Colin Jillings

Colin Maurice Jillings (11 March 1931 – 23 December 2022) was a New Zealand Thoroughbred horse racing trainer from the early 1950s until his retirement in September 2005. He was inducted into the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame in 2008.[1]

Colin Jillings
Full nameColin Maurice Jillings
OccupationHorse trainer
Born(1931-03-11)11 March 1931
Auckland, New Zealand
Died23 December 2022(2022-12-23) (aged 91)
Auckland, New Zealand
Honours
New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame
Significant horses
Yeman, Lawful, McGinty, Brockton, Uncle Remus, I'm Henry, The Phantom Chance, Perhaps, Stipulate, Diamond Lover, Sharivari, Athenia, Tycoon Lil, Old Son, Sugartariat

Early life and career

Jillings was born in Auckland on 11 March 1931.[2] He became an apprentice jockey at Ellerslie Racecourse at the age of 12 in 1943. After riding track work at Ellerslie each morning, he would catch the train to school at St Peter's College.[3]

He was a successful apprentice jockey before increasing weight brought a premature end to a promising career.[3] His biggest success as an apprentice was the 1946 Railway Stakes aboard Royal Scot, a race he would later win three times as a trainer.

Training career

When he retired he had amassed a total of 1327 New Zealand winners, 703 of those with long time training partner Richard Yuill.[1]

When asked to name the best horse he ever trained Jillings had no hesitation in labelling Stipulate, the champion stayer of his era in the early 1960s. The fact that he had no hesitation in labelling Stipulate speaks volumes for the regard Jillings had for the horse given that he also trained the super little horse of the early 1980's – McGinty.[4]

Jillings' biggest success came when he trained The Phantom Chance to win the 1993 W. S. Cox Plate. Although operating with a smaller team than some other trainers, Jillings managed to keep producing top horses year after year.[5]

He trained the first of four Auckland Cup winners in 1956 Yeman, followed by Stipulate (1963), Perhaps (1976) and Irish Chance (in partnership with Richard Yuill) in 1999. He also achieved the unique record of training a Derby winner in each of the last 5 decades of the 20th Century: his first Derby winner being Lawful (1958) followed by Stipulate (1960), Uncle Remus (1977), I'm Henry (1983) and The Phantom Chance (1992).

Notable horses

Notable horses he trained included:

Jumping

In his earlier years from limited runners, he was also a noted trainer of jumpers, winning:

  • the 1959 Grand National Hurdles with Armed (owned by himself)
  • the 1971 Great Northern Hurdles/Steeples double and the 1972 Great Northern Steeplechase, with Brockton (for great friend, Wellington businessman, Doug Tse)
  • the 1987 Great Northern Steeples with Deductable, in partnership with Richard Yuill (with both sharing the ownership).

Apprentices

Jillings was also a noted mentor of apprentices, the best being his long time stable jockey Bob Vance who was the rider of:

Vance won the NZ Jockeys Premiership, as an apprentice (1977/78) and had a successful career riding internationally in Hong Kong and Macau.

Other apprentices for Jillings were:

Retirement and death

Jillings' final race-day runner was Cheval De Troy who finished last behind Makybe Diva in the 2005 The BMW at Rosehill.

Jillings died in Auckland on 23 December 2022, at the age of 91.[9][10]

See also

References

Sources

  • Glengarry, Jack (1983). The Great Decade of NZ Racing 1970 – 1980. Auckland: Collins.
  • Glengarry, Jack (1990). Another Great Decade of NZ Racing 1980 – 1990. Auckland: Collins.
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