Well respected Northern rider John Lowe died earlier this week after a stroke at his home in Australia. He was 75, and had emigrated to Perth 2 years ago to be nearer his family.
In a career with racehorses spanning 60 years, Lowe rode over 2,000 winners, and re-invented himself after his riding career ended as a race reader for the Press Association, and work rider for Roger Varian. Horses were in his blood, but not necessarily his breeding.
The diminutive Lowe was born in Liverpool in October 1950 to a docker father, but his size ensured that a racing career was on the cards. At 16, he was apprenticed to Jack Watts in Newmarket, and subsequently to son Bill in Richmond.
Success was far from instant; he rode a first winner – Pally’s Double – in the Great Jubilee Handicap at Kempton in May 1968, a full two years after his apprenticeship had started. The Jubilee Course was a dogleg on the turf course at Kempton that fell out of use with the advent of the all-weather course. But Lowe was predominantly known for his Northern connections. He was crowned Cock O’ the North, the accolade given to the leading rider at Northern tracks, in 1984, with 57 winners, an indication of the competitive nature of northern racing, given championship leader Steve Cauthen scored 130 that year.
1,138 winners in the UK across 33 seasons stand testament to his durability. A single Group I success came aboard Goodbye Shelley in the Prix Marcel Boussac in 1982, and he also landed a Gimcrack on Full Extent for Steve Norton in 1981and a Doncaster Cup the same year for Jeremy Hindley. Able to do the low weights, handicap successes included the Cambridgeshire on Leysh in 1984 again for Steve Norton, and Mellottie 7 years later for Mary Reveley; the Ayr Gold Cup on Sparkling Boy for Paul Kellaway in 1980 and Final Shot for Peter Easterby 10 years later; the Lincoln on K-Battery in 1986 for Bill Elsey, and four winners at Royal Ascot, among them a remarkable Ascot Stakes and Queen Alexandra Stakes double on Mountain Cross in the same week in 1978 for Bill Watts. As the list of scalps indicates, he was the go-to rider for Northern trainers.
International success made up a large part of his racing success, not necessarily in Europe, where his peers – Cauthen, Eddery, Carson and Piggott – would spend their Sundays. For Lowe, this was over-wintering in India, a destination for British & Irish riders in the eighties before the advent of the All-Weather programme here.
He retired from race-riding in 1984, and took up a role a sa race reader for the Press Association, who at that time sent representatives to each fixture, combining this with work riding for Henry Cecil and later William Haggas where the clock in his head proved invaluable in the assessment of his mounts. That in turn led to a happy 9 years riding out for Roger Varian, who reported, “He kept abreast of what was happening over here and would always offer his congratulations if we had a big winner.”.
But it was family that took him away from the horses, and to the other side of the world. Daughter Verity lives in Perth, and Lowe and wife Gale departed two years ago to enjoy time with their two grandchildren. He’d recently undergone a knee operation, and suffered a stroke whilst gardening at his home in Perth.
Fellow riders speak of the ultimate professional, yet a chipper type with a dry sense of humour, and a keen sense of timing. That was reflected in his race record, where he could read the clock very well, but also, apparently in his driving! He could time a journey between changing rooms to the minute, a key asset in an era when riding at two meetings a day was the norm.
John, Ripon and the northern racing community salute you.
