Corinthian who scaled the festival heights with Little Owl and Willie Wumpkins

Jim Wilson crowned his career when triumphing in the 1981 Cheltenham Gold Cup on Little Owl, who he also jointly owned.

A genuine Corinthian, Wilson, who has died at the age of 72, had already become the last amateur to be leading jockey at the Cheltenham Festival with three winners in 1980, including Willie Wumpkins, and he went on to train a winner at the meeting as well.

He became only the third amateur jockey to win the Gold Cup when riding Little Owl. Sam Waley-Cohen is the only amateur to have won the race since.

Little Owl had been owned by Wilson's aunt Bobby Gundry, who paid Peter Easterby £2,200 to buy the horse out of a field as a four-year-old. Gundry died on the Sunday after the 1980 festival, leaving Little Owl to Wilson and his farmer brother Robin.

In the 1980-1981 season, Little Owl won the Peter Marsh, Tote Double (now Cotswold) and Timeform Chases in the run-up to the Gold Cup. Turning for home at Cheltenham, there were three horses in line abreast, but Little Owl gradually forged ahead in the testing conditions to beat his Easterby stablemate Night Nurse by a length and a half, with the following year's Gold Cup winner Silver Buck, trained by Michael Dickinson, ten lengths away in third.

Little Owl jumps the last ahead of Silver Buck and Night Nurse in the 1981 Gold CupCredit: Gerry Cranham

Born in Maidstone on February 4, 1950 but raised in Ireland, Andrew James Wilson had a racing pedigree as his mother owned Cheltenham Festival winner Herring Gull and was a sister-in-law of Fred Winter.

He spent his formative years in racing with trainers Georgie Wells and Paddy Mullins, before spells with Jacko Doyasbere in France, George Owen in Cheshire and Dan Moore back in Ireland. His first winner was the Moore-trained Advocate in a Clonmel bumper in 1970.

There followed a seven-year stint with David Nicholson in the heart of the Cotswolds. It was at Nicholson's that Wilson met his wife Melinda, a baronet's daughter who would become a linchpin of their own training set-up.

The pipe-smoking amateur rider consistently held his own against the professionals but had to work hard to keep the weight off his long, lean frame. His weight restricted his opportunities and he was never champion amateur, although he was runner-up five consecutive times.

Little Owl may have provided Wilson with his greatest success, but staying hurdler Willie Wumpkins was a bigger public favourite, winning the Coral Golden Hurdle Final at the festival three consecutive times under Wilson from 1979.

Willie Wumpkins was owned by Wilson’s mother-in-law Jane Pilkington, but after winning what is now the Ballymore Novices' Hurdle at Cheltenham in 1973 when trained by Pilkington's nephew Adrian Maxwell in Ireland, he was plagued with a heart issue and lost condition.

The owner took over as his trainer at her yard in the Cotswolds and he returned to Cheltenham for the 1978 Coral Golden Hurdle Final, finishing unplaced.

Wilson was adamant the horse could win that race the following year, which he duly did by five lengths from none other than Little Owl. He followed up in 1980 and won it for a third time at the age of 13 in 1981. A cult favourite who relished bottomless conditions, Willie Wumpkins came right only once a year, and he remains the only three-time winner of the race which is now the Pertemps Final.

Jim Wilson: top jockey at the 1980 Cheltenham FestivalCredit: Edward Whitaker

Good Prospect and Again The Same were the other winners who earned Wilson Cheltenham's top-jockey award in 1980. He struck at the meeting for the seventh and final time in 1984 on Broomy Bank, who also finished eighth in the Grand National. He rode competitively until 1985, retiring with 205 wins.

Wilson set up as a trainer at Ham, near Charlton Kings, three and a half miles from Cheltenham racecourse, and had a winner at the festival when sending out Taberna Lord to land the Willie Wumpkins race under Luke Harvey in 1987.

Wilson also saddled Glenbrook D'Or to win the Midlands National in 1994 under Brian Clifford. He sent out his last runners in the 2017-18 season.

Jim Wilson CV

Full name Andrew James Wilson

Born Maidstone, Kent, February 4, 1950

First winner Advocate (trainer Dan Moore) Clonmel, August 27, 1970

Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Little Owl (1981 - also joint-owner with brother Robin)

Other Cheltenham Festival winners as rider Willie Wumpkins (1979, 1980 & 1981 Coral Golden Hurdle Final), Good Prospect (1980 Kim Muir Memorial Chase), Again The Same (1980 National Hunt Handicap Chase), Broomy Bank (1984 Kim Muir Memorial Chase)

Other big-race wins on Little Owl 1981 Peter Marsh Chase, Tote Double (Cotswold) Chase, Timeform Chase, 1982 Tommy Whittle Chase

Other notable winners as rider Decent Fellow (1977 Kilkerran Stakes), Ottery News (1981 Horse and Hound Cup), Another Breeze (1983 Pearce Duff Novices' Chase), Otter Way (1983 Horse and Hound Cup)

Runner-up in amateur riders' championship 5 consecutive times (1978-79 to 1982-83)

Leading rider at Cheltenham Festival 1980 (3 wins)

Total Cheltenham Festival wins as rider 7

Most wins in a season 27 in 1979-80

Total wins as amateur rider 205 (1970-85)

Stables as trainer Glenfall Stables, Ham, Charlton Kings, near Cheltenham 1985-2018

First winner as trainer Alangrove Sound, Wolverhampton, November 25, 1985

Cheltenham Festival winner as trainer Taberna Lord (1987 Coral Golden Hurdle Final)

Midlands National winner Glenbrook D'Or (1994)

Last winner as trainer Seymour Legend, Stratford, March 28, 2015

Total wins as trainer 75 (74 jumps, 1 Flat)