Lloyd Radmore was born on New Year’s Day 1950. He served his apprenticeship with Bill Hide, father of Derby-winning jockey and perennial ‘Cock o’ the North’ Edward Hide, at Stanton Lacy, near Ludlow.
He had his first mount in public on a three-year-old filly named Candle
Glow in the Cotton Handicap at Haydock Park on Saturday, June 4, 1966. Her starting price of 9-1 made her fourth choice in the five-runner field. The race, the 4.15, was televised by the BBC and, as always, commentator Peter O’Sullevan had done a thorough preparation and knew enough to inform the viewers that this was Lloyd’s first ride. It must have been a big thrill for any of Lloyd’s family and friends watching at home. Unfortunately, Candle Glow ran a race befitting her SP rather than the occasion and finished last of the five runners.
Lloyd didn’t ride any winners on the Flat and turned to jumping in 1970. He rode his first winner for Collumpton, Devon trainer Gerald Cottrell on Panama Rag in a novice riders’ handicap hurdle at Newton Abbot on Tuesday, August 24, 1971. His second winner, also for Cottrell at Newton Abbot, came the following month on Double Crown.
On September 23, 1971, he doubled his career score in the space of two hours, by notching a Devon & Exeter double on Double Crown and Panama Rag, his only rides that day. That achievement was to prove the highlight of Lloyd’s riding career. He had to wait until Easter Monday 1972 for his next winner, Cottrell’s handicap hurdler L’Enfant at Newton Abbot, giving him his fifth victory the season.
He had to wait even longer, nine months, before Dervish became his first winner for 1972/73 when winning at Taunton in January. Two more followed that term, including his first over fences, on Golden Tales at Newton Abbot on Easter Monday.
Lloyd continued his association with Gerald Cottrell but the supply of winners dried up. He had to go to Wye in East Kent for his first success of 1973/74, on Albert Davison’s selling hurdler King’s Shilling, his only other winner that season coming on the Ben Wise-trained Linbury Lass, who took division two of the Newton Abbot Challenge Cup Maiden Hurdle in May.
He rode just one more winner, on Davison’s Miss Melita in a Fontwell
juvenile hurdle on August 14, 1974. He relinquished his licence that that season.
In the 1973 edition of Directory of the Turf, Lloyd stated the best horse he‘d ridden was Les Kennard’s smart hurdler Foxy Loxy, who rattled up six wins in a row at the start of the 1969/70 season when partnered by David Holley. Lloyd rode Foxy Loxy in public just once, when finishing fourth at Cheltenham on October 14, 1970.
In that same edition of Directory of the Turf, he listed his recreation as ‘farming’, so it may well be that
that was the direction his life took after quitting the saddle.
Lloyd Radmore rode a total of 11 winners. These were, in chronological order:
1. Panama Rag, Newton Abbot, August 24, 1971
2. Double Crown, Newton Abbot, September 11, 1971
3. Double Crown, Devon & Exeter, September 23, 1971
4. Panama Rag, Devon & Exeter, September 23, 1971
5. L’Enfant, Newton Abbot, April 3, 1972
6. Dervish, Taunton, January 11, 1973
7. Lord Pole, Devon & Exeter, March 24, 1973
8. Golden Tales, Newton Abbot, April 23, 1973
9. King’s Shilling, Wye, March 25, 1974
10. Linbury Lass, Newton Abbot, May 23, 1974
11. Miss Melita, Fontwell Park, August 14, 1974