The name of Charles Cedric Town will not resonate with the vast majority of Jockeypedia followers. There’s no real reason why it should, for he rode just two winners, one on the Flat, one over jumps, from a mere handful of rides.
He was apprenticed to Bob Colling at West Ilsley and rode his first winner on Panche Calyan in the one-mile Brandon Apprentice Plate, the first race of the opening day of Newmarket s Craven Meeting, Tuesday, April 15, 1958. Despite that success, he had only one more ride the whole of that season, again on Panche Calyan, when finishing second, beaten a length and a half at Chepstow on June 28.
Panche Calyan, foaled in 1954, won a total of 13 races under Jockey Club Rules. What made him particularly interesting, however, was that he was born with five legs. He had a scar where the small ‘freak’ leg had been removed. His name is Hindu for ‘five wonderful things’.
Rising weight saw Charlie turn to National Hunt racing in 1962 and he joined two-horse permit holder John Duffy, who trained at Winton, near Bournemouth. He had four rides for Duffy in the spring of 1962, including two on one day at Hereford on Whit Monday, finishing fifth on selling hurdler Powlacurra and being unseated from novice hurdler Nocide.
He enjoyed his sole success over jumps when Powlacurra won the Selling Handicap Hurdle at
Hereford on November 1, 1962. That was the last of just five mounts he had that season, four of them on Powlacurra – including when finishing third at Newton Abbot in September – and one on Nocide.
He’d had to put up 3lb overweight to ride at 9st 13lb when winning on Powlacurra, so perhaps it was weight issues that led to him relinquishing his licence at the end of that season. He made a brief return in 1965/66 but failed to ride another winner.