Larry Walthew

Article by Chris Pitt

Journeyman National Hunt jockey Lawrence Frederick Walthew was born on February 15, 1940. He rode a total of 18 winners in a seven-year career between 1960 and 1967.

He was stable jockey to Len Coville, who trained initially at Brize Norton and later at Steeple Aston, Oxfordshire. Essentially a farmer and bloodstock breeder, Coville had been a successful point-to-point rider in his day, riding his first winner aged 15 and his last aged 46. He was originally a permit holder, achieving his biggest win with Dark Stranger in the 1954 Liverpool Foxhunters’ Chase, but had taken out a full trainer’s licence in 1961.

Larry was based with Coville from the outset and rode his first winner on his selling hurdler Anamola at Worcester on March 25, 1961. He then rode two more over the Easter period and another on Whit Monday, giving him four winners in his first season.

Anamola got him off to a flying start for the 1961/62 campaign by winning at Newton Abbot in the first week of August. Coville’s chaser Boetien won at Warwick in December and January, as did his selling hurdler Shrimp’s Last at Stratford in February. But potentially the best of Coville’s string was Domacile, on whom Larry won a Towcester novices’ chase on Easter Monday 1962. Bill Denson’s novice hurdler Vintner provided a winning spare ride at Towcester over Whitsun, enabling him to end the season with a score of seven.

Larry rode Domacile three times in the early weeks of the 1962/63 season but missed out on the opportunity to ride him over the Grand National fences in the 1962 Molyneux Chase at Liverpool. Pat Taaffe was given the mount and duly brought Domacile home in front. Such a high-profile victory could well have been pivotal in elevating Larry’s career to a new level, but instead he had to endure one of the severest winters on record and wait until Easter Monday before his next winner, gained on Rosemary Lockhart-Smith’s staying hurdler Sartorius at Towcester. Anamola’s victory at Newton Abbot in May provided some relief to an otherwise disappointing season.

Sadly, matters did not improve. Having drawn a blank in 1963/64, Larry joined trainer Edward Champneys at Upper Lambourn. He rode just one winner in each of the next two seasons, both trained by Champneys, the second of them being the veteran grey chaser Wingless, who’d run in the 1963 Grand National.

He rode two more in what was to be his final season as a jockey: Berkeley III, trained by permit holder Harry Bennion near King’s Lynn, won the Spencer Draper Cup Chase at Market Rasen in November 1966 and then won at Wetherby the next month. He had his last ride on Bennion’s novice chaser Mangaroo at Market Rasen on April 15, 1967, finishing fourth.

Larry Walthew’s winners were, in chronological order:

1. Anamola, Worcester, March 25, 1961

2. Coffee Bridge, Towcester, April 3, 1961

3. Beotien, Uttoxeter, April 4, 1961

4. Legal Art, Towcester, May 22, 1961

5. Anamola, Newton Abbot, August 7, 1961

6. Beotien, Warwick, December 16, 1961

7. Beotien (above) Warwick, January 29, 1962

8. Goodheart Green, Stratford-on-Avon, February 3, 1962

9. Shrimp’s Last, Stratford-on-Avon, February 24, 1962

10. Domacile, Towcester, April 21, 1962

11. Vintner, Towcester, June 9, 1962

12. Shrimp’s Last, Woore, October 4, 1962

13. Sartorius, Towcester, April 15, 1963

14. Anamola, Newton Abbot, May 24, 1963

15. Noble Billy, Plumpton, March 24, 1965

16. Wingless, Kempton, November 24, 1965

17. Berkeley III, Market Rasen, November 12, 1966

18. Berkeley III, Wetherby, December 7, 1966