Tommy Shone

1921 - 2000

Article by Chris Pitt

Tommy Shone rode more than 235 winners during a 20-year career that spanned four decades, from the 1930s to the 1960s, a career interrupted by World War Two, during which he served in the army, plus a period of retirement preceding a brief comeback.

He was born on 29 October 1921 and graduated to jump racing via schoolboy ‘flapping’ races in his native Cheshire. In 1938 he joined Gordon Johnson Houghton’s stable but the war halted his progress.

Having been demobbed from the army he worked for Rolls Royce, returning to the saddle in 1947. Success soon came his way and he was a prominent jump jockey throughout the 1950s. On the first of five Grand Nationals rides in 1950, he held a clear lead on Angel Hill when falling at the Canal Turn second time round.

The following year he was the beneficiary of one of the most extraordinary occurrences in Cheltenham Festival history. The official result of the 1951 County Hurdle reads: 1st Southwick (G. Spann), 2nd D.U.K.W. (R. Turnell), 3rd Cocos (T. Shone). However, the Chaseform comment for Cocos reads “always behind: awarded third place.” Look down the list of unplaced horses and you will find against Blue Raleigh the comment “slight lead halfway up run-in.”

This (unique?) entry is absolutely accurate and reflects a fine piece ofopportunism from the rider of Cocos, Tommy Shone, surely the only jockey to have finished third on a horse that was tailed off in a major hurdle race. This, of course, was in the days before Cheltenham had a photo-finish camera, meaning the judge had to rely on his naked eye – and was presumably guided to an extent by the commentator, who were then pale imitations of the today’s highly professional race callers. There were 21 runners that year and Tommy’s mount, Cocos, trained by Percy Arm at Ludlow, was a 25-1 outsider. Some years later, he reflected on his piece of quick thinking.

“Cocos couldn’t lie up at any stage and I considered pulling up at the top of the hill but decided to persevere to please the owner. As I jumped the last, I heard the commentator say ‘third number 33’ which came as a major surprise as that was Cocos’s number!

“I quickly realised that my colours had been mistaken for the similar ones of Blue Raleigh, ridden by Jimmy Power, who was hovering with uncertainty outside the unsaddling enclosure as, with a smile, I audaciously rode past him into the position reserved for the third-placed horse.”

His best season was 1951/52, when he rode 29 winners and finished eighth in the jockeys’ table. He also scored his biggest success that season when landing the 1951 Valentine Chase over the Grand National fences on Border Luck. He also won Haydock Park's Tom Coulthwaite Handicap Chase in 1954 on Persian Pageant.

He hung up his saddle and boots at the end of the 1959/60 season and took up training, initially at Hinstock, near Market Drayton, then at Warren Stables, Prees Heath, near Whitchurch, in Shropshire.

After more than three years without a licence, Tommy, by then aged 42, made a surprise return to race riding for the 1963/64 season, combining it with his training operation. He made the perfect start, winning a three-mile handicap chase on Hyperion Lad on 3 August 1963, the opening day of the new season. However, he had to wait until nearly the end of the season before registering his second victory, again on Hyperion Lad, at Uttoxeter’s 1964 Whitsun meeting.

The following season, 1964/65, he scored twice on selling hurdler Arayaman, at Ludlow on 21 October, and at Market Rasen on 7 November. They were to be the last two winners of his long career, although he did not relinquish his licence until the 1967/68 season. He gave up training the following year.

Tommy Shone lived in Crewe during his retirement and passed away on 21 August 2000, aged 78. A hurdle race was run annually in his memory at Bangor-on-Dee.