Author Archives: Editor

Aside from being a perennial favourite of former television presenter Derek “Tommo” Thompson, Paul Hanagan, as in ‘Paul Hanagan, the man again’, also had the distinction of becoming Champion Apprentice in 1981, with 81 winners, Champion Jockey twice, in 2010 and 2011, with 191 winners and 165 winners, respectively. In so doing, Hanagan not only became just the third northern-based jockey – after Elijah Wheatley in 1905 and Kevin Darley in 2000 – to win the jockeys’ title, but also the first such jockey to do so more than once.

Despite being available at odds of 40/1 to win the jockeys’ championship at the start of the 2010 season, Hanagan rode four winners on the opening day and, at one stage, held a considerable advantage over his rivals. However, from late October onwards, when he returned from suspension, Richard Hughes staged a late rally and, on the final day of the season, needed two winners to force a dead heat. He drew a blank, though, leaving the final score at 191-189 in favour of Hanagan.

Hanagan owed many of the winners he rode that season to his boss, Richard Fahey, with whom he had been since he was 17. From his base at Musley Bank Stables, near Malton, North Yorkshire, Fahey saddled 181 winners and earned over £2 million in prize money for the first time. Domestically, his biggest wins that year came courtesy of Wootton Bassett, who was unbeaten in five starts as a juvenile, including the DBS Premier Yearling Stakes at York and the Weatherbys Insurance £300,000 2-Y-O Stakes at Doncaster on home soil.

In 2011, Hanagan was, once again, involved in a ding-dong battle for the jockeys’ title, this time with Silvestre De Sousa who, at the time, lived in Yorkshire, but was soon to relocate to Newmarket as the jockey of choice for the Godolphin operation. Once again, the title race went down to the wire, with Hanagan eventually prevailing 165-161. His biggest prize of the season, the £150,000 Tattersalls Millions 3-Y-O Sprint at Newmarket, came courtesy of Sir Reginald, trained by Fahey, and his boss weighed in with another half a dozen winners at Listed or Pattern level to help him on his way to his second jockeys’ title.

In 1977, at the age of 17, American jockey Steve Cauthen was already at the top of his professional in his native country. However, as he matured physically and gained weight, he accepted an invitation from influential owner Robert Sangster to move to Britain, where he could ride at heavier weights. As the newly-appointed stable jockey to Barry Hills, Cauthen won on his first ride in Britain, Marquee Universal, at Salisbury on April 7, 1979 and, a month later, partnered Tap On Wood to victory over the red-hot, and hitherto unbeaten, favourite Kris in the 2,000 Guineas.

Cauthen – who hails from Walton, Kentucky and was hence dubbed the ‘Kentucky Kid’ on this side of the Atlantic – first became Champion Jockey in 1984, while still with Barry Hills. However, by mid-summer, he had already agreed to join Henry Cecil at the start of 1985 season. His seasonal total, of 130 winners, may have been the lowest total since Lester Piggott won his fifth jockeys’ title in 1967, but he lacked nothing in support from Hills.

The first year of the Cecil-Cauthen partnership, 1985, was an annus mirabilis for trainer and jockey. Oh So Sharp, ridden by Cauthen, came out best in a three-way photograph with Al Bahatri, ridden by, and Bella Colora, ridden by, to land an epic renewal of the 1,000 Guineas and later won the Oaks and the St. Leger to complete the Fillies’ Triple Crown. Cauthen also led from start to finish on Slip Anchor in the Derby, eventually beating the runner-up, Law Society, by 7 lengths, to become the first American jockey to win the Epsom Classic since Danny Maher in 1906. By the end of the season, Cauthen had racked up 195 winners, 33 more than his nearest pursuer, Pat Eddery, and was Champion Jockey once again.

After finishing runner-up to Eddery in 1986, Cauthen regained the jockeys’ title in 1987 with 197 winners, including Reference Point, who won the Derby, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the St. Leger in a memorable season. Nevertheless, the race for the jockeys’ title went down to the wire, with Cauthen eventually winning 197-195 from his old rival Pat Eddery on the final day of the season. A key moment came when, following the Great Storm in October, 1987, Newmarket was abandoned, but Cauthen instead headed north to Catterick, where he rode two, ultimately decisive, winners.

Between 1997/98 and 2005/06 Jim Crowley rode predominantly as a National Hunt jockey, mainly for Grand National-winning trainer Sue Smith, but also for Alan Swinbank, Martin Todhunter and many others, and partnered hundreds of winners in that sphere. However, in his younger days, Crowley had ridden, as an amateur, on the Flat and, in 2006, made the bold, and slightly unusual, step of switching codes for a second time.

Having slimmed his, thankfully, relatively slight frame down to 8st 7lb, or thereabouts – according to the Racing Post, his lowest riding weight in the last 12 months has been 8st 8lb – Crowley initially worked for his sister-in-law, Amanda Perrett, who had taken over from her father, Guy Harwood, at Coombelands Racing Stables in Pulborough, West Sussex a decade previously. He rode a hundred winners, and earned over £1 million in prize money, in a season for the first time in 2008 and, two years later, become stable jockey to Ralph Beckett at Kimpton Down Stables, near Andover in Hampshire.

Six years later, in 2016, Crowley achieved the highest seasonal aggregate of his career, 189 winners, and, at the age of 38, became Champion Jockey for the first time. In so doing, he not only beat the reigning champion, Silvestre De Sousa – who won the jockeys’ title again in 2017 and 2018 – into second place, but also set a new record for most winners ridden in a calendar month, 46, in September that year.

Ironically, his biggest win of 2016, in pecuniary terms, came on Moonrise Landing in the All-Weather Marathon Championships at Lingfield on March 25 or, in other words, before the period over which the jockeys’ title was decided had begun. Regardless of the shortening of that period, from 32 weeks to 24 weeks, approximately, in 2015, the aforementioned race took place a week before the Lincoln Handicap, so never would have counted towards the jockeys’ championship in any case. Within the championship period, though, his two biggest wins – Arab Spring, trained by Sir Michael Stoute, in the September Stakes at Kempton, and Algometer, trained by David Simcock – both came in that highly productive month of September.

Lanfranco “Frankie” Dettori rode his first winner in Britain on Lizzy Hare at Goodwood in June, 1987 and, following his victory on Predilection at Newmarket in August, 2016, became just the sixth jockey in Flat racing to ride 3,000 British winners. The other jockeys to do so were, by number of wins, Sir Gordon Richards, Pat Eddery, Lester Piggott, Willie Carson and Doug Smith who, collectively, won the jockeys’ title 56 times between them.

By contrast, the Italian has been Champion Jockey just three times. Dettori enjoyed his most successful season, numerically, in 1994, with 233 winners. That was, of course, the year in which he accepted a retainer to ride for the Godolphin operation, under the auspices of Sheikh Mohammed. Indeed, Dettori rode his first of his 110 Group 1, or Grade 1, winners in the familiar royal blue silks on Balanchine in the Oaks at Epsom in June, 1994, and his second on the same horse in the Irish Derby three weeks later. Other high-profile successes that year included Lochsong, trained by Ian Balding, in the Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp and Barathea, trained by fellow Italian Luca Cumani, in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Churchill Downs.

In 1995, Dettori reached the milestone of two hundred British winners in a season for the second, and final, time. In fact, that year, he racked up 217 winners on British soil, including Moonshell in the Oaks at Epsom, Lammtarra in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot, So Factual in the Nunthorpe Stakes at York and Classic Cliché in the St. Leger at Doncaster, all for Godolphin trainer Saeed bin Suroor.

Ultimately, Dettori would be retained as first jockey to Godolphin for 18 years, until the relationship ended in 2012, and the association would make him the highest-paid jockey in the world. However, following his second jockeys’ title, in 1995, that same affiliation led Dettori to focus on quality rather than quantity and, for several years, he set aside the rigours of travelling around the country to pick up rides.

However, in 2004, his renewed appetite for ‘hitting the road’ coincided with an increase in the firepower at the disposal of Team Godolphin and, after a protracted battle with Kieren Fallon – who’d be Champion Jockey in six of the previous seven seasons – Dettori won the jockeys’ title again with 195 winners. Once again, Saeed bin Suroor was his principal benefactor, saddling Papineau to win the Gold Cup at Ascot, Refuse To Bend to win the Coral-Eclipse Stakes at Sandown, Doyen to win the King George and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot and Sulamani to win the International Stakes at York.