Born on August 3, 1996, Hector Crouch was raised near Pulborough, West Sussex. He started riding out at a local pre-training yard, which looked after horses for Lower Beeding trainer Gary Moore, at weekends and during school holidays, before becoming apprenticed to Moore when he left school. Crouch rode his first winner, Whinging Willie, trained by Moore, in an apprentice handicap at Newbury on June 24, 2014. He later said of Moore, “Gary was phenomenal. He works twice as hard as any member of staff so to get noticed you had to work at least as hard as him. I went aged 14 and left aged 22, a year after I’d ridden out my claim.”
Crouch was also able to draw on the experience of stable jockey George Baker and three-time champion jockey Ryan Moore, son of Gary, when it came to advice on race-riding. In fact, it was Ryan Moore who arranged for him to ride for Satish Seemar in Dubai during the winter of 2015. Crouch said, “Satish Sheemar put me up in some Group races and I was claiming 5lb here at the time.”
Back in Britain, Crouch subsequently became second jockey to Clive Cox in Lambourn, Berkshire, behind Adam Kirby, whom he described as “a great horseman”. It was Cox who provided him with his first Pattern winner, Streamline, in the Group 3 Sirenia Stakes at Kempton on September 7, 2019, but it was not until 18 months or so later, when he formed a closer association with Ralph Beckett, who is based in Kimpton, Hampshire, that his career really began to flourish.
Beckett does not have a stable jockey but, at the time of writing, Crouch has ridden nearly as many winners for him as he has for Gary Moore and Clive Cox put together. Beckett also provided his first Group 1, and Classic, winner, You Got To Me, in the Irish Oaks at the Curragh on July 20, 2024. Of his achievement, he said, “To win a Group 1 and Classic at the same time was great. It’s hard enough to ride a Group One winner; there are plenty of jockeys who won’t ever do that…” That same year, he reached the milestone of 100 winners in a season for the first time on Almosh’her, trained by Charlie Fellowes, in a novice stakes race at Southwell on December 29. In 2025, Crouch increased his annual tally still further, to 157 winners.