Redvers Weaver

Redvers Weaver

Article by Chris Pitt

National Hunt jockey Redvers Herbert John Weaver, generally known as Red Weaver, was

born on July 26, 1943 and served his apprenticeship with Frank Cundell at Aston Tirrold, near Didcot, in Berkshire.

He took out jump jockey’s licence in 1964 but had to wait a while for his first winner, on the Derek Leslie-trained High Return in the BBC-televised Denstone Selling Handicap Hurdle at Uttoxeter on Saturday, March 19, 1966, called home by none other than Peter O’Sullevan.

Red had double cause for celebration, for later that same year he married Mary Funnell, who would give him two sons, William Redvers and Thomas John. They lived at Lambourn House, Houghton on the Hill, Leicestershire.

High Return was his sole success of that 1965/66 season and he failed to register another in 66/67, but bounced back with five in 67/68, including selling hurdler Devon Crown at Ludlow in March and a pair of handicap chase victories on Esquire at Nottingham in May and Southwell in June for Kettering-based owner-trainer Geordie Wallace.

His most successful season was in 1968/69 with 11 winners. Devon Crown got him off to a good start when winning at Huntingdon on September 2; Esquire won at Fakenham, handicap hurdler Sylvan Prince won at Warwick in September and again at Doncaster in October, the latter victory being Red’s tenth and resulting in his claim being cut to 5lb. Devon Piper won the first division of the St Ivo Novices’ Hurdle at Huntingdon on Boxing Day, and there was further bank holiday success with doubles at Towcester on Easter Monday (the second leg being a ‘spare’ for Fred Winter no less) and at Huntingdon on Whit Monday.

The 69/70 campaign yielded eight winners, including Sylvan Prince at Nottingham in October, these being supplemented by Red’s one winner on the Flat. Weight severely restricted his opportunities and he had just five rides in his sole season riding on the level but they included the Johnny Kenneally-trained Sestrel, who won at Redcar on July 28, 1970.

He managed only one winner during the whole of the 1970/71 campaign, this being on selling hurdler Kilcreggan, owned and trained by Major Tony Gilks, at Huntingdon in October. It was a similarly bleak picture in 1971/72, with just two victories coming his way before he suffered a bad fall from a horse named Royal Twister at Uttoxeter on May 11, 1972. He broke a shoulder and sustained damaged nerves which required six months at a London rehabilitation centre and he was forced to miss the whole of the following season.

He returned to action at Fakenham on September 15, 1973, finishing third on Geordie Wallace’s selling hurdler Galadon. That season saw Red forge a fruitful partnership with Market Deeping trainer George Vergette, for whom he rode his comeback winner on novice hurdler Iledoit Miway at Nottingham on December 10, 1973. He won twice more on Iledoit Miway, at Leicester in February and Huntingdon in March. He also won twice on Vergette’s useful handicap hurdler Honest Lawyer, at Towcester in January and Leicester in February, while Geordie Wallace supplied Red with another winner in maiden chaser Khalina at Nottingham in March.

But the horse for which he is best remembered that season – and the best he rode – was George Vergette’s juvenile hurdler Ashendene. Originally trained by Tom Jones, Ashendene had won all his three starts under David Mould before Red took over and won on him at Doncaster in November 1973. He then gave Red the two biggest victories of his career when winning the Daily Express Triumph Hurdle Trial at Cheltenham on December 8 and Newbury’s Challow Hurdle on December 28. It looked for all the world as though they had a genuine, unbeaten, Triumph Hurdle candidate on their hands but, sadly, Ashendene was ruled out for the remainder of the season through injury and was never quite as good again.

Red managed five winners the following season but only two the next, those last pair coming on Hugh O’Neill’s novice chaser The Dene at Cheltenham on December 5, 1975 and Peter Bevan’s selling hurdler Bou Candy at Worcester on March 25, 1976. He handed in his licence at the end of that season.

After he gave up riding he trained point-to-pointers but in October 1987 he took out a trainer’s licence, based at Ulverscroft Cottage Farm, near Markfield, in Leicestershire, with a string of seven horses. The operation got off to the worst possible start when his first runner as a trainer, Coke’s Nephew, broke a leg at Worcester in November.

However, his fourth runner, 50-1 shot Neltama, changed his luck by giving him his first training success when beating 7-2 favourite Invasion by a length in the Charnwood Novices’ Hurdle at Nottingham on February 15, 1988. Neltama was a half-brother to 1982 Grand National hero Grittar and carried the same colours of his owner-breeder Frank Gilman. He was also a first winner for his jockey, 19-year-old Jamie Burton, who up to then had had 30 rides without troubling the judge. Burton was a conditional attached to Peter Bevan, who had provided Red with his last winner as a jockey. Sadly, that was Red’s sole training success of the season and he had the misfortune to lose another horse at Fakenham on Easter Monday.

Red’s string doubled in size to 14 the following year and remained at that level until 1992, when he moved to Green Meadow Stables, Clifton-on-Dunsmore, close to the former Rugby racecourse which now stages the Atherstone Hunt’s annual point-to-point. The size of his string had increased further to 19 by 1993, yet, for whatever reason, that was also the last year in which his name appeared among the list of trainers in ‘Horses in Training’ annual.