Category Archives: Jockeys

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.

In a riding career spanning five decades, Lester Piggott had the distinction of becoming Champion Jockey 11 times and is, quite rightly, regarded as one of the greatest jockeys in the history of British Flat racing. Piggott became an overnight sensation when, in 1954, as an 18-year-old, he became the youngest jockey ever to win the Derby, on Never Say Die, trained by Joe Lawson. A reckless boy wonder, he was suspended for the rest of the season after riding the same horse to finish fourth in the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot but, on his return, succeeded Sir Gordon Richards as first jockey to Noel Murless.

Piggott was Champion Jockey for the first time in 1960, the year in which he won the Derby for a third time – and the second time for Murless, after Crepello in 1957 – on St. Paddy, and partnered 170 winners in total. The Murless-Piggott partnership continued – with further jockeys’ titles for Piggott in 1964 and 1965 – until, in 1966, the 30-year-old champion insisted on riding the eventual winner, Valoris, trained by Vincent O’Brien, in the Oaks. The decision left Murless adamant that, in future, he would look elsewhere for a partner for his horses, while Piggott announced, in typically laconic style, that he would ride as a freelance jockey.

Nevertheless, the ‘Long Fellow’, as Piggott was affectionately known, enjoyed the most successful of his career, numerically, in 1966, with 190 winners. Unsurprisingly, he became Champion Jockey for the third year running, and the fourth time in all, and didn’t relinquish his position at the top of the jockeys’ table until 1972, when he finished fourth behind Willie Carson, Tony Murray and Edward Hide, with 103 winners. In 1968, Piggott completed the 2,000 Guineas-Derby double on Sir Ivor, trained by Vincent O’Brien, and won the St. Leger on Ribero, trained by Fulke Johnson Houghton. However, two years later, he partnered Nijinksy, also trained by O’Brien, to victory in the 2,000 Guineas, Derby and St. Leger, making him the first horse since Bayram, in 1935, to win the Triple Crown. Nearly five decades later, the feat has yet to be repeated.

Piggott rode two more Derby winners for Vincent O’Brien – Roberto in 1972 and The Minstrel in 1977 – before the pair parted company in 1979, but wouldn’t be Champion Jockey again until 1981. By that time, he’d replaced the retired Joe Mercer as stable jockey at Warren Place, Newmarket, now in the hands of Noel Murless’ son-in-law, Henry Cecil. Piggott won the 1,000 Guineas on Fairy Footsteps, trained by Cecil, and the Oaks on Blue Wind, trained by Dermot Weld and took the jockeys’ title with 179 winners, 65 more than his nearest rival, Willie Carson. He retained the title in 1982, too, with 188 winners.

Piggott retired from the saddle, for the first time, at the end of the 1985 season, at the age of 50 but, after an abortive spell in the training ranks and a year detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure for tax evasion – which cost him the OBE he’d been awarded in 1975, and possibly a knighthood – he unexpectedly returned to race riding in 1990. He retired for the second, and final, time in 1995, with 4,493 winners to his name in Britain alone.