Harry Thomson Jones (1925 – 5 December 2007), often known as "Tom Jones", was a British racehorse trainer whose career lasted from 1951 to 1996. He was successful in National Hunt racing, training the winners of 12 Cheltenham Festival races before switching to flat racing and going on to train the winners of British Classic Races.
He was educated at Eton College and was first licenced as a trainer in 1951. Amongst his notable National Hunt horses were Tingle Creek, winner of 11 races and a specialist at Sandown Park Racecourse, and Frenchman's Cove, winner of the 1962 Whitbread Gold Cup and 1964 King George VI Chase.
By the 1970s he had begun to concentrate on flat racing and trained his first Classic winner when Athens Wood won the 1971 St. Leger. In 1982 he trained Touching Wood to win the St. Leger and Irish St. Leger for Maktoum al Maktoum, the first Classic winner owned by the Maktoum family. Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum became his principal owner and the most successful horse he trained for Sheikh Hamdan was Al Bahathri, winner of the Lowther Stakes in 1984 and the Irish 1,000 Guineas, Coronation Stakes and Child Stakes in 1985.
His last winner came when Agdistis won at Worcester Racecourse on 12 October 1996 and he retired later that year.
He was married twice and had three children. With his first wife Solna Joel, he had a son, Tim Thomson Jones, and daughter, Di Haine, who are also racehorse trainers; with his second wife Sarah Beatty, he had another son, Christopher Thomson Jones, who lives in South Carolina.
Famous quotes containing the words harry, thomson and/or jones:
“Why don’t you go home to your wife? I’ll tell you what. I’ll go home to your wife and outside of the improvements, you’ll never know the difference. Pull over to the side of the road there and let me see your marriage license.”
—S.J. Perelman, U.S. screenwriter, Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, and Norman Z. McLeod. Groucho Marx, Horsefeathers, a wisecrack made to Huxley College’s outgoing president (1932)
“The savage soul of game is up at once—
The pack full-opening various, the shrill horn
Resounded from the hills, the neighing steed
Wild for the chase, and the loud hunter’s shout—
O’er a weak, harmless, flying creature, all
Mixed in mad tumult and discordant joy.”
—James Thomson (1700–1748)
“Men’s hearts are cold. They are indifferent. Not all the coal that is dug warms the world. It remains indifferent to the lives of those who risk their life and health down in the blackness of the earth; who crawl through dark, choking crevices with only a bit of lamp on their caps to light their silent way; whose backs are bent with toil, whose very bones ache, whose happiness is sleep, and whose peace is death.”
—Mother Jones (1830–1930)