Jockey Tommie Jakes ‘obviously in a bad place’ before tragic death aged 19
Senior jockey Hector Crouch said the tragic news of 19-year-old apprentice jockey Tommie Jakes’ sudden death on Thursday was being keenly felt within the weighing room
Tommie Jakes was a “lovely, polite young lad” who was “obviously in a bad place”, one of his weighing room colleagues said on Saturday. The 19-year-old apprentice rider, who had ridden 59 winners in three seasons competing on the Flat, was found dead at his home near Newmarket on Thursday, hours after his final ride at Nottingham Racecourse on Wednesday afternoon.
A statement from Suffolk Police said: “Police were called by the ambulance service at 5.45am this morning to reports of the sudden death of a man in Freckenham. The death is not being treated as suspicious and a file will now be prepared for the coroner.”
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Dozens of tributes have been paid to Jakes, with racecourses holding a minute’s silence and jockeys wearing black armbands.
At Newmarket on Saturday, Hector Crouch spoke about Jakes and the impact of his tragic death in an interview with RacingTV. He said: “I knew him as a colleague. I wouldn’t have been in his circle of friends. He was one of the younger members of the weighing room. – always quite loud and quite mischievous. That would be a good way of summing him up from what I’ve seen.
“He was a lovely, polite young lad. He loved his racing. He worked very hard, He was a tall lad and struggled with his weight like a lot of us. He was a bright young lad with a real promising future.”
He continued: “It’s a real sad time for everyone. The weighing room is a real community and everyone’s really feeling it. Thursday was a bit of disbelief for most of the day. It only sort of hit me late Thursday night when I was going round Chelmsford and horses he was down to ride were going round. Then it was really starting to sink in.
“He was obviously in a bad place and, thankfully for him, whatever suffering he was going through isn’t there anymore. I wish the best for his family and friends that knew him best.”
Crouch suggested the removal of saunas, which were closed during the Covid pandemic and haven’t been reintroduced, had cost weighing rooms some of their community atmosphere.
“A big thing I find that’s missing from the weighing room nowadays from when I first started, the community aspect is a little more fractured with the way racing operates now with the lack of saunas.
“Everyone is pursuing the sport individually. That was the real heart of the weighing room where lads of all ages were there talking through their issues.
“You could be locked in a room with someone for 40 minutes who you didn’t know and come out knowing a little bit more about them. It just brings the whole place together a little bit more.
“People don’t tend to do that when you are sat across the room from someone, but when you are going through a little bit of hardship people reach out a little bit. It just makes you feel like that there is someone going through a similar plight to you and sometimes that can be enough.”
