Tommy Carey was the leading jockey at Northolt Park in the late Thirties. Ending his apprenticeship at Epsom around 1923, he had little success and was in his thirties when he came to Northolt. He moved to pony racing in 1934 and eventually found fame and fortune late in his career.
From 1935 to the end of racing at Northolt he was champion jockey and rode the winners of many of the Northolt Classics, riding the PTC Derby winner every year from 1935, except in 1938. He and the famous owner and gambler Dorothy Paget started their long and successful racing partership at Northolt.
During the war, he moved back to flat racing, winning the 1943 Derby for Miss Paget on her horse Straight Deal. He retired from the saddle in 1946 because of increasing weight and moved to Chantilly in France, becoming a trainer.
He was the only jockey the eccentric and difficult Miss Paget ever retained and she enjoyed her greatest success in those years. Had it not been for pony racing and Miss Paget's involvement in it, Tommy Carey would have remained in obscurity.
Page top
