He won fifteen British Classics in a 35-year career, the last ten years of which were spent as jockey to King George V. He was known for riding a slow, waiting race, and also for having a short temper which regularly saw him at odds with his trainers and owners.

[4] However, the quick temper which would come to mark his career cost him his job with Caillaut, as it would do with the owner Duc de Gramont and during a short lived spell at an Italian stable.

Deputising for the sidelined George Bellhouse, he won the 1908 Grand Prix de Paris for owner William K. Vanderbilt on Northeast.

[4] The following year he won the 1909 renewal on board Verdun for Prince Murat[3] and he began to surge ahead with his career.

This problem was solved with a move to Germany to ride for the von Weinbergs, with a contract that was not dependent on his meeting a specific weight.

[3] During the war, Childs initially joined the Royal Flying Corps but not taking to the disciplined regime he transferred to the 4th Hussars.

From 1925 until his retirement in 1935, Childs would be jockey to King George V whose horses were trained by William Rose Jarvis.

[2][5] No jockey would win a Derby with the same front running tactic until Steve Cauthen on Slip Anchor in 1985.

[7] By the end of his career Childs was often found riding for Cecil Boyd-Rochfort and it was for him he rode his last classic winner – Brown Betty in the 1933 1,000 Guineas.

[8] His final winner was at Derby in November 1935 and in December of that year he was invited to Buckingham Palace at the request of the King.

In all, Childs had achieved 15 British Classic wins, two Grand Prix de Paris and one French Derby.

Childs was a tall jockey, described as "lithe and beetle-browed"[8] These 'beetles' – his dark, bushy eyebrows – were said to give "broody, bellicose expression to a hair-trigger temper.

[9] or, put less favourably, "A waiting race was the only one he could ride"[4] This "lack of versatility"[4] is cited as the one thing that prevented Childs being a really great jockey.

[10] He is said to have ridden some of his best races at Newmarket[10] On retirement he managed Portsmouth Greyhound Stadium and dabbled in horse ownership with trainer George Digby.