Alan Watlow

1943 - 1997

Article by Chris Pitt

Apprentice Alan Watlow rode 28 winners in Britain including a couple of big handicaps – the Ayrshire Handicap and the W.D. & H.O. Wills Gold Trophy – and was placed in several others, including the Portland and the Great St Wilfrid. However, the fastest horse he rode was the sprinter Lucasland, who went on to win the July Cup.

Alan John Thomas Watlow was born on December 23, 1943 and served his apprenticeship with Staff Ingham at Epsom. He took out an apprentice’s licence in 1960 but had to wait a while before riding his first winner on Ingham’s colt Fez in a two-year-old maiden plate at Lingfield on October 9, 1963. As if to make up for lost time, his next three followed within the space of ten days, including a dead-heat on the Alec Kerr-trained Cheveley Lad at Kempton.

In 1964 he rode another four winners and twice came close to achieving big handicap victories, just losing Newmarket’s Totalisator Spring Handicap on Nahum, on whom he was obliged to put up 3lb overweight at 7st 8lb, thus giving weight to the useful Smartie, who beat Nahum by three-quarters of a length; and again when third in the Portland Handicap on High Sun, beaten a short head and half a length by Comefast (Edward Hide) and High Flying (Jimmy Lindley). He did, though, manage to win a decent £1,000 handicap on Nahum at Epsom on Oaks day, June 5.

He really began to get noticed in 1965, when he rode nine winners, beginning with Lucasland for Newmarket trainer Jack Waugh in a five-furlong apprentices’ handicap at Alexandra Park, a photo of which appeared on the front page of the following day’s Sporting Life (above). He then won on Cheveley Lad at Sandown the very next day and added another on Kitty’s Grey for Epsom trainer Ken Gethin five days after that.

He came close to landing another big handicap on High Sun, this time being beaten a head by Monkey Palm, ridden by 3lb claimer Willie Carson, in Ripon’s Great St Wilfrid Handicap. But the highlight of his season was when winning the £3,000 Ayrshire Handicap at Ayr’s Western Meeting on September 16, 1965 aboard Towser Gosden’s old stager Damredub. He also won on Gosden’s Blazing Flight at Lingfield in October.

Alan got off to a flying start in 1966 with an Easter Monday double at Wolverhampton, landing the Midland Spring Handicap on Dave Hanley’s Ward Drill and the Easter Sprint Handicap on Jack Waugh’s Lucasland, who subsequently won that year’s July Cup, partnered by Eric Eldin. Richmond Sturdy’s two-year-old Red Hot Pirate gave Alan a 20/1 surprise winner when scoring by a neck on his racecourse debut at Warwick in May. He finished second on Noirmont Buoy in that year’s ‘Apprentice Derby’, the Steve Donoghue Apprentice Handicap at Epsom, beaten half a length by David Maitland on Leadendale Lady.

Alan completed his apprenticeship in December 1966 and thereafter rode for John Benstead, who provided all of his four winners in 1967, beginning on July 1 with the most valuable success of his career on Benstead’s colt Ginger Boy in the W.D. & H.O. Wills Gold Trophy Handicap at Lingfield. The last of those four winners – what turned out to be the final one of Alan’s career in Britain – was on Rightwood in a three and four-year-old selling handicap at Nottingham on October 2, 1967.

From 1968 to 1970 he rode in Mauritius where he did very well. He came back to ride in Britain in 1971 but failed to ride a winner, eventually relinquishing his licence in October 1972. He made one more unsuccessful comeback attempt in 1977 before hanging up his riding boots and saddle for good. He worked as a stable lad cum work rider with Staff Ingham’s son Tony Ingham at Epsom until 1979 when he left the racing industry.

Alan Watlow died in January 1997, aged 53.