Everything tagged: Jockey

According to "Empire Made Me" by Robert Bickers, George Matcham left the Shanghai Metropolitan Police in 1922 to work at the Hong Kong stables . He was one of the jockeys who rode for my grandfather, Charles Warren and in particular came a close second with the pony Mosaic Tile in the Gymkhana Stakes at the Special Race Meeting for the Prince of Wales on 7 April 1922, leaving the rest of the field five lengths behind. He is named as attending my grandfather's funeral in June 1923.

Son of the Macanese businessman Adao Maria de Lourdes Soares, F.M.L. Soares joined the family firm of Soares & Co. but was perhaps best known as a popular young jockey in the 1920s. I have no idea if he is the same Soares, mentioned in R.E. Jones’s war diary of 15 January 1944 as possibly having been executed. I don’t think he is the same as “Ginger” Soares, who was a lawyer. F.M.L. Soares figures in my family history as the jockey who rode the first winner belonging to my grandfather (racing name “Mr Towers”) and in fact the first China pony that my grandfather owned.