Category: Jockeys

Who rode Harbinger in the King George?

According to Timeform, Harbinger remains the co-eighth highest rated Flat horse since ratings were first published in 1948. Indeed, his Timeform Annual Rating of 140 – albeit adjudged, effectively, on just race – was the equivalent of that achieved by Shergar, Dancing Brave and Shergar.

A son of Dansili, whose progeny typically progess extremely well, Harbinger won two of his five starts as a 3-year-old, including the Gordon Stakes at Goodwood, but did not reach the peak of his powers until his 4-year-old campaign, in 2010. That season, he reappeared with an impressive, 3-length win in the John Porter Stakes at Newbury, followed up in the Ormonde Stakes at Chester and completed a hat-trick in the Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Having been ridden, exclusively, by Ryan Moore on his first eight starts, Harbinger was passed over by his regular jockey on his first attempt at Group 1 level, in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot. Perhaps understandably, Moore, who chose to ride his Derby-winning stable companion, Workforce, instead, with French jockey Olivier Peslier picking up the spare ride on Harbinger.

Some ‘spare’ it proved, too. Sent off at 4/1 second favourite behind Workforce, Harbinger was held up fourth of the six runners in the early stages, but was travelling best of all turning for home and when he ranged alongside his toiling rivals at the two-furlong marker the race was all but over. In the closing stages, he cruised clear to beat the Irish Derby winner, Cape Blanco by a record 11 lengths.

 

Who was the first jockey since Sir Gordon Richards to ride 200 winners in a season?

Hailed by British Pathé as ‘World’s Greatest Jockey!’, Sir Gordon Richards rode 4,870 winners during his career and won the Flat Jockeys’ Championship in 26 occasions between 1925 and 1953. Remarkably, he rode over 200 winners in a season on twelve occasions and twice broke the record for the greatest number of winners in a single season.

In 1932, Richards became stable jockey to Beckhampton trainer Fred Darling and rode 259 during the season, thereby breaking the previous, long-standing record, 246, set by Fred Archer in 1885. Fifteen years later, in 1947 – the year in which Darling retired, to be succeeded at Beckhampton by Noel Murless – Richards broke his own record with 269 winners. That record would stand until 2001/02, when finally broken by Sir Anthony McCoy, who rode 289 winners that season. Reflecting on his extraordinary career, McCoy said, ‘Breaking Sir Gordon Richards’ record will always be my greatest achievement, nothing is even close.’

However, even before McCoy rode his first winner, the first jockey since Sir Gordon Richards to ride 200 winners in a season was, in fact, the late Pat Eddery. In 1990 – the year in which he won the Derby on Quest For Fame for his retainer, the late Khalid Abdullah – Eddery rode 209 winners, en route to the eighth of his eleven wins in the Flat Jockeys’ Championship.

Has a female jockey ever won the Cheltenham Gold Cup?

Has a female jockey ever won the Cheltenham Gold Cup? The simple answer is no, not yet, but until recently female jockeys in the Cheltenham Gold Cup had been few and far between. In fact, the first female jockey to ride in the ‘Blue Riband’ event was the late Linda Griffiths, formerly Sheedy, who failed to complete the course on 500/1 rank outsider Foxbury in 1984. Remarkably, the second was not until 2017, when the now-retired Lizzie Kelly was unseated at the second fence by Tea For Two, although the partnership did return to Cheltenham to finish a distant seventh in 2018.

More recently, the redoubtable Rachael Blackmore has gone closest to becoming the first female jockey to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup. In 2020, she rode Monalee, trained by Henry De Bromhead, to finish fourth, beaten just 1¾ lengths, behind Al Boum Photo. In 2021, having already won the Champion Hurdle on Honeysuckle, for the same trainer, she rode A Plus Tard to finish second, beaten 1¼ lengths, behind stable companion Minella Indo in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. In that same race, Bryony Frost also rode Frodon to finish fifth, albeit 33¾ lengths behind the winner.

When did Lester Piggott ride his first Royal Ascot winner?

In a riding career spanning six decades, Lester Piggott rode 4,493 winners, including 30 English Classic winners and won the Flat Jockeys’ Championship eleven times, including eight years running between 1964 and 1971. Coincidentally, eleven was also the number of times Piggott won the highlight of Royal Ascot, the historic and coveted Gold Cup, including a notable hat-trick on Sagaro in 1975, 1976 and 1977.

Piggott not only remains the most successful jockey in the history of the Gold Cup but, by the proverbial ‘country mile’, the most successful jockey in the history of Royal Ascot. Of course, at various points during his career, Piggott enjoyed profitable associations with such luminaries of the training profession as Sir Noel Murless, Vincent O’Brien and Sir Henry Cecil. Nevertheless, his astonishing record of 116 winners, achieved long before the extension of Royal Ascot to five days in 2005, is unlikely to be beaten.

Piggott rode his first Royal Ascot winner, Malka’s Boy, trained by Walter Nightingall, in the Wokingham Stakes on June 20, 1952, as a 16-year-old, making all the running to win by 3 lengths. For the record, he rode his last Royal Ascot winner, College Chapel, trained by Vincent O’Brien, in the Cork and Orrery Stakes, now the Diamond Jubilee Stakes, on June 17, 1993, at the age of 58. The ‘Long Fella’ retired for the second, and final, time two years later.

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