Racing today mourned the loss of Malton-born Tony Ives, who died of undisclosed causes over the weekend at the age of 74. The Yorkshireman had been living in Thailand for some time.

Ives enjoyed a distinguished career riding more than 1,000 winners in the UK during the eighties and nineties before heading to the Orient to pursue a career there where he doubled that tally. In an era dominated by greats like Lester Piggott, Pat Eddery, Steve  Cauthen and Willie Carson, Ives carved out a successful niche for himself, and remains the only apprentice rider to have got into the frame in the Derby when riding for Reg Hollinshead, a renowned master at bringing on young jockey talent.

But his racing career began with another archetypal Yorkshireman, Arthur Stephenson, as versatile over jumps as on the flat. Indeed Ives was bred for the job, his father having trained successfully in the Netherlands, where racing is nevertheless pretty limited. A first winner came in 1970 at Hamilton, on a horse named Moorcroft, the start of a career that would see him regularly in the top 10 in the British Jockeys’ Championship.

British classic success eluded him. Then, as now, the best bloodlines were concentrated in few hands, mostly Arab as a gargantuan struggle for supremacy occurred between Sheikh Mohammed in the pre-Godolphin era and Robert Sangster. The Coolmore supremacy was yet to get going. The best most riders could hope for was to win some peripheral group contests and the major handicaps, and this Ives did to great success.

The eighties were a golden era for the Yorkshireman, winning York’s Magnet Cup three times with the game Chaumiere in 1985 and the following year for Robert Williams,  then Icona in 1989 for Michael Stoute. After the first of these, Ives remarked, “The Magnet Cups were extra special as it was unbelievable to do that in a big race at your local track. The first year was the best as I actually rode a four-timer that afternoon.”

Remainder Man was the colt that powered him to near success in a British classic, when runner-up to Roland Gardens in the 1978 2000 Guineas, finishing third six weeks later to Shirley Heights at Epsom. He had to wait another 9 years before Classic success appeared, this time in Ireland on the Ian Balding-trained Forest Flower. He was retained rider for Kingsclere for two years.

But arguably his finest hour came in a now defunct race – the Arlington Million – in 1985 for another Yorkshire trainer Bill Watts. Watts was an early adopter of stateside travel, and attracted by the $1m purse, sent Teleprompter to run in the 1985 race with great success. In the current era when international travel of thoroughbreds is the norm, this was the exception, paving the way for trainers and owners to be more adventurous than merely crossing the Channel. Ives said, “Teleprompter’s 1985 Arling-ton Million was the high point for me and to go there and win was incredible. The stands had been burned down and they had replaced them with tents but that only added to the occasion.” Even the likes of the legendary Piggott weren’t riding in the States at the time. Sadly Arlington Park has disappeared to development, like so many North American venues.

One horse not to forget in the Tony Ives story is the precocious two year old Provideo, trained by Bill O’Gorman, who ran up no less than 16 juvenile victories in 1984, contributing in no small way to Ives’ best ever season, with 90 winners.

In the early nineties, he was tempted away to ride in Macau and Hong Kong, and his British presence was much diminished. His career was brought to a premature close by a back injury in 1996, after which he returned to Macau to support Australian Geoff Allendorf and later Jose Corrales.

Ives was a family man, with three children by his first wife, and a further three from a second, the Thai-born Jiraporn, where he saw out the latter part of the past few years. His children have not followed a racing route.

Illness brought on by a blood infection in 2024 was exacerbated by skin cancer, requiring hospitalisation and 24 hour care in recent years.

A son of Yorkshire who travelled far and accomplished much: we salute you.