It’s well-known in footballing circles and sport in general that Teddy Sheringham named his house Camp Nou after the Barcelona stadium where he helped Manchester United win the European Cup in 1999.

What is not quite so well-known is that one-time jockey Pete Jones named his house after the first ever winner he rode in National Hunt Racing while his ex-jockey father Davy lived at a house in Cheltenham called Ridgeway, which was also named after his first ever winner.

Pete Jones, now 77, lives at Rising Bell just outside Winchcombe with his wife Pam – the second house that he has lived in with that name.

He is part of a very impressive racing family – one that is still very much involved with the sport today – and you won’t be surprised to learn that Pete can remember Rising Bell’s win as if it were yesterday.

“It was at Fontwell Park on November 9th 1960,” he said without a moment’s hesitation. “It was a hurdle race and I was riding for Bill Marshall. We went round twice for two miles. It was quite soft ground, not heavy, and going to the last I had a good idea I was going to win.

“I made sure he jumped the last and he stayed on. He wasn’t the quickest but he was quick enough that day! I’ve still got the racecard from that meeting.”

That was the first of 200 winners that Pete rode in a 16-year riding career which ended in the mid-70s.

A life in racing, while by no means a dead cert, was always likely for Pete and his younger brother Thomas – known in the sport as Buck – because their dad Davy, who was widely referred to as DL Jones, was something of a trailblazer back in the day.
Born in 1907 in Llanelli, Davy’s interest in horses was sparked at an early age through the shire horses that were kept by his father, who was a haulier.

It was an interest that never left him and he became a very good jockey both over jumps and on the Flat.

He rode his first winner in the mid-1920s – the aforementioned Ridgeway – won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1945, was one of the few jockeys to ride in both the Grand National and the Derby, and was still riding winners well into his 60s, including the Kenya Derby in 1970 when he was 63.

Davy spent a lot of time abroad and rode winners all over the world. And it was that love of travel plus his love of racing that encouraged him to set up a school for young jockeys in Nairobi when he retired from riding.

He later returned to Cheltenham and after his death in 1992, his ashes were scattered by his family at the three-mile start gate at Cheltenham Racecourse.

A proud Welshman, Davy moved to Cheltenham in 1925 where he rode for trainer Ben Roberts in Mill Lane, Prestbury, and Pete, who was born 15 years later at Sunnyside Nursing Home in Pittville, has vivid memories of those very early days.

“I was born into a racing life and we had ponies when we were growing up,” he said. “I remember when I was four I had this one pony and he was a little monkey, he was very difficult to control. He’d only let me catch him but there was the one day after I’d caught him that father came out and the pony ran.

“I didn’t let go and he threw me over. I let go then of course and then I got told off for letting him go!”

It was a tough learning school, but Pete has many happy memories of his childhood, not least when his dad won the Gold Cup at Cheltenham in March 1945.

“Yes, I was there with Buck,” enthused Pete. “I was four-and-a-half but I can remember it all. My mum was there – everyone knew her as Nancy – and I can even remember where I was standing in the members’ stand. It’s not there now, it’s just a flat area.

“My father was riding Lord Stalbridge’s Red Rower and I knew he was going to win when he jumped the last.”

Dad didn’t disappoint, of course, and he was a regular in the winner’s enclosure over the succeeding years.

“He rode a lot of winners when my brother and I were around 10 or 12,” said Peter. “We used to go racing with him a lot – Birmingham, Newbury, Warwick. By then he was riding on the Flat, he’d have been 30-something.

And he was just as successful on the Flat – he rode in the Derby three times – as he was over jumps.

“He was a very good jockey,” said Pete. “He was also very brave. Because he’d been a jumps jockey, he wasn’t timid like some of the Flat jockeys.

“I remember the old man telling me a story about the northern jockey Edward Hide who had a spare ride. He asked my dad what he thought about the horse and he replied, ‘Sonny boy, go into the paddock. It’s got a saddle and a bridle, it can’t be that bad!’”

Some of the stories about Davy, quite apart from all the wins, are the stuff of legend.

His grandson Steve, who works as a tipster and racing writer for The Sun newspaper, said: “If he was coming through horses at the finish he’d scream like a stallion.

“Kieren Fallon used to do something similar. He used to whistle and they used to call it whistling death because Fallon was coming through.”

Clearly Davy was a leader in so many ways and he certainly knew his worth in a sport that has always been popular with the rich and famous.

“While all the other jockeys used to read the Sporting Life, he’d be checking his shares in the Financial Times,” laughed Steve.

“I’ve got some letters at home that he exchanged many years ago with the racing manager of the Rothschild family.

“The first letter started ‘Dear Jones’ – in those days jockeys were very much the servants – ‘We’ve been impressed with your riding. We want to offer you a retainer for next season for £500 plus four per cent’.

“That was a huge amount in those days but my grandfather said it wasn’t enough and he wanted more!

“So he got another letter, ‘Dear Jones, we’ll offer you £550 plus five per cent’.

“That still wasn’t enough for my grandfather so he got a third letter from the racing manager which said, ‘Dear Jones, I’m fed up hearing what you want and don’t want. If you are interested, contact Mr Rothschild himself!’”

Clearly Davy wasn’t afraid to stand up for himself even though he was on the small side even for jockeys. That’s what made his Gold Cup success in 1945 all the more impressive because he was carrying three stone of dead weight.

“He was about 5ft 4in,” added Pete. “We used to have an old electric sweatbox at home and if he needed to he could do 7st 13lb. Mind you, he would be in a terrible mood!”

That is the unseen side of racing that a good number of people know little about of course, but although Pete and Buck were very aware of the sacrifices that were required, neither were put off from going into the sport.

In fact it was Buck, even though he is two years younger than Pete, who got involved in racing first.

“My brother asked my father to get him a job at Newmarket in the summer holidays,” recalled Pete. “He was 14 at the time and he went to Sam Armstrong’s. My dad told him to take plenty of sweaters because it was cold in winter. He never came home again!

“I stayed on at Cheltenham Grammar School and did my GCSEs – I got four. I also did a year at sixth form because I fancied being a veterinary surgeon but I didn’t work hard enough and wasn’t intelligent enough!”

But he had contacts in the racing game and he spoke to Hector Smith who was based at Snowshill and for whom his dad used to ride. He put him in touch with Bill Marshall on Cleeve Hill who took on young Pete when he was 16. And Pete rode for him for seven years before going freelance for the second half of his career.

Pete’s first ever ride under Rules was at Newton Abbot in August 1958 on a horse called Chusan.

“He belonged to a bookmaker and I was told whatever happened not to finish in the top four,” said Pete, “I came fifth or sixth. It was a hurdle race and I remember I was just happy to get round.

“I couldn’t believe how fast the horses ran in a race.”

Two years later – one day before his 20th birthday – he was in the winner’s enclosure for the first time, so did he go out and celebrate that night after his win at Fontwell?

“I got in the box with the box driver and drove back to Cheltenham which took us four-and-a-half hours,” he said. “There were no motorways or dual carriageways in those days!”

But there was one nice little bonus for Pete.

“The governor, the assistant trainer and myself drove out to Tenbury Wells to see Bill Palmer, the owner of Rising Bell, and he gave me an extra £20,” Pete said.

“That was a lot of money. In those days we’d get five guineas for a ride and seven guineas if we rode a winner. I’d usually ride about eight or 10 horses a week so I made a living.

“We used to earn more than the footballers!”

Life was very different back then of course and even though they were making a tidy living, it certainly wasn’t possible for jockeys to have all the bookings that the top riders enjoy today.

“But we had lots of fun, it wasn’t as serious as it is now,” added Pete, who rode for the likes of Chris Taylor, who was based in Bishop’s Cleeve, Alec Kirkpatrick and Michael Scudamore among others once he went freelance.

The Scudamore name is one of the most famous in jumps racing, of course, and Pete was a key player in helping to get his training career started in those early days.

“I rode his first ever winner,” he explained. “It was in Norway. He also trained Fortina’s Palace who I rode to win the Grand Annual at Cheltenham in March 1970.”

That was the biggest win of Pete’s career and he said: “I remember the end of the race. I jumped the last upsides Josh Gifford.

“On the run-in he was pushing me over. It was a photo-finish and if I hadn’t have won I’d have objected.”

Pete had other winners at Cheltenham as well, riding Charles Dickens to victory for Kirkpatrick and steering Barney Beetle and Wood Spirit to success for Chris Taylor in an April meeting.

He also rode four times in the National and got round twice with a best-placed finish of fifth on Fred Pontin’s Pontin-Go.

And he also has special reason to remember a winner at Ascot, because he was riding for his brother Buck.

Buck, who was a decent jockey himself having ridden Invader to victory in the Imperial Cup at Sandown, had set up a training base just outside Guildford.

“I was still riding but he’d got a trainer’s licence and he was quite successful with his jumpers,” said Pete.

So were there any special family celebrations?

“I got a present out of it which was nice,” said Pete. “But in those days jockeys were jockeys and trainers were trainers, there was none of the hugging and kissing that they do today!”

After retiring, Pete worked for a short period at Lingfield Racecourse before becoming a postman, a job he did for 20 years before retiring in 2005.

“I used to deliver to David Nicholson at Jackdaws Castle and Jonjo O’Neill when he was there,” chuckled Pete.

And Pete, who was one of the founding fathers of the Professional Jockeys Association along with the likes of Michael Scudamore, Stan Mellor and Terry Biddlecombe – “We set it up in The George in Winchcombe,” he said – still keeps an eye on all things racing today and was at the recent Cheltenham Festival for three of the four days.

“They used to just call it the March meeting,” he chuckled.

He also keeps in touch with the sport through his son Steve, who is better known as ‘Templegate’ at The Sun.

So does dad follow his son’s tips?

“No,” he laughed. “I’ve seen enough racing to realise that it’s the bookmakers who go home in the big cars... the punters walk!”

No substitute for experience, of course, and Pete is very well qualified to answer the next question as well.

Who was the best jockey out of him, his dad and his brother?

“Whoever was on the fastest horse,” came the quick reply.

Good answer, sir, and you wouldn’t expect anything else from someone who was a very good jockey and is part of a very impressive racing family.