Oswald Wilkinson
1930 - 2015
National Hunt jockey Oswald ‘Boots’ Wilkinson was born on October 25, 1930. His career spanned the 1950s, during which he rode a total of 16 winners.
He served his apprenticeship with Walter Earl on the Flat before turning his attentions to the jumping game. He rode his first winner (left) on King of Devon for trainer George Archibald in a Huntingdon selling hurdle on October 20, 1951. On Boxing Day that year he achieved his first success over fences, on novice chaser Burnt Festival at Market Rasen. He finished the season with a score of five.
Having failed to ride a winner the following season, he moved north and was rewarded with six winners during the 1953/54 campaign.
They included three in a row on Tommy Robson’s six-year-old Narval,
(right) comprising a brace of Ayr handicap hurdles and a Carlisle novice chase. He also won two late season handicap hurdles on Robson’s gelding Cockbridge.
Novice hurdler Thinice gave ‘Boots’ his first two winners of the 1954/55 season. He then returned south and rode for Roxwell, Essex trainer Ken Bailey. He rode the 15th winner of his career on Polynesian at West
Norfolk Hunt’s (now Fakenham) Easter Monday fixture in 1955, thereby losing his right to claim – there was no 3lb allowance in operation at that time – meaning he would be competing on level terms with the top riders.
He rode what would prove to be his final winner on Bailey’s hurdler Prince Arthur at Stratford-on-Avon on April 30, 1955. He continued for a couple more seasons without further success, relinquished his licence, then renewed it again for the 1958/59 campaign before ‘Boots’ hung up his boots for good.
Oswald passed peacefully away in York Hospital on April 7, 2015.
He was 84. He left a wife, Brenda, and two sons, Ryan and Dean.
Oswald Wilkinson’s winners were, in chronological order:
1. King of Devon, Huntingdon, October 20, 1951
2. Burnt Festival, Market Rasen, December 26, 1951
3. Bronzino, Uttoxeter, April 12, 1952
4. Four Elms, Huntingdon, April 14, 1952
5. Bronzino, Uttoxeter, May 31, 1952
6. Dusty Path, Newcastle, November 16, 1953
7. Narval, Ayr, March 20, 1954
8. Narval, Ayr, April 3, 1954
9. Narval, Carlisle, April 17, 1954
10. Cockbridge, Sedgefield, May 15, 1954
11. Cockbridge, Cartmel, June 7, 1954
12. Thinice, Newcastle, October 30, 1954
13. Thinice, Catterick Bridge, November 6, 1954
14. Dennis O’Dare, Manchester, January 28, 1955
15. Polynesian, West Norfolk Hunt (Fakenham) April 11, 1955
16. Prince Arthur, Stratford-on-Avon, April 30, 1955