William Silvester

William Silvester

Article by Chris Pitt

Tuesday, June 12, 1962, my first day’s racing at the now long gone Bromford Bridge racecourse in Birmingham. I was nine years old; my dad had finally taken me after several months of my begging. 

It was the day after the Whit Monday card which had featured Birmingham’s flagship Flat race, the City of Birmingham Cup, won that year by 20/1 outsider Authorise, trained Reg Day at Newmarket and ridden by Paul Tulk. 

We went on the double-decker bus from Birmingham’s Hall of Memory, which was delayed by heavy traffic, so we missed the first race. Hence, the first one I ever saw live was a four-horse seller won by 5/1 chance Miss Murray, partnered by veteran Davy Jones. 

Several of the leading jockeys were there: Duncan Keith, Greville Starkey, Willie Snaith, the Smith brothers Doug and Eph, the latter recording a double, initiated by Jim Joel’s grey colt Spring Wheat in the three o’clock race, beating brother Doug on the Queen’s colt Step On It, the odds-on favourite. 

And so to the three-thirty, the Red Horse Vale Maiden Plate over a mile and a quarter, seven runners. Eph Smith was aboard the odds-on Commander In Chief, destined (if only we knew it then) to win the next year’s Cambridgeshire. Doug rode the second favourite Dart River, Duncan was on Part Peace, Greville on Almayo, Willie on Sharja, while Michael Hayes, sadly to die in a car crash four years later, rode 50/1 longshot Miss Fivefootwo. Another 50/1 shot rounded out the field, a chestnut filly named Lilith, ridden by somebody I’d never heard of: W. Silvester. Who? 

My dad went to look at the horses as they made their way to the start. “That W. Silvester,” he reported, incorrectly pronouncing it ‘Silver-ster’ I seem to recall, “I thought he was going to be some young apprentice kid … but he’s an old man.”

He finished last, never in the hunt. And I never heard of W. Silvester again. I looked through the post-war form books. He’d only held a Flat licence for that one year, 1962, and he’d relinquished it halfway through the season. 

W. Silvester. Probably just another work rider who had a handful of mounts, none with any conceivable chance of winning; horses just there for the “educational” run to gain what the trainer called “experience”.  He was duly erased from my brain. 

Until, that is, a consignment of jockeys’ records arrived courtesy of Alan Trout, among them William Allen Jack Silvester, reportedly shown in the results as ‘J. Silvester’. 

Indeed, his three Christian names generated a degree of confusion. While listed as ‘J. Silvester’ in early form books, when he made his brief comeback in 1962 the Sporting Chronicle’s form book showed him as ‘A. Silvester’ for most of his rides, yet as ‘W. Silvester’ for his mount that day at Birmingham.

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Born on October 21, 1915 at Griffithstown, Monmouthshire, according to Alan’s findings he held a Flat jockey’s licence for several years before the Second World War, He was apprenticed to Major John Morris and had his first ride at Windsor on November 13, 1931, when Endale finished third in the Apprentices’ Plate, having won a similar race at Worcester nine days earlier to give a young Bill Rickaby one of his first victories. 

He had his first ride under National Hunt rules on Windsor Lass (listed as ‘J. Silvester) at Cheltenham on November 18, 1937, finishing unplaced in the Rosehill Maiden Hurdle for three-year-olds. 

He was not seen on a racecourse during the war but returned in January 1945 when jump tracing resumed, having ceased in March three years earlier. The following season he rode the only two winners of his career, both in the space of a fortnight. 

The three-year-old Mary Stuart, trained by former champion jockey Gerry Wilson at Andoversford, had run a dozen times on the Flat without being placed but made a winning debut in the Rosehill Maiden Hurdle (the corresponding race in which ‘J. Silvester’ had made his own jumping debut eight years early) at Cheltenham on November 9, 1945, coming with a strong late challenge to beat Abbot Of Knowle, ridden by Tommy Isaac, by a short head.

Fourteen days later, they again came out on top after a tough battle with Brightworthy, the mount of Ben Lay, in the Juvenile Hurdle at Worcester, the winning margin on this occasion being a length and a half. They finished fourth back at Cheltenham next time out the following week but then stable jockey Fred Rimell took over in the saddle. 

The Sporting Chronicle’s Racing-up-to-Date form book played safe regarding his initial in both of his wins by showing him merely as ‘Silvester’. 

His final ride over jumps was on Pocket Money, unplaced in the Somerset Handicap Hurdle at Wincanton on December 27, 1945. From thereon, all trace is lost until he remerged with a Flat licence in 1962, riding for Epsom trainer Sid Dale. He made his comeback at Wolverhampton on May 14, finishing unplaced on Lilith in a mile-and-a-half maiden, then came seventh of 16 runners on Sun Joker at Lewes on May 28 (listed in results as ‘A. Silvester’ on both occasions).

Following the aforementioned mount on Lilith at Birmingham (as ‘W. Silvester’) he appears to have had just one more ride, when seventh of eight on Sun Joker (as ‘A. Silvester again) at Yarmouth on June 28. He relinquished his licence in August. 

So was he known as William (or Bill), Allen or Jack? I know not but I’ll settle for William, or maybe Bill. Perhaps someone out there in Jockeypedialand can tell us.