James Ward

1906 -1977

Born on September 14, 1906, National Hunt jockey James Leo Ward rode 150 winners during his career including the Cotswold Chase (now the Arkle Challenge Trophy) at Cheltenham’s National Hunt Meeting.

He made an unpromising start to his race-riding career with a fall from Arrobar in the Small Heath Selling Handicap Hurdle at Birmingham on February 12, 1923. More than 18 months passed before he rode his first winner, Edna’s Choice in the Hockerton Selling Handicap Hurdle at Southwell on September 1, 1924.

He achieved his biggest success when guiding Jack Grange to victory for trainer Max Barthropp in the 1935 Cotswold Chase.

Numerically, however, his best season was in 1935/36 with a score of 26, placing him joint seventh in the National Hunt jockeys’ table. His wins that season included a four-timer at Perth and a treble at Manchester.

His Perth four-timer, on September 25, 1935, comprised Sydney in the St Johnstone Selling Handicap Chase, Second Act in the Tay Handicap Hurdle, Ollie in the Scone Maiden Hurdle, and Down South in the Fair Maid’s Chase, all of them trained by Max Barthropp. Barthropp actually saddled five winners on that day’s Perth card, for he also won the Colonel John McKie Memorial Challenge Cup Handicap Hurdle with Jack Grange, ridden on that occasion by Alec Marsh, who was completing a double, having won the Perthshire Handicap Chase on Hundy Mundy for Grantshouse trainer Stewart Wight.

Ward’s Manchester treble, on October 30, 1935, began with Announcer in the opening three-mile Test Handicap Chase. He then won the day’s last two races: the Pendle Novices’ Chase on Troutford and the Toto (3yo) Hurdle on Peter The Great.

Ward had just one ride in the Grand National, that being on 33-1 chance Perfect Part in 1939, their race ending with a fall at the eleventh fence.

He rode the last of his 150 winners on April 29, 1940m aboard a horse named Brown Bread in a massive 31-runner field for the Averham Selling Handicap Chase at Southwell, the place where he’d ridden his first winner 16 years earlier. His final ride ended the same way as his first, with a fall from Red World in division two of the Elvaston Chase at Nottingham on February 9, 1946.

Although retired from race-riding, Ward continued to school horses until suffering a bad fall. In April 1961 he was awarded £3,152 damages with costs for injuries received when a horse he had been instructed to school at Gosforth Park fell at a jump. The horse had to be destroyed and Ward was badly hurt. He stated that he had lost his nerve to ride and was now doing light work in a dairy products factory.

James Ward died on May 9, 1977, aged 70.