Thomas Loates (6 October 1867 – 1910), born in

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, was a three times

British flat racing Champion Jockey The Champion Jockey of flat racing in Great Britain is the jockey who has ridden the most winning horses during a season. The list below shows the Champion Jockey and the number of winners for each year since 1840. The seasonal record of jockeys' ...

and one of only seven

jockey A jockey is someone who rides horses in horse racing or steeplechase racing, primarily as a profession. The word also applies to camel riders in camel racing. The word "jockey" originated from England and was used to describe the individual ...

s to have won more than 200 races in a

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

. He won the English

Triple Crown Triple Crown may refer to: Sports Horse racing * Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing * Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing (United States) ** Triple Crown Trophy ** Triple Crown Productions * Canadian Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing * Trip ...

Isinglass Isinglass () is a substance obtained from the dried swim bladders of fish. It is a form of collagen used mainly for the clarification or fining of some beer and wine. It can also be cooked into a paste for specialised gluing purposes. The E ...

in 1892, as well as individual

Classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

Donovan Donovan Phillips Leitch (born 10 May 1946), known mononymously as Donovan, is a Scottish musician, songwriter, and record producer. He developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelic rock and world mus ...

(1889

) (for which he was a last-minute booking), Siffleuse (1893

1,000 Guineas The 1000 Guineas Stakes is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old fillies. It is run on the Rowley Mile at Newmarket over a distance of 1 mile (1,609 ...

) and St. Frusquin (1896

2,000 Guineas The 2000 Guineas Stakes is a Group 1 flat race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies. It is run on the Rowley Mile at Newmarket over a distance of 1 mile (1,609 metres) and scheduled to take place each year at ...

). On Isinglass, he also won the 1894

Eclipse An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ce ...

and 1895

Ascot Gold Cup The Gold Cup is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to horses aged four years or older. It is run at Ascot over a distance of 2 miles 3 furlongs and 210 yards (4,014 ...

and he had another top class win on Desmond in Newmarket's

July Stakes The July Stakes is a Group 2 flat horse race in Great Britain open to two-year-old colts and geldings. It is run on the July Course at Newmarket over a distance of 6 furlongs (1,207 metres), and it ...

in 1898.

Life

Loates was regarded as the best of a family of four jockey brothers which included fellow Classic-winner,

Sam Loates Samuel Loates (1865–1932) was a British Thoroughbred horse racing jockey who was the Champion Jockey of 1899 in his home country. Background Loates was from a racing family. He and three brothers were active as jockeys before and around ...

. He was apprenticed to Joseph Cannon at Newmarket and was known as "a good lightweight, with very good hands". For Donovan's Derby win, he weighed just 6 1/2 stone. Loates once narrowly escaped death when falling in the Liverpool Cup on Lord Derby's race

mare A mare is an adult female horse or other equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than four ...

Birch Rod. He was also badly injured in a fall at

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

and later married the nurse who tended him. A low point for Loates came in 1891 when his licence to ride was withdrawn by the

Jockey Club The Jockey Club is the largest commercial horse racing organisation in the United Kingdom. It owns 15 of Britain's famous racecourses, including Aintree, Cheltenham, Epsom Downs and both the Rowley Mile and July Course in Newmarket, amo ...

for his involvement in betting, but he was reinstated the following year. He died in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

, England in 1910, leaving $1,250,000 in property. It was believed he had amassed this phenomenal sum ($31.8 million in 2013 prices) because his later employer was the financier

Leopold de Rothschild Leopold de Rothschild (22 November 1845 – 29 May 1917) was a British banker, thoroughbred race horse breeder, and a member of the prominent Rothschild family. Biography Early life Leopold de Rothschild was the third son and youngest of t ...

who looked after his investments. Brighton & Hove Bus Number 415 is named in honour of him.

References

British jockeys 1867 births 1910 deaths British Champion flat jockeys Sportspeople from Derby {{UK-horseracing-bio-stub