It isn’t uncommon for jockeys to go on to become trainers, so it should be no surprise that that is the path that Gay Kelleway ended up following. Nor is it all that surprising if the offspring of someone involved in the world of horse racing goes on to enter the sport themselves.
For Gay Kelleway, it was her father, Paul Kelleway, that she decided to follow in the footsteps of, with Paul having been a successful jockey on the National Hunt circuit before turning his attention to training at Newmarket. What is less common, though, is for a rider to be someone who makes history.
About
For Gay Kelleway, life in the world of horse racing began in earnest when she was a 13-year-old. As her family made the move from Sussex to Newmarket to allow her father to become a trainer after a life as a jump jockey, Kelleway got onto the horse box and began to appreciate exactly what it was that her father had found so appealing about the sport. Born on the ninth of December 1963, she began working with horses and soon worked with another trainer based in Newmarket in the form of Clive Brittain. It was he who supplied her with her first winner.
That was when she was a 17-year-old, riding the second-favourite Aberfield, who boasted a price of 7/2, in the Ladies’ Derby Stakes at Ripon. It was the first of many wins for the jockey, meaning that she came second in the Lady Amateur Riders’ Championship. The following year, she won it outright before turning professional in 1983. Apprenticed to her father, Aberfield again gave her a win, this time at Newmarket in the Daily Mirror Apprentice Championship, as well as the Operatic Society Challenge Cup, run at Brighton. She won the Champion Lady Jockey crown three years in succession.
It was in 1987 that Kelleway made history, however. She was riding Sprowston Boy in the Queen Alexandra Stakes at Royal Ascot, trained by her father, when he won the race. In doing so, she became the first female jockey to win an event at the famous meeting, which remained the case until Hayley Turner won a race 32 years later. When she retired from the saddle, she initially took on some media work before deciding to get her own trainer’s licence in 1991. Eventually, she began working at the Queen Alexandra Stables in Exning, leaving there in 2024 to join forces with Ann Duffield.
Major Successes
Prior to joining up with Ann Duffield in Yorkshire, Kelleway had never managed to train a Group One winner. That was something that clearly rankled, not least because she had been able to win a number of Group Two and Group Three races as a trainer, meaning that the Group One felt like her own white whale that she was determined to snag. Although the names of some of the races that Kelleway has run won’t stand out as much to those that don’t spend a huge amount of time watching horse racing, for those in the know they are events that are just as worth of attention:
- Criterion Stakes
- Great St Wilfrid Handicap
- Sprint All-Weather Championships
- Newcomers’ Restricted Maiden Fillies’ Stakes
- Rebound Handicap
Horses Trained
Whilst it would obviously be great to talk about Kelleway’s relationship with Sprowston Boy, it is obviously unfair to talk about a horse that she rode rather than one that she trained. Even so, she has enjoyed some good relationships with horses over the years and worked with some top-class runners at one point or another. It isn’t even the case that the best horses that she’s worked with ended up being winners of the biggest races, given the fact that she went through the majority of her career without winning a Group One event. Here is a look at some of the best horses she worked with:
Lightscameraction
It isn’t exactly outrageous to suggest that big wins haven’t always been easy for Kelleway to accomplish. Even so, Lightscameraction is a standout for her, being one of the more than 600 winners that she’s achieved during her career. The horse came to prominence when winning the Sprint All-Weather Championships at Lingfield back in 2015, doing so in spite of the fact that it was rated as a 20/1 outsider. That gave Kelleway around £100,000 in prize money, going on to win another eight times in a career that lasted until 2017.
Sorbie Tower
In some ways, the career of Sorbie Tower is a representation of Kelleway’s own naivety as a young trainer. Running in the 1990s, he came third in the St James’ Palace Stakes, missing out to the talents that were Bijou D’Inde and Ashkalani. She considered him to be the best horse that she ever trained, describing him as an ‘aeroplane’. Had she been more experienced at the time that she had him, she might well have won the Irish Guineas with him. In the end, the paid had to make do with six wins across 34 races, which is significantly less than he deserved.
Vortex
If Sorbie Tower is the horse that Kelleway considered to be the best she ever worked with, Vortex might well be the one that she loved working with more than any other. He took her all over the world and enjoyed success in numerous different events, winning the Dubai Carnival when he was an eight-year-old. It is the 2005 win of the Criterion Stakes at Newmarket that is arguably the horse’s standout moment, however. He won the Group 3 event when it was being run at Kelleway’s home course, which made it a standout for her.
