Ernest Young

Ernest Young

Article by Alan Trout

After riding three winners on the Flat as an apprentice, Ernest Edmund Young had some success over jumps with five victories in his first full season. After a few blank years he returned to add seven more. 

Apprenticed to Captain John Morris, he had his first ride at Doncaster on Mauy 25, 1928, when Moral finished fifth of eight runners in the Milton Maiden Apprentice Plate. It was to be well over a year before his first victory, which came at Windsor on November 8, 1929, when the three-year-old Reverentia, trained by Captain Moore, was an easy winner of the Apprentices’ Plate, coasting home 20 lengths in front of Golden Gauntlet. 

The next win was much more hard earned, for at Wolverhampton on June 10, 1930, another three-year-old, Acharn, just managed to land the Stanton Selling Handicap Plate, beating a pair of dead-heaters, one of whom was Gordon Richards on 7/4 favourite Grand Minister, by a neck. 

His final success on the Flat was when Fearnan, despite carrying 2lb overweight, proved too good for White Blossom at the end of the Roodeye Maiden Handicap at Chester on May 5, 1931, although the runner-up had the considerable services of Gordon Richards. 

Although Ernest rode occasionally on the Flat after losing his apprentice allowance, he now concentrated on riding over jumps, having his first outing when finishing third on Kiang in the Gopsall Maiden Hurdle at Leicester on January 9, 1932. 

He rode his first winner under National Hunt rules at Lingfield Park on January 12, 1933, when the six-year-old Taos just got the better of as dual with Manbo to land the Tandridge Court Maiden Hurdle. The following day he travelled to Windsor for a much more comfortable victory when Dodabetta beat nine rivals to claim the Clarence Hurdle by ten lengths. Both winners were trained by former top hurdles jockey George Duller, and Ernest had three more in the next few weeks. 

However, his career then stalled. He rode no winners in the next two seasons and did not appear at all in the two after that. He then returned in November 1937 and in the following March again had two winners in two days at two different courses. He rode five winners altogether during that 1937/38 campaign, all of them trained by Tommy Rayson.