Edward Southwood

South-west-based National Hunt jockey Edward Southwood was born in 1876. He rode a total of 43 winners during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

He first appeared in public at Buckfastleigh on Whit Monday, 25 May 1896, when finishing third on 4-1 chance Lady Hacket in the Dean Court Chase. He rode his first winner on a five-year-old mare named Blink Bonny – named after the 1857 Derby and Oaks heroine – in the Maiden Chase at the annual South Brent fixture on 25 May 1898. He came within a head of recording a double that day, finishing a close second in the Stewards’ Chase later on the card.

That South Brent success was the start of what was to prove the most successful year of his career, for he rode 10 winners in 1898. This was largely down to just two horses, winning five races on Martano and three on Telegram. At Buckfastleigh’s Whit Monday fixture on 30 May, he won the Buckfastleigh Open Handicap Chase on Telegram and the Dean Court Selling Chase on Martano.

At Newton Abbot’s two-day season-opening meeting at the start of August, Edward won a handicap chase on Telegram on the first day and a handicap hurdle on Martano on day two. He won a handicap chase on Martano at Plymouth on 1 September, then six days later notched a double at Totnes on Telegram in the Bourton Open Handicap Chase and Martano on the Hempstone Vale Handicap Chase. On 21 October he rode Martano to win the Bishopswood Chase at Ross-on-Wye, a venue that had been revived in 1897 after a break of many years.

Despite having ridden 10 winners in 1898, Edward rode only one the next year and none at all in 1900. However, he bounced back in 1901 with a score of six, including two doubles. The first of these was at Torquay’s Easter meeting. After landing Easter Monday’s Tor Abbey Maiden Chase on Glenville, he registered a double on the Tuesday aboard Horicon in the Plodders’ Selling Handicap Chase and Telegram in the Consolation Chase. The latter contest, the last on the card, was restricted to horses that had run at the two-day meeting without winning. It was effectively a ‘consolation’ race for beaten horses. Telegram faced just one rival, Red Friar II, whom he defeated by four lengths.

The second of Edward’s 1901 doubles came at Buckfastleigh on Whit Monday, 27 May, when landing the Dart Vale Selling Hurdle on Horicon and the Dartmoor Chase on Glenville. Two days later he rode Horicon to win a handicap hurdle at South Brent.

Torquay and South Brent both proved happy hunting grounds for Edward, recording eight victories at each, despite the fact that Torquay’s sole fixture was its two-day Easter meeting, while South Brent raced on only one day a year.

His four winners in 1902 included Torquay’s West of England Handicap Chase on Telegram and the South Brent Open Handicap Chase on Mr Dunlap. He again recorded four winners in 1903, one of which was on Hazelhuhn in Torquay’s Maidencombe Selling Hurdle.

Edward won only two races in 1904, one being on Farnborough in South Brent’s Dartmoor Optional Selling Chase. He won that race again in 1905, this time on Tartar II, one of three wins that year. His three wins in 1906 included the Stewards’ Selling Chase at South Brent on Nesta. His two wins in 1907 comprised the Torquay Selling Hurdle on Consistent and South Brent’s South Devon Handicap Hurdle on Little Tom.

He again rode two winners in 1908: Wicker Work in the Slover Hunters’ Hurdle at Newton Abbot in May and Captain Bell in the Maiden Hunters’ Chase at Totnes in September. But it was back to the more familiar winning enclosures in 1909 when his only two wins that year were both achieved on Captain Bell in Torquay’s Plodders’ Selling Handicap Chase and South Brent’s Open Handicap Chase.

Neither Torquay nor South Brent proved sources of winners in 1910, when all three of Edward’s victories came courtesy of a four-year-old filly named Lady Friar, who won hurdle races at Newton Abbot in May, Totnes in September, and Portsmouth Park in November.

Having failed to ride a winner in either 1911 or 1912, he rode what proved to be the last of his career at Torquay on 3-1 chance Leghorn in the Torre Handicap Hurdle on Tuesday, 25 March 1913. He finished fourth on his final ride, Lady Kathleen, in the Kennford Selling Hurdle at Devon & Exeter on 28 August 1913.

Newton Abbot and Devon & Exter apart, those tracks at which Edward Southwood rode his winners are, sadly, long since gone. South Brent (closed 1912), Portsmouth Park (1915), Ross-on-Wye (1922), Plymouth (1930), Totnes (1938), Torquay (1940) and Buckfastleigh (1960) have all disappeared from the fixture list, although the latter continues to stage point-to-points.