon doubles on the Easter and Whitsun bank holiday Mondays. Although remaining Sidney Banks’ stable jockey, he also won five races on Pat Moore’s hurdler Birikorus.

Harry later took out a trainer’s licence, based at Cornhill Stables, Pattishall, near Towcester, and achieved his first success as trainer/rider with novice chaser Poziere at Towcester on Easter Monday 1958. Thereafter, he mostly rode the horses he trained himself and had few outside rides. His best horses were Poziere, on whom he won four times, and staying hurdler Oakleigh Way, who provided Harry with the final three wins of his career, the last of them at Southwell on October 10, 1960.

He relinquished both his jockey’s and trainer’s licence in 1961.

Harry Reed’s winners were, in chronological order:

1. Kooraway, Stratford-on-Avon, January 5, 1950

2. Rowney Canyon, West Norfolk Hunt (Fakenham) May 6, 1950

3. Sandy Boy, Stratford-on-Avon, October 11, 1951

4. Man of Honour, Towcester, November 16, 1951

5. Man of Honour, Hurst Park, November 20, 1951

6. Man of Honour, Hurst Park, March 7, 1952

7. Stipend, Towcester, April 14, 1952

8. Sandy Boy, Wye, April 21, 1952

9. Victory Arch, Hereford, May 3, 1952

10. Stipend, Hereford, May 3, 1952

11. Stipend, Towcester, May 12, 1952

12. High Havens, Towcester, November 15, 1952

13. Man of Honour, Sandown Park, December 11, 1952

14. Man of Honour, Huntingdon, April 6, 1953

15. Sandy Boy, Wye, April 20, 1953

16. Man of Honour, Leicester, January 5, 1954

17. Man of Honour, Hurst Park, January 13, 1954

18. Man of Honour, Sandown Park, April 7, 1954

19. Dandy Scot, Towcester, April 17, 1954

20. Man of Honour, Huntingdon, April 19, 1954

21. Miss Doubtful, Stratford-on-Avon, October 7, 1954

22. Birikorus, Huntingdon, April 11, 1955

23. Ross Lake, Huntingdon, October 15, 1955

24. Dandy Scot, Leicester, January 10, 1956

25. The Mall, Nottingham, January 30, 1956

26. Dandy Scot, Worcester, March 19, 1956

27. Rupee Royal, Buckfastleigh, March 24, 1956

28. Birikorus, Huntingdon, April 2, 1956

29. Caherdaniel, Huntingdon, April 2, 1956

30. Birikorus, Market Rasen, May 5, 1956

31. Birikorus, Huntingdon, May 21, 1956

32. Down Royal, Huntingdon, May 21, 1956

33. Birikorus, Folkestone, September 8, 1956

34. Monarch’s Tutor, Warwick, November 17, 1956

35. Fireglow, Warwick, February 22, 1958

36. Poziere, Towcester, April 7, 1958

37. Another Exile, Stratford-on-Avon, April 17, 1958

38. Poziere, Southwell, April 28, 1958

39. Poziere, Uttoxeter, Hereford, September 20, 1958

40. Golden Arrow, Towcester, March 28, 1959

41. Poziere, Uttoxeter, March 19, 1960

42. Oakleigh Way, Southwell, April 2, 1960

43. Oakleigh Way, Towcester, May 7, 1960

44. Oakleigh Way, Southwell, October 10, 1960