A Blast From The Past - David Coates and Richard Dicey

1968 - A terrific battle for the Apprentice Jockeys Championship took place between David Coates and Richard Dicey and with nothing to separate them when the seasons racing had ended the title was shared between the two lads with them both finishing the season on 40 winners apiece.

David Coates

A late-season injury to David Coates, forcing him to miss a number of good mounts, probably cost him the honour of being outright leading apprentice, instead of having to share the position with Richard Dicey. However, this didn't  hide the fact that Coates was the most improved young rider of 1968. Apprenticed first to the late Harry Maw at Doncaster and then to Taffy Williams at Ferryhill, David had to find success the hard way, for his own stable couldn't provide all the opportunities necessary to catch the eye of regular racegoers. Yet the talented eighteen-year-old, who had his first ride in April 1967 and his first winner the following month, did exceptionally well in securing outside rides, and with no weight worries it was hoped he would continue his success in 1969 season.

David's first winner - Border Cruise at Teeside

Sadly David died very young aged about 50 years of age as I found in the following article dated April the 16th 2001 by John Randall that appeared in The Racing Post...

For the record: Apprentice title no guarantee of fortune.
Byline: John Randall

John Lowe came from the same vintage crop of apprentices as David Coates, whose career followed a very different path, and who died recently. Coates's story emphasises the fact that an apprentice championship is no guarantee of lasting success as a jockey. He was only 18 when sharing the title in 1968, when his victories included the Great St Wilfrid, Northern Goldsmiths' and Great Yorkshire Handicaps. In the closest apprentice title race ever, Coates and Richard Dicey dead-heated with 40 wins, just ahead of George Duffield (39) and Ray Still (38). Other prominent apprentices in 1968 included Tony Murray, Graham Sexton, David Maitland, John Higgins and Clive Eccleston as well as Lowe, so they did not win the championship by default. Yet Coates and Dicey soon dropped by the wayside, whereas the others went on to various degrees of fame and fortune. Duffield, now 54, is still riding. Within two years of his championship, Coates had ridden his last winner in Britain. He moved to Scandinavia but, despite winning the Danish Derby, never repeated his success as a teenager. Most champion apprentices do become successful senior jockeys, but the careers of Coates, Dicey, Robert Edmondson, Alan Bond, David Dineley and others show they cannot all be like Pat Eddery and Frankie Dettori. By the way, where is Richard Dicey now? Perhaps a reader can provide the answer.

Well that question was answered for sure as you'll see below...

 Richard Dicey

Richard Dicey was a year older than David Coates, and rode his first winner a year earlier, having joined Epsom trainer Herbert Smyth in 1965. But it was in 1968 that Dicey really came into his own, developing his style and emerging as a good prospect for the future. He was expected, however, to have a tough time on his hands early in the 1969 season, for he was very near to losing the right to claim any allowance at the end of his fantastic 1968 season. Many a promising apprentice has faded from the headlines into obscurity for lack of support at this critical time, and his own stable, while very successful, was perhaps not big enough for it alone to supply him with all the winning mounts he needed. Outside rides in the south will have been even more vital if he was to make further progress.

Richard's first winner - Blue Iris at Windsor

Again another John Randall article goes some way to explaining what became of Richard Dicey in an article from the Racing Post dated the 17th of December 2001...


For the record: Dicey proves title no guarantee of success.
Byline: John Randall

There is no guarantee that Chris Catlin will have lasting success as a jockey merely because he has won the apprentice championship-just ask Richard Dicey. Dicey, joint-champion apprentice with David Coates in 1968, was one of the title-holders who had to give up the sport because of increasing weight, but his story has a happier ending than seemed likely at one stage. Earlier this year, just after Coates's death, “For The Record” asked for information about Dicey's current whereabouts, and the man himself replied from Australia, where he has lived for many years. Now 51, he is busy and fulfilled with his family (a Canadian wife and their two children) and his freeze-branding, antiques and property businesses in Queensland. He used to run a pre-training centre in Perth with 50 horses, and says: "I still dream about races and my heart is in horses." Dicey did not come from a racing family, but had a good grounding in the sport, being indentured to Ted Smyth, the Epsom trainer whose other apprentices included Duncan Keith, Brian Rouse, Michael Kettle and Alan Bond. His rise and fall were spectacular, as he rode his first winner (Blue Iris at Windsor) in July 1966, was joint-champion apprentice in 1968, and rode his last winner in Britain in 1969. His second winner, Polymint in the 1966 Chesterfield Cup, was his most important, but he also won the Ladbroke Cup at Windsor on Spaniards Inn (the pair were beaten a short head in the Stewards' Cup) in 1968 and the Great Metropolitan Handicap at Epsom on Clever Scot in 1969. In 1968, in the closest apprentice title race ever, Dicey and Coates dead-heated with 40 wins, just ahead of George Duffield (39) and Ray Still (38), with Tony Murray, Graham Sexton, David Maitland, John Higgins, John Lowe and Clive Eccleston also prominent. The following year, Dicey rode for Ryan Jarvis in Newmarket, but he was already having trouble with his weight and his seasonal tally was halved to 20. That was the end of his domestic career, as diuretics proved only a temporary solution to his battle with the scales. He later rode in Holland and India, and he says: "I was living on one meal a week. I would eat and then blow up like a balloon."