Son of the jumping trainer Jack Jones, young Herbert was apprenticed to Richard Marsh at the age of ten and rode his first winner in 1896.

The victory for the "royal" colt provoked "the wildest scenes of enthusiasm ever known in England", including a mass rendition of the National Anthem as the King led his horse to the winner's enclosure.

[4] King George recorded in his diary that "poor Herbert Jones and Anmer had been sent flying" on a "most disappointing day" and Queen Alexandra sent him a get well telegram after the "sad accident caused through the abominable conduct of a brutal lunatic woman".

[4] In 1951, soon after his wife's death and his onset of depression, he was discovered to have committed suicide after his son found him in a gas-filled kitchen.

[4] There was nothing in a 1934 ghost-written feature in the Sunday Express that suggested he was long-term affected by it, and it is more likely that grief over his wife and deafness caused him to take his own life.