Jeff Nutley

Article by Chris Pitt

Dual-purpose gelding Penisola, owned and trained by former champion jumps jockey Bryan Marshall at Lambourn, was a fairly moderate performer yet he can claim three places in racing history. He won the last race run under National Hunt Rules at Birmingham, on May 21, 1965, and then won the penultimate race on Birmingham’s final Flat card, on June 21, 1965.

The following season he made an indelible mark in the career of a young jockey named Jeff Nutley when giving him his first winning ride, at Huntingdon on Whit Monday 1966.

Born on April 15, 1947, Jeff Nutley had been apprenticed to Bryan Marshall for three and a half years from June 1961. He’d stayed with Marshall after his apprenticeship had ended and been rewarded for his loyalty, not just with that first win on Penisola but with others, including three more on Penisola, over the next three seasons. He also struck up a good partnership with Pike’s Fancy, owned and trained by Mostyn Lawrence at Llandevaud, near Newport in Monmouthshire, landing three handicap hurdles at Worcester, Warwick and Cheltenham during the 1966/67 season.

Bryan Marshall’s selling chaser Raphael and selling hurdler Mendelssohn both won with Jeff on board in the 1967/68 campaign, as did Penisola. Another old friend, Pike’s Fancy, was his sole success of 1968/69, with his final winner coming courtesy of the Sid Dale-trained Cash in a novice riders’ hurdle at Plumpton on September 1, 1969.

After quitting the saddle he ran a successful coach firm.

Jeff Nutley rode a total of 14 winners. These were, in chronological order:

1. Penisola, Huntingdon, May 30, 1966

2. Argeles, Wincanton, September 29, 1966

3. Pike’s Fancy, Worcester, October 5, 1966

4. Pike’s Fancy, Warwick, November 5, 1966

5. Pike’s Fancy, Cheltenham, November 11, 1966

6. Penisola, Ludlow, November 16, 1966

7. Penisola, Huntingdon, May 29, 1967

8. Raphael, Devon & Exeter, September 7, 1967

9. Mendelssohn, Newton Abbot, September 15, 1967

10. Colomyth, Wincanton, September 21, 1967

11. Penisola, Wolverhampton, March 13, 1968

12. Raphael, Sandown Park, April 3, 1968

13. Pike’s Fancy, Chepstow, October 12, 1968

14. Cash Plumpton, September 1, 1969