Tom Bellamy, who was forced onto the sidelines when Broadway Boy fell in the 2025 Grand National at Aintree, has been in good form in the first weeks of the new jumps season
Tom Bellamy has been promoted to number one jockey to Alan King’s Barbury Castle stable. But Tom Cannon, principal rider to the trainer since Wayne Hutchinson’s retirement in 2019, will continue his association with King – and keep the ride on stable star Edwardstone.
King has supplied eight of Bellamy’s 16 victories this season and has been responsible for seven of Cannon’s 10 successes. But while Bellamy has partnered four of King’s winners in the past fortnight, Cannon’s last score for the Wiltshire yard was aboard Nap Hand at Stratford on July 20.
“We’ve had a bit of a switch round and Tom Bellamy will be riding as our number one jockey,” King said. “Tom Cannon will still be very much part of the team – he’ll still be riding Edwardstone and Harbour Lake and horses like that.”
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Edwardstone’s three Grade 1 triumphs – all under Cannon – have been gained at two miles, but the 11-year-old is set to step up in distance this winter.
“His pedigree would suggest he is all stamina and there are races like the [two-and-a-half-mile] Peterborough Chase [at Huntingdon on December 7] for him,” added King.
Currently operating at a 27 per cent strike rate in the past fortnight, Bellamy has made a strong start to the new jumps season.
The son of former National Hunt jockey Robert Bellamy, he rode in his first race under Rules in 2010, on the Martin Keighley-saddled Ponchatrain at Ffos Las and had his first winner for the Gloucestershire-based trainer.
Bellamy added 378 more races over jumps to his record from 3,330 appearances, with his mounts collecting almost £4.8million in prize money in that time.
A member of the North Cotswold Hunt Pony Club by the age of four, Bellamy has been associated with King’s stable since 2014.
In April, the 31-year-old was forced onto the sidelines after he fell from Broadway Boy in the 2025 Grand National at Aintree.
